Tag: Alzheimer’s disease

National League for Nursing New Curriculum

Between 5.6 and 8 million, nearly one in five elderly people in America suffer from at least one illness impacting psychological wellness, according to an escalating report released last year by the Institute of Medicine. Among these devastating cognitive/emotional conditions is Alzheimer’s, a study often associated with multiple physical problems and psycho/social co-morbidities that occur during a period of life transition  Today, however, too few medical professionals, nursing staff included, are effectively equipped to handle the unique difficulties of looking after for this weak, insecure population, one bound to grow as Baby Boomers age.

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To address this worrying gap in medical knowledge and clinical practice by the medical workforce on the frontline of primary care for elderly people, the National League for Nursing will create specific curricula and sources for the National League for Nursing’s nationally renowned trademark program in geriatrics education: ACES (Advancing Care Excellence for Seniors). With a $125,000 grant from MetLife Foundation to the National League for Nursing foundation for Nursing Education, funds will be used in 2013 to develop three inter-professional training techniques and three unfolding web-based case research for ACES.

Related models, also to be developed as part of the new project, will provide staff with classroom-ready templates for training and guidelines for developing new knowledge into the core program. In addition, the unfolding situation research and relevant models will emphasize complex medical care situations experienced by Alzheimer’s disease sufferers and their families, introducing learners with opportunities to think and act in ‘real time,’ using evidence-based medical evaluation and involvement techniques. “By adding specific program sources for training about proper care for sufferers with Alzheimer’s and their care providers, the National League for Nursing will be an important resource for staff to train learners in recovery, wellness promotion, medical care and public service recommendation for the specific care for elderly people with mental problems, specifically Alzheimer’s,” stated National League for Nursing chief executive Judith A. Halstead, PhD, RN, FAAN, ANEF.

Goal of Hospice Care

To be eligible for hospice care, which is compensated for by Medical health insurance and also by most personal insurance coverage, an individual must have a diagnosis of six months or less to live, from such terminal diseases as Alzheimer’s disease, melanoma and cancer or lung condition. A recommendation from a hospice care agency outcomes in an evaluation. And it’s free. An evaluation happens upon no responsibility and can help a family make programs even if their family member is not eligible for a hospital care, Dr. Patrick Clary said.

While most sufferers don’t “graduate” from hospice care, Clary, who has been engaged in hospice care for nearly 30 years, said research display sufferers with terminal conditions who are admitted in to hospice stay longer than those who die without hospice. For Clary, hospital is about living the last part of life well. And, as opposed to many physicians, this physician actually speaks about the end of life and loss of life. “Sure, physicians are reluctant of loss of life,” said Clary, who saw more than his reasonable proportion as a younger Military field medic in Vietnam in 1969. “We’re trained to see loss of life as a failing, so it’s hard to deal with when it comes, especially if we love our sufferers. We end up ‘protecting’ each other by not referring to loss of life, so it comes on us as a shock. Yet, it’s no shock most of the time.”

Avoiding the topic can rob sufferers and their loved ones of being able to get ready for loss of life, to reunite, to say goodbye and to live out the last days, weeks or months of their life in significant ways. And it can deny them good closure. Most family members welcome the loyalty and the chance. It helps them start making plans, deal with relationship issues and set objectives, Clary said. It may be songs, a last birthday party or the guarantee that someone will be there by their side when they die. But whatever the individual’s objectives, the hospice care staffs do their best to fulfill them.