Aging in Place Preserves Seniors’ Independence, Reduces Care Costs, Researchers Find

Aging in Place Preserves Seniors’ Independence, Reduces Care Costs, Researchers Find

From the March 7 2011 Science Daily news item

ScienceDaily (Mar. 7, 2011) — America’s 75 million aging adults soon will face decisions about where and how to live as they age. Current options for long-term care, including nursing homes and assisted-living facilities, are costly and require seniors to move from place to place. University of Missouri researchers have found that a new strategy for long-term care called Aging in Place is less expensive and provides better health outcomes….

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In a four-year analysis