As much as we tell ourselves and each other that 80 is the new 60, or 60 is the new 40, we are kidding ourselves, and setting up a future in which the needs of very frail elders are unseen, misunderstood, and unmet. Popular culture and its pressure to be forever young ignores the reality […]
For most of us, for most of our lives, healthcare involves doctor visits for routine and acute care, and sometimes visits to specialists when dealing with complex or advanced illness. To be sure, many of us also find health and healing beyond the walls of a clinic or the contents of a medicine cabinet—attention to […]
Another in our series to build the MediCaring book. Judith R. Peres contributed significantly to this post. Please feel free to comment, expand, tell us what we’ve got right, and what we have missed. For decades, older adults have relied on the medical system to cure or treat what ails them; but those aging into […]
A new entry for our forthcoming book on the MediCaring model for care for frail elders. Living to be very, very old–advanced old age, the oldest of the old–is not just middle age with gray hair. It is not. And yet even though we know what is ahead, very old age will come as a […]
This post is the first in a series aimed at describing MediCaring, a new, better, and more affordable model for providing medical care and social services to frail elders and their families. In the next several weeks, we plan to post dozens of articles describing why we need such change, and how to make it […]
The following post first appeared on March 27 as “New Chapters” via www.mydirectives.com. Starting productive conversations with your loved ones about your life decisions is not always easy. It takes a great deal of strength and initiative to take that first step. One of the best ways to take initiative is to find inspiration, so […]
The last few weeks have included a flurry of excellent articles, books, and ideas to review and ponder as we continue to explore ways to improve systems of care for frail older adults. To our mind, of course, chief among these was the November 12 Critical Issues edition of JAMA, which featured a “Viewpoint” by […]
The new theme issue of JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) features a dozen opinion pieces that address critical issues in US health care, including “Reliable and Sustainable Comprehensive Care for Frail Elderly People,” by Dr. Joanne Lynn, director of the Center for Elder Care and Advanced Illness [now the Program to Improve Eldercare] […]
Nearly 300 people participated in a September Altarum Roundtable, “Advanced Old Age in America: What Can We Count On?” For now, it seems, very little – beyond the urgent need to improve the current fragmented and costly system, which fails to meet the diverse needs of older adults, their families, and their communities. Panelists, who […]
Inside Health Policy features a July 31 article about work underway at the Altarum Institute Center for Elder Care and Advanced Illness to test new models of care for frail elders: An elder care center is applying to CMS to test an ACO-like organization that would care for the frail elderly, which some seniors […]