Ecumen to Discuss Aging Services and Technology at Capitol Hill Hearing
Technology is playing a transformational role in aging services and senior housing, and that role will only grow with the age wave.
On January 30th, Kathy Bakkenist, (pictured left) Ecumen’s chief operating officer and senior vice president of strategy and operations, and Ecumen customer Honor Hacker (below left viewing a wireless QuietCare sensor in her apartment), will testify before members of the Senate Special Committee on Aging and the Senate Medical Technology Caucus.Kathy and Honor will be joined by Mike Magee, M.D., senior fellow in health policy, Center for Aging Services Technologies (CAST) and commissioner on the National Commission for Quality Long-Term Care; and Darrin Jones, senior business development manager for Intel’s Global Digital Health Group. Kathy and Darrin also are commissioners for CAST, a collaboration of leading technology companies, aging services companies, research universities and government representatives.
Kathy will discuss the role of technology at Ecumen and how we’re using it to serve a changing marketplace, and Honor will be discussing her role as a consumer of aging services technology. We see the growing intersection of people and technology as fundamental to improving quality of life, adding years to life, enhancing independence, sharing knowledge across generations and connecting people across the country and world. To learn more about the role of technology in senior hosuing and aging services, we invite you to download this white paper: Technology Transforming Senior Housing and Aging Services.As part of this work, we’ve introduced a variety of technologies in the last three years, including: QuietCare sensor technology; [m]Power cognitive fitness technology; CareTracker, which eliminates paper charting in long-term care settings; and Ivivi SofPulse, which uses pulsed electromagnetic field technology to speed tissue healing.If you’re going to be in D.C. next week, the Senate briefings will be held from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. in the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Room G50. In addition to taking testimony from the people above, a number of technology companies will be holding demonstrations.
Thoughts on MLK Day, Segregation and Long-Term Care in America
There are days when you pause and think about how far America has come and at the same time how far we still have to go. Today - when we honor Martin Luther King, Jr. - is one of those days.It’s hard to believe, but it wasn’t too long ago, where you wouldn’t have whites and blacks living or working side-by-side in America’s senior care communities. Yes, things have changed. But then you read studies such as that led by Vincent Mor, chair of the Community Health Department at Brown University. Last fall he and his fellow researchers released a study that found that 60% of African Americans in U.S. nursing homes ended up in just 10% of the country’s nursing homes €” typically ones that had been cited for quality problems. Other key findings in the study:
- Blacks were nearly three times as likely as whites to be in nursing homes that predominantly cared for Medicaid patients.
- Blacks were twice as likely to be located in homes that had provided such poor care that they were subsequently kicked out of Medicaid and Medicare.
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Blacks were nearly 1½ times as likely as whites to be in homes that had been cited for deficiencies that could cause immediate harm.
The study also found that nursing homes in the Midwest were most likely to be racially segregated. Nursing homes in the South were the least likely to have an unequal distribution of minorities.
Segregation. It’s ugly. It’s still alive. And it underscores how public policy decisions connect generations. It’s time for an American Aging agenda.
Behind the Alzheimer’s Cure Headlines
Every 72 seconds another person gets Alzheimer’s. No surprise that baby boomers list it as one of their biggest concerns about growing older.You might have seen the recent headlines about a potential Alzheimer’s cure reported in the United Kingdom. Here’s a quick summary: An 81-year-old man was injected with arthritis drug (Etanercept) and within 10-minutes, his memory came back to the utter amazement of his family.It was fabulous news, and if you heard it, you might have wondered, why didn’t it get more headlines in the coming days? You wouldn’t be alone. The devil is in the details. Trisha Torrey, who blogs at Every Patient’s Advocate, provides some great context on this story and goes behind the headlines as does this article by the British Broadcasting System.
Baby Boomer Grandparents Redefining Grandparenting in Age Wave
Are you a grandboomer? Is it different than what your experience was like with your grandparents?The Age Wave is redefining grandparenting.- More than one in three baby boomers are grandparents, with the average age of grandboomers being 53.-With life expectancy at record lengths, baby boomer grandparents will be part of their grandchildren’s lives longer than any previous generation. - The newest grandchildren will see work as an integral part of their grandparents' lives as boomers will work longer than previous generations of grandparents according to our study of boomers.- Grandboomers are driving new products such as grandboomers.com and Grand Magazine, which was founded by grandboomer Christine Crosby, who skates, does yoga and videoconferences with her grandchildren.
The Age Wave and America’s Public Policy Agenda
Thirty years ago last Sunday, former Vice President and Minnesota U.S. Senator Hubert H. Humphrey died. He was only 66.It’s interesting how America’s public policy agenda changes over time. In Humphrey’s 1976 campaign brochure the theme was: Humphrey … The Man for All Reasons.Guess what Reason # 1 was? Senior Citizens.When you open his 1976 brochure this is the text that hits you first:Senator Humphrey believes that Older Americans should be able to live in dignity, independence and security. The man who fought for Medicare also has worked to improve Social Security and Supplemental Security Income and to ease the restrictions on Social Security recipients. Senator Humphrey’s legislative efforts have focused on providing older persons with better nutrition and medical care, improved access to transportation, adequate housing, and expanded opportunities for recreation and enjoyment of the arts. In short, Senator Humphrey wants to see that older citizens have a place in the mainstream of American life.Aging is going to rise on the American agenda again, especially as 78 million baby boomers find that aging is very personal. Yes, it’s interesting how America’s agenda changes over time.
