• Little attention has been paid to the quality of health care that vulnerable elders and other older adults receive.
• RAND has developed a set of indicators to measure the quality of care received for 22 conditions that affect older adults.
• These indicators can be used to assess whether health plans are delivering care that meets minimum standards for quality.

Read the report

Click here for the recording of the webinar session.

We are entering an era in which an increasing percentage of the US population will be older than retirement age. These older adults will bring a renewed focus to brain and body fitness, including access to quality medical screening and diagnosis.  Cognitive assessment is a critical component of both brain fitness and medical management, and proper assessment tools are essential. A seminar that examines specific needs of an aging population, as well as five major areas of cognition. Available methods of cognitive assessment will be explored, along with the design of one of these methods: the Cognistat Assessment System.

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The Legacy Film Festival on Aging, May 13-15, 2011

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April 26-30 is just around the corner… Get excited, Come and see us.

Date & Time: April 26 – April 30, 2011
Location: Hilton San Francisco Union Square Hotel

Stop by the Exhibitor Hall, Booth 313 and talk to one of our team members about our innovative model of care for adults with chronic and debilitating conditions – like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and ALS – that compromise their ability to live safely in their homes, where they want to be.

After visiting our booth, join us for two informative workshops.

Workshop Schedule

Wednesday April 27, 2011: 8:00 AM – 9:30 AM

Hilton San Francisco Union Square Hotel – Room: Franciscan C (Ballroom Level)

Connection, Safety and Beauty: The Effects of Human-Centered Design
with Howard Lau (Living Well advisor), Susan Stadler, architect, and Dr. Tessa ten Tusscher (Living Well C.E.O)

By bringing together teams from the worlds of design, technology, social and medical services we can create programs, buildings, products and a community that is truly interdisciplinary. This session will introduce principles that can be applied by anybody who works with elders and facilitate comprehensive solutions to physical and emotional needs.

Friday April 29, 2011 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM

Location: Hilton San Francisco Union Square Hotel, Plaza B (Lobby Level)

High Tech and High Touch: Eldercare in the 21st Century
with Dr. Doris Bersing (Living Well President) and Dr. Tessa ten Tusscher (Living Well C.E.O)

This presentation will explain how combining caring people with innovative technology is an efficient solution to keep elders safe at home, regardless of whether they are healthy and engaged or dealing with chronic physical illness or dementia. This model is an alternative to institutional living and represents a comprehensive model of care to age in place.

Aging in Place: You do not need to leave your home!

Given that 89% of people do not want to leave their homes, this statement featured on the article The Technology for Monitoring Elderly Relatives on The New York Times (July 28, 2010) about new technologies to help people stay at their home, makes total sense.

The purpose of many of these technologies is to provide enough supervision to make it possible for elderly people to stay in their homes rather than move to an assisted-living facility or nursing home — a goal almost universally embraced as both emotionally and financially desirable.

Read More about it…

Even Chocolate

There are some caregivers -in family settings- or in nursing homes that have found that allowing people with dementia practically anything that brings comfort to them, improves the mood, decreases agitation, and soothes them in a higher rate that psychotropics medications that usually creates undesirable side effects in the elder. In a recent article by Pam Belluck for the New York Times, she interviewed Tina Alonzo, director of a nursing home, who states that “… Research suggests that creating positive emotional experiences for Alzheimer’s patients diminishes distress and behavior problems…” . The article also suggests that one-on-one activities instead of big “bingo-groups’ along with individualized menus help to improve people’s mood: “…Comforting food improves behavior and mood because it “sends messages they can still understand: ‘it feels good, therefore I must be in a place where I’m loved…”

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The Washington Post published a story and a video about Bob Soulen a well known athlete with Parkinson’s disease :”….The big first baseman trudges across the pristine infield, his walker leaving a crooked trail in the dirt. He has bandages on his knees, a bald spot where he hit his head against a door frame and an old shoulder dislocation from a spill at home… But it’s game time. The hot afternoon is giving way to the shadows of evening. And Bob Soulen, 69, who has Parkinson’s disease, is going to play some ball.

Twenty miles away, 30,000 people have streamed into Nationals Park to see Washington’s young pitching sensation, Stephen Strasburg. Here on Field No. 5 in Montgomery County’s Wheaton Regional Park, a lone fan – the wife of an opposing player – sits in the bleachers to witness a different phenomenon: an aging physicist’s determination to cling to the game of his youth.

As Soulen shuffles across the dirt, the other Mustangs are arriving, limbering up and playing catch, and Soulen is careful to lift his walker over the fresh white streak of the foul line. Like the diamond, the evening seems perfect, and in a few minutes there will be a pale moon rising over center field.

Robert J. Soulen Jr. of North Bethesda is a retired award-winning scientist who worked at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Naval Research Laboratory. His area of expertise is superconductivity as it relates to temperature measurement and ship propulsion.

He also plays softball in Montgomery’s senior leagues and can wax about the laws of physics as they relate to bat vs. ball…” Read the story