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Victorian Home Care Newsletter
October 2008
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Depression Masking as Dementia
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Visit Victorian Home Care for
more information and to download our free resources.
For more ideas on ways to research and make wise choices, we recommend the
following resources:
HelpGuide
Includes a scale to differentiate between depression and dementia and how
to receive help.
Mayo Clinic
Provides information about treatment options for both Alzheimer's and
depression.
MedlinePlus
Interactive tutorial that is a self screening tool that can be used to
assist in determining if depression is present and how best to proceed if it
is.
Alzheimer's Association
Provides an informative comparison of Alzheimer's and depression.
National Guideline Clearinghouse
Information from a study describing characteristics that increase the risk of
depression and some recommended tests for screening.
American Academy of Neurology
Downloadable guideline from the American Academy of Neurology entitled
"Screening and Treatment for Depression, Dementia, and Psychosis with
Parkinson Disease."
Mental Health America
Provides concise facts on depression in older adults, as well as links for more
information.
Dementia.com
The link for free access to Medline search, the National Library of Medicine's
search service that provides access to over 11 million articles.
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DID YOU KNOW?
Aging seniors and the disabled have a right,
spelled out in the U.S. Supreme Court's Olmstead decision of 1999, to enjoy
care services in the least-restrictive environment possible. Oftentimes, that
means at home rather than in a nursing home.
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According to AARP, 59 percent of people older than 65 are living
on a fixed income.
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Roughly 7 out of 10 people living with
Alzheimer's disease are living at home and receiving 75% of their care from
informal care partners. |
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Greetings!
With
October comes the inevitable changing of the seasons. The trees are illuminated
in seasonal beauty and the temperature is starting to drop, harkening the onset
of cooler days and nights.
At Victorian Home Care, this newsletter
is our commitment to bringing you the latest and most important information in
home care, home health care, and elder care news. We hope you will enjoy these
articles in the spirit of community in which this newsletter was sent.
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How
Boomers are Reshaping the Landscape Today
 According
to a recent study, by 2030 more than six out of every 10 boomers will be
managing more than one chronic condition. Meeting that and other future
healthcare challenges "will require more resources, new approaches to care
delivery and a greater focus on wellness and prevention," the report says.
One out of every four - 14 million - will be living with diabetes. One out of
every two - nearly 26 million - will be living with arthritis.
An
aging population also presents opportunities, however. Two of the
fastest-growing occupations in the U.S. today are personal- and home-care aides
as well as home health aides. Between 2006 and 2016, the number of people
working as home health aides is expected to grow by nearly 50%, according to
the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For the full report, "When I'm 64: How Boomers Will
Change Healthcare," go to this link and download.
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Jump on the Treadmill to Rewire Your
Brain and Improve Fitness!
 It is most
typical for stroke patients to be told to "learn to live with" their
disabilities, unlike heart attack patients and others who are often prescribed
lifestyle changes and exercise programs to help recover function. According to
recent research at Johns Hopkins published in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association, people who walk on a treadmill even
years after stroke damage can significantly improve their health and mobility,
changes that reflect actual "rewiring" of their brains. The study's
results suggest that patients' brains may retain the capacity to rewire through
a treadmill exercise program months or years after conventional physical
therapy has ended.
Most stroke
rehabilitation programs focus on short-term improvement, ending just a few
months after a patient has had a stroke. Consequently, over the following years,
patients' functional improvement plateaus and their fitness often wanes, a
factor that could increase the chance of a second stroke.
Hoping to
find evidence that improved brain activity was responsible for the results, the
investigators analyzed the brain scans and found markedly increased metabolic
activity in brainstem areas associated with walking among all the treadmill
exercisers.
Those
patients with the most improvement in walking showed the strongest change in
brain activity, though the researchers don't yet know whether these brain
changes were caused by more walking or whether participants walked better
because brain activity in these key areas increased. This question will be the
focus of a future study. Read the entire article here.
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Creating a "Habitat for Living" for
Seniors
 William H. Thomas, M.D., switched to geriatrics after
working in a nursing home in 1991. He found that "...their problems didn't
have to do with their medications. Their three biggest problems were
loneliness, helplessness and boredom." This
fall he is teaching "Aging 100: You Say You Want a Revolution," for
freshmen at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County's Erickson
School on Aging,
Management and Policy.
Thomas and his wife, Judith Meyers-Thomas, started the
Eden Alternative, which began by bringing parakeets into patients' rooms in one nursing home, a
program that has now been introduced into more than 300 nursing homes in the United States, Canada,
Europe and Australia.
The idea is to make long-term care settings for older people more like gardens -
habitats for living things - rather than sterile medical institutions. For the
complete article click here.
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A
Conversation with Cancer
Leroy Sievers, in his blog on his own experience with
cancer, writes, "After that day, your life is never the same." 'That day' is
the day the doctor tells you, "You have cancer." Every one of us
knows someone who's had to face that news. It's scary, it's sad. But it's still
life, and it's a life worth living. "My Cancer" is a blog that was
Sievers' daily account of his life and his fight with cancer.
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No
Sleep for Those Who Care for Persons with Dementia
 Results of a
recent study show objective and subjective differences in sleep
patterns of
older adults with and without caregiver status. A study
in the August 15 issue of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine shows
that the sleep patterns of older adults who live with and provide
direct care during the night for a person with dementia are
significantly worse
than other older adults without caregiving responsibilities.
When
sleep was measured objectively, and after adjusting for depressive symptoms,
age, health condition and education, adults who take care of a person suffering
from dementia took longer to fall asleep and had less total sleep than non-caregivers.
The
most surprising finding of the study was that the caregiver group took a longer
time to fall asleep, which is consistent with the greater worry and concern
that caregivers may have.
Other
measurement tools used in the study included daily sleep diaries, the Epworth
Sleepiness Scale and the Fatigue Severity Scale. Participants were also
assessed for depressive symptoms.
For the full article, click here.
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About Victorian Home Care:
For nearly 30 years Victorian Home
Care has been providing superior home care and geriatric care management
services to seniors or people with physical and/or mental disabilities in Monterey,
Santa Cruz, and San
Benito Counties. Care, compassion, integrity, and exceptional customer service are Victorian's
guiding principles, employing only carefully selected caregivers who are
the most dedicated and qualified and strive to ensure the same kind of care
family members would provide. Victorian Home Care services include
assistance with activities of daily living, personal care, transportation,
respite care and medication management. For
more information visit www.victorianhomecare.com
or call (831) 655-1935 in Monterey
or (831) 662-3093 in Aptos.
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