Thousands of older people are filing lawsuits against companies and salespeople who they believe have taken advantage of them. Although the elderly filing suit are not suffering from Alzheimer’s or dementia, they believe that old age has caused their judgment to become impaired. Because of this impairment, the government should step in to protect them from the results of their bad decision making. At the same time, they do not wish to give up their right to make decisions.
I am ambivalent about this issue. I strongly feel that just as we protect children from being preyed upon, we should do the same for older adults. At the same time I am afraid that taking this step might be the first step towards totally disenfranchising the elderly.
http://www.theledger.com/article/20071224/ZNYT01/712240475/1001/BUSINESS
The Illinois legislature approved higher wages for workers who take care of the elderly. Minimum wages for the more than 48,000 elder care workers in Illinois will be increased by one dollar an hour. The General Assembly also approved health care options for these workers. This is the type of legislation that all states need to enact. Caregivers for the elderly have been shown to be the most depressed workers. Providing them with decent pay and benefits will go a long ways towards making their lives easier and making them feel their work has value.
Walter H. G. Lewin is proof that getting older does not have to mean getting old. At 71, Lewin not only has a cult following at MIT where he teaches, but has now developed an international following. This is due to his videotaped physics lectures that can be accessed on the free OpenCourseWare at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The web address for his lectures is ocw.mit.edu. His lectures are also available without charge on Apple’s iTunes Store.
Click here to access complete article.
I got this article about death and dying from the blog Sethedaughter
The slow death that passes for life
Bad faith, said Sartre, is to regard oneself as a thing compelled by circumstances.I used to think that I would like to go out fighting, swinging wildly at death. That for me would me my moment of validation and the moment that I was most alive. Since then I’ve learned there are many ways to die, including the walking death that passes for many of our lives, which is a prolonged dying.Y. died on October 20, 1994. Her struggle is over. She is beyond caring. She must have wondered those years as she suffered the indignity of a respirator tube stuffed down her throat, and bags attached to her body to dispose of her bodily waste, why me? I was good. I was cheerful. I dreamed dreams. When the dreams didn’t come true, I still smiled. Even in the face of overwhelming pain and the indignity that comes from a long dying. Why me? My unborn babies dried up as my body withered. The love I had to give to a lover lay bottled up in me. There were no takers. Why me?
I wrote, the day after her death. I am sad not because the struggle is over, but because there was a struggle. And it was so long and so hard.
Y. was diagnosed with cancer of the lymph nodes at 17, still barely a baby. The cancer did not kill her, but the radiation used to treat the disease did. In between the diagnosis and her death, she went to school, worked and had fun, even as she periodically had to be hospitalized. Several years after her diagnosis, she went into the hospital, her usual, cheerful, vibrant self. She came out with a respirator stuck down her throat, no longer able to talk, consigned for a while to a nursing home. Her mom brought her home from the nursing home even as her condition worsened. Two years after that surgery she was pronounced dead. Prior to her final death, she died several times, but was resuscitated by well meaning doctors.
Since Y.’s death, I have come to subscribe to the notion of being gently eased out of life, my recognition of my existence no less valid. As I write this, I am reminded that my life has been reduced to the size of a small house; two cats and a television set my primary company. It is the walking death that I have most been afraid of. It persists because of my own bad faith.
A Washington Post article reports that a top governmental agency has found that workers who care for the elderly, disabled, and small children have the highest rate of depression. The full report can be downloaded at SAMHSA.
An international team of researchers are on the verge of developing a test that can predict Alzheimer’s. Early diagnosis for Alzheimer’s sufferers is a challenge since forgetfulness, the first sign of Alzheimer’s, is also associated with aging. A simple blood test to determine the presence of Alzheimer’s can provide families with the opportunity to begin therapy early. Click here to access the report.
Doctors are rated by insurers. The rating they receive helps to determine whether insurers will promote their services or discourage consumers from using them. Insurers do this by reducing deductibles or co pay.
Rating is done in the same way as are consumer goods such as hotel rooms or airplane service. A key rating measure is how much doctors charge to treat sick patients. I don’t know about you, but if cost is the only factor when recommending a doctor, I’d like to know that. This is information we currently do not have, since insurers even while they are steering us to the cheapest doctor, do not tell us that is the sole basis for their recommendation. Perhaps there are doctors who provide greater quality of care, but charge a little more.
This system might be about to change, at least in New York. Attorney General of New York, Andrew Cuomo, has negotiated agreement with several major insurers to make the system more useful to consumers and fairer to doctors.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/08/opinion/08sat1.html
The largest of the long term care insurers are Genworth Financial, Conseco and Penn Treaty American Corporation. According to a New York Times report, long-term care insurers such as these have established procedures that make it difficicult to impossible for some policyholders to be paid. In response to this report, the industry is undergoing increased scrutiny. Charles Grassley, the high ranking Republican senator from Ohio recently asked the largest providers to provide details on how claims are handled, and whether employees are rewarded for denying claims. The Times article also mentions that since private equity firms entered into this industry, conditions at nursing homes have changed for the worse.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/03/business/03care.html
There is a growing trend for elderly Americans to remain in their homes. Over a hundred groups have joined together to prevent elderly Americans from being forced into nursing homes because of dependence related problems. The groups provide support that make independent living possible. So far most of the villages are in places where residents are well connected, but a few are becoming available in low income neighborhoods.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/14/health/14aging.html?fta=y
A growing number of older Americans are deciding to remain independent in their own homes as long as possible says Brian Nagendra from the National Aging in Place Council in Washington. In response to this demand, home builders are providing features that help them to achieve their goals. http://www.philly.com/inquirer/real_estate/20071007_Aiming_to_age_in_place.html
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