What’s Your Successful Aging Story?
Every person has a story. You really see that when you read the obituaries. Many of them are stories in successful aging, people living fully to the end of their life. I was struck by this story I came across on the obituary page last month. Here are a few excerpts.Seward Renwick Moore, 105, retired in 1966 to Sedona, Arizona and lived in his home until his death on November 27, 2007. He lived a healthy, beautiful life for 41 years in Arizona, where he was able to enjoy the miracles in nature year around. He continued to ride his beloved horses up to his 102nd birthday.He was preceded in death by his wife Dorathey who died in 1993 after celebrating 72 years of marriage.The enduring legacy he left to his family are the principles he valued above all others: trustworthiness, freedom of spirit, and the independence to pursue his hopes and dreams.How cool … I think most Americans would like their legacy to read like this, no matter their age. Is there a person who inspires you (living or dead) by their approach to successful aging?Posted by Eric Schubert, Director of Communications, Ecumen
Citizens League Diving into the Age Wave
We’re very fortunate in Minnesota to have the Citizens League, one of the country’s leading citizen-based, non-partisan think tanks and their dynamic director Sean Kershaw. The League has generated many of our state’s most innovative policy ideas.Now the League is moving into aging. One of the focus areas of the League in this Minnesota’s Sequicentennial year is 'Empowering Older Minnesotans.' Specifically, the League is going to engage citizens in looking at how we can live more independently and fully as older Minnesotans. (Ecumen is helping sponsor this work.) The time to do this is NOW as the age wave is lapping on our shores.In 2004, Minnesota became one of the first states to adopt 'cash and counseling,' a program that allows Medicaid-qualified seniors to use Medicaid dollars for services that help them remain in their home. While the program can help many seniors stay out of higher-cost institutional care, only about 200 of an estimated 11,000 eligible seniors in Minnesota use that program today. We can do better … in Minnesota and across this country.
Adult Day Care and Growth in the Age Wave (Can We Call Adult Day Care Something Else?)
Jeff Opdyke of the Wall Street Journal had an interesting article today on the growth of adult day care in the United States.(We have to change that name. Yes, it provides care, but my mind goes to child care, and this isn’t child care. We can (have to) do better. Some Ecumen communities call it Adult Day Services …any other names come to mind?)Some interesting stats from the National Adult Day Services Association: - Demand is growing up to 15% per year. (You can count on that growing a heck of a lot more with more two-income earning baby boomer families who fall in that sandwich generation).- At least 400,000 people are served nationally in adult day services.- The average national cost is $61 a day. A home health aide in comparison runs $152 per day.
Four Healthy Aging Steps = 14 More Years
We hear all the time about changing our behaviors and habits to help us live longer, healthier lives. Now there’s some data reported by Reuters yesterday that actually quantifies how many years you might expect to get from a combination of activities. (Read and add resolutions for healthy aging and successful aging here).People who drink moderately, exercise, quit smoking and eat five servings of fruit and vegetables daily live on average 14 years longer than people who adopt none of these behaviors. We’ve heard for years that these actions will help us live longer, but this study actually quantifies their collective impact. Between 1993 and 1997 the researchers questioned 20,000 healthy British men and women about their lifestyles. They also tested every participant’s blood to measure vitamin C intake, an indicator of how much fruit and vegetables people ate.Then they assigned the participants -- aged 45-79 -- a score of between 0 and 4, giving one point for each of the healthy behaviors.After allowing for age and other factors that could affect the likelihood of dying, the researchers determined that people with a score of 0 were 4-times as likely to have died, particularly from cardiovascular disease.The researchers, who tracked deaths among the participants until 2006, also said a person with a health score of 0 had the same risk of dying as someone with a health score of 4 who was 14 years older.The lifestyle change with the biggest benefit was giving up smoking, which led to an 80 percent improvement in health, the study found. This was followed by eating fruits and vegetables.Moderate drinking and keeping active brought the same benefits, Kay-Tee Khaw and colleagues at the University of Cambridge and the Medical Research Council said.'Armed with this information, public-health officials should now be in a better position to encourage behavior changes likely to improve the health of middle-aged and older people,' the researchers wrote.
Long-Term Care Consulting and Senior Housing Consulting Welcomes New Leader
Ecumen welcomes Mary Leber as director of our senior housing consulting and long-term care consulting practices. Mary and her team’s work is focused on serving continuing care retirement communities , long-term care providers and senior housing organizations nationwide with a wide variety of consulting services. Mary succeeds Sue Schwartz Nelson, who retired from Ecumen after a wonderful career. We salute Sue for her many contributions to the senior living profession and Ecumen. Prior to joining Ecumen last year as a long-term care consultant, Mary worked for seven years for Life Care Services, providing employee training at continuing care retirement communities (CCRC) across the United States. Mary also served as director of nursing for nearly 15 years at Friendship Village, a CCRC in the Twin Cities. We’re pleased to welcome Mary to this new role in serving long-term care providers and senior housing organizations.