January 28, 2013
What matters most to long-term care operators? Certainly, remaining in business is a top priority. But providers are not just fixated on the bottom line. Here are some telltale signs.
January 23, 2013
We've been in cycles of awareness-building, instead of action-driving, for far too long. Awareness is good, of course, and we've learned many important things over the past several years.
October 31, 2012
If there is anyone who knows how to get inside the head of a troubled long-term care resident, it is Eleanor Feldman Barbera. Better than that is the fact that this talented nursing home psychologist is willing to share what she knows.
October 23, 2012
America's emergency rooms are full of families going through crisis situations. When an accident or illness requires a visit to the ER, many families are likely to enter the scene overwhelmed and unsure of what to do next for their loved one.
Senior living operators should find more ways to market and discuss long-term care financing with baby boomers, a new survey suggests.
February 24, 2012
Who ever thought that caregivers would need to come out of the closet and be accepted? It's true.
September 30, 2011
If you're a long-term care provider reading this in the waning hours before fiscal 2012 hits, be strong. If you're reading this after Saturday, Oct. 1, stand tall.
August 08, 2011
It is a well-known fact that our nation is aging rapidly. However, a recently released census brief, "Age and Sex Composition: 2010," revealed remarkable findings. The study found that in the last decade, the male population grew much faster than the female population in the 60-plus age group. Understanding this demographic shift and responding to it appropriately will bring new opportunities to long-term care companies.
Well over 40 million Americans provided care for an adult family member in 2009, representing an unpaid economic impact of approximately $450 billion, according to a new report from the AARP Public Policy Institute.
All nursing homes in Indiana will be notified of a recent court ruling that declared that nursing home residents cannot specify treatment from a particular caregiver based on race, state health officials said recently.
Did anyone else get a kick out of last week's story about Ivy Bean, the Twitter user who died at the age of 104?
Nursing homes in New South Wales, Australia, soon will have a new caregiving tool at their disposal for resident incontinence: electronic underpants.
Prednisolone, a steroid commonly co-prescribed as a treatment for pneumonia, has little benefit and may actually worsen patient outcomes, researchers say.
December 10, 2009
There are more informal caregivers in the U.S. than ever before. Nearly one-third of the population provides some level of care, according to a new study.
Rapidly accelerating rates of dementia worldwide will result in a 10% increase in the number of dementia sufferers in the 2005 to 2010 time frame, according to a new report from Alzheimer's Disease International. The acceleration of cases will lead to an Alzheimer's that will double every 20 years, resulting in an estimated 115 million dementia patients by mid-century, researchers said.
The growing number of childless seniors in developed countries may cause caregiving problems in the future. That is according to a new report from the U.S. Census bureau, "An Aging World: 2008."
Researchers at the University of Kentucky have announced a major breakthrough in the prevention and early detection of neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD). The condition affects between 10 million and 12 million Americans and is the number-one cause of blindness among seniors.
June 11, 2009
The number of both nursing home beds and nursing home residents in the United States declined between 1999 and 2004, according to the recently released results of the National Nursing Home Survey: 2004 Overview.
A council of long-term care professionals has issued guidelines for dealing with suspected or actual outbreaks of H1N1, or swine flu. The recommendations came out late last week, just hours before the first suspected cases of the flu at nursing facilities began to surface.
Nursing facilities with a primarily Hispanic resident population generally provide lower quality care than facilities primarily servicing whites, say Brown University researchers who focused on pressure ulcer care.
Japan, like many countries around the world, is facing a serious shortage of caregivers to look after its rapidly growing elderly population. Unlike others, however, it is about to create an army of robot nurses.
Women who suffer from stress urinary incontinence can be helped by collagen injections, even after surgery has failed, a medical researcher says. A majority of nursing home residents suffer from one or more types of incontinence.
March 16, 2009
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has completed a guide for providers who want to employ dining assistants in their facilities. After a drawn out battle, CMS agreed five years ago to allow the use of paid feeding assistants--provided they achieve a certain level of training and have the approval of the state.
March 04, 2009
A handful of states are now spending more of their Medicaid funding on home- and community-based services than on nursing home care, according to a new report from AARP. The study also found that nursing home occupancy rates have remained static over the last five years, while HCBS funding has soared.
Younger people who believe negative stereotypes about aging are more prone to suffer poor health when they themselves reach old age, new research suggests.
March 01, 2009
Donna Sardina, RN, MHA, WCC President, Wound Care Education Institute
February 23, 2009
President Barack Obama is set to unveil his 2010 budget proposal Thursday, causing anxious senior care groups to issue a call for Medicare funding protection.
The list of companies and products affected by the peanut butter recall continues to grow as the Food and Drug Administration zeroes in on the source of the outbreak-a food manufacturer that supplies peanut products to long-term care facilities, hospitals and other institutions.
January 07, 2009
The prevalence of chronic conditions among Americans is on the rise with many people now saddled with up to three continuing afflictions. Nowhere is the up-tick more noticeable than among the senior citizen population, according to a report released Tuesday.
December 19, 2008
Nonprofit nursing homes provide a higher quality of care than for-profit facilities, according to an analysis by USA Today of the first ratings of nursing homes by the government's five-star rating system.
