Charlotte Eliopoulos, PhD, Executive Director AALTCN

In November, we celebrate two closely related months of national recognition: National Alzheimer's Disease Awareness Month and National Family Caregivers Month.

Imagine that a class-action lawsuit—to which your long-term care facility isn't even a party—has the potential to disrupt your residents and put you out of business.

In my 15 years of experience as a therapeutic musician leading musical sing-along programs for those with Alzheimer's disease and dementia, I often see music's power to unlock memories.

The dual coverage arrangement for hospice care requires a contract between the Medicare-certified hospice and the nursing home. Such care answers to two separate regulatory systems—for hospice and for the nursing facility—that aren't always well coordinated and to two philosophies of care that can sometimes be at odds.

It is incumbent upon facility administrators and others in supervisory positions to recognize the severity of pneumococcal disease and give serious thought to providing residents with optimal protection.

Of all the considerations in running a successful senior care community, generational differences between our team members and older residents rarely get the attention they deserve.

There may be no better reflection of how long-term care has changed in recent years than the continued proliferation of continuing care retirement communities and active adult communities across the country.

The recent Illinois legal decision to move mentally ill nursing home residents into smaller mental health settings is likely to prompt an industrywide examination of the practice of accepting mentally ill residents into long-term care.

The current combination of recession, Medicare cuts, RUGs-IV, MDS 3.0, state budget crises, QIS, RAC, and the unknowable final shape of healthcare reform are reminiscent of the 1998 switch to a prospective payment system.