Two New Videos on ICYOU Health

Two of my recent written blogs are now video blogs on icyou health.

Mom Always Liked You Best

NC Boomers - Fat and Flat Broke

Who's Doing the Dreaming in Your Organization?

Who's Doing the Dreaming in Your Organization? Guest blog, MDS Central.

Top 50 Active Adult Communities Named

From Long-Term Living Magazine

This year's list of the most popular active adult and 55+ communities from Topretirements.com shows that the nation's 2nd smallest state, Delaware, ended up with 10% of the developments on the 2010 list.

The top two communities remained unchanged from last year. The most popular 55+ community in the country is Green Valley, a vast retirement community near the Mexican border in Arizona. The Villages, home to 80,000 active retirees near Ocala, Florida, repeated as the #2 active adult community on the list.

The list of Best 50 Active Adult Communities at Topretirements.com for 2010:

1. Green Valley (Green Valley, AZ)

2. The Villages (Ocala, FL)

3. Holly Lake Ranch* (Tyler, TX)

4. The Settlement at Powhatan Creek* (Williamsburg, VA)

5. Hot Springs Village* (Hot Springs, AR)

6. Tellico Village (TN)

7. Laguna Woods Village (Laguna Woods, CA)

8. The Village of San Buenas*, (Costa Rica)

9. Silver Sage Village (Boulder, CO)

10. Hampton Lake* (Bluffton, SC)

11. Enchanted Canyon (Prescott, AZ)

12. Crest Mountain (Asheville, NC)

13. Sun City (Sun City, AZ)

14. The Moorings (Vero Beach, FL)

15. Fairfield Glade (TN)

16. The Residence at South Park (Charlotte, NC)

17. The Orchard Villas (Apex, NC)

18. Century Village (Southern FL)

19. High Country Villas (San Diego, CA)

20. Robson Ranch* (near Dallas, TX)

21. Rarity Bay* (Vonore, TN)

22. The Venetian at Capri Isles (Venice, FL)

23. Biltmore Lake (Asheville, NC)

24. Pelican Sound (Estero, FL)

25. The Villages at Lynx Creek (Prescott, AZ)

26. The Village at Penn State (State College, PA)

27. Lakewood Ranch (Sarasota, FL)

28. Merrill Gardens at Parmer Woods (Austin, TX)

29. Millville by the Sea (Bethany Beach, DE)

30. Ladd Landing (Knoxville, TN)

31. Querencia at Barton Creek (Austin, TX)

32. Sun City of Texas (Georgetown, TX)

33. Pine Lakes (Prescott, AZ)

34. Terra Vista at Citrus Hills* (Hernando, FL)

35. Lofts at Mica Village (Asheville, NC)

36. Bayside* (Selbyville, DE)

37. Talking Rock (Prescott, AZ)

38. Carolina Preserve (Cary, NC)

39. Shenandoah* (Winchester, VA)

40. The Cliffs at Walnut Cove (Asheville, NC)

41. West Bay (Lewes, DE)

42. The Ponds* (Summerville, SC)

43. Sun City Grand (Surprise, AZ)

44. Soleil Laurel Canyon* (Canton, GA)

45. Southern Meadow* (Magnolia, DE)

46. Pleasant Place (Paris, TN)

47. The Half-Way Tree Mobile Home Park (Hendersonville, NC)

48. Four Seasons Charlottesville (Charlottesville, VA)

49. Bay Crossing (Lewes, DE)

50. Venetian Falls (Venice, FL)

Nursing Home Restraint Drop

The number of residents at nursing homes who were kept physically restrained dropped by more than half from 1999 to 2007, according to the latest News and Numbers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).

According to the Federal agency, the percentage of nursing home residents who were kept physically restrained declined from 11 percent in 1999 to 5 percent in 2007. Restraints include belts, vest, and wrist ties or bands, or special chairs or bedside rails to keep residents seated or in bed.

Overuse of physical restraints may reflect poor quality of care because residents who are restrained daily can become weak and lose daily functioning abilities. They are also more prone to pressure sores and other problems, such as chronic constipation or incontinence as well as emotional problems.

This AHRQ News and Numbers is based on information in "Long-stay nursing home residents who were physically restrained, United States, 1999 and 2007," Table 11_1_17.1 appendix to the 2009 National Healthcare Disparities Report, which examines the disparities in Americans' access to and quality of health care, with breakdowns by race, ethnicity, income, and education.

For other information, contact Bob Isquith at Bob.Isquith@ahrq.hhs.gov or call (301) 427-1539.

Overall good news. If you are looking into a facility make sure you ask about their restraint policy.

NC Boomers Fat and Flat Broke

There is an article in the Charlotte Observer today entitled Some N.C. boomers: Fat and flat broke. Worth a read because I am sure that it applies to more than just N.C. boomers.

Some of the highlights:

• Those among the first decade of boomers - now at retirement age or within 10 years of it - may find a combination of unhealthy living and unwise personal finance decisions will leave them in rough shape after age 65.
  
  
• State health statistics show the 55- to 64-year-old Tar Heels exercise less than younger groups. Also they are more likely than any other group to gamble once or more a week.
  
  
• Illegal drug use by people in their 50s has increased by 46 percent over a five-year period, from about one in 20 to about one in 10. Combine that with the prescription medicines they take and the interactions they might cause and you have a toxic stew brewing.
  
  
• More than a third of Tar Heels between 55 and 64 are obese. They're not only fatter than those a decade younger but also heftier than those a decade older. 85 percent of first-wave boomers in the state admit to getting effectively no exercise.
  
  
• About three-quarters of baby boomers say their retirement plans have been negatively affected by the current financial downturn.

Researchers say this all will probably increase the demand for Medicaid and Medicare services as the boomers move into retirement years. And that will affect EVERYONE.

"My sense is that we are in denial about aging," said Joan Pellettier, director of the Triangle J Area Agency on Aging. Experts on aging say the advice on healthy aging is much the same for older people as for anyone else: Eat less, move more. But a particular emphasis on balance and mobility can help ward off the falls and fractures that can be particularly devastating to older adults. Pellettier also urges boomers to start thinking about long-term care insurance, coverage that's been made more accessible through recent state and federal legislation.

OK, if you read my blog regularly than all of this sounds like a broken record. I make three simple points about aging. Prepare now financially, physically and emotionally for aging so that old age does not become one crisis after another.

As F.D.R. said: "Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you’ve got to start young."

Are Your Care Providers "in the Moment"?

The following is a guest blog from my colleague Nancy O'Brien. You may first want to view this video that prompted her to speak out.

It is time for leaders to embrace a new form of efficiency – human efficiency – especially in healthcare and it starts with the awareness that the best healing agent we have is within each of us. We need to switch our focus away from DOing more towards BEing more of who we are in each and every interaction and bring our whole selves to the healing experience. When we take time to connect with ourselves and others as the conscious, compassionate human beings - that we all are - we promote healing which improve outcomes, reduce the costs, and creates meaning. I wonder how many organizations are now addicted to LEAN and use it as the prescription to every symptom and disease plaguing their organization. Interesting enough, numerous studies show that the focus on LEAN in healthcare over the past 12 + years, has not alleviated many of the symptoms such as: safety, errors, turnover, burnout, and dissatisfaction, and in many cases things have gotten worse. Isn’t this our wake up call? Or have we, as some suggest, not hit bottom yet? Perhaps it’s time for a 12-step program to break this addiction to LEAN in healthcare and first, acknowledge we have a problem and then second, make a conscious decision to look at not only what we do and how we do but also who we are in the moment so we can all be agents of healing.

Hey I make my living working with the healthcare community and I also see how in an effort to make quality of care better they have in many ways dehumanized that care. After reading ask yourself if the healthcare workers you interact with for your care are truly in the moment with you, genuinely concerned, not just working off a check list, actually listening. There are providers out there that emulate this. If your care provider is not one of them consider your alternatives.

Many ED Visits from Nursing Homes Preventable

From Mcknights - A large percentage of nursing home residents' emergency department (ED) visits are avoidable, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Using data collected for the 2004 National Nursing Home Survey, the CDC found that roughly 8% of nursing home patients—roughly 123,600—had an ED visit in the past 90 days. Among these residents, the CDC estimates that 40%—about 50,300 residents—were potentially preventable. Some of the conditions resulting in an ED visit, such as urinary tract infection, could be more appropriately dealt with in a nursing home, researchers argued.

The number one reason for ED visits by nursing home patients was falls, researchers discovered. Those visits could possibly be prevented through efforts to prevent the falls themselves, according to the report. To download a copy of the report, visit http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db33.pdf.

Does the nursing home your loved one resides in or a home you are considering for a loved one have a fall prevention program in place? Make sure to ask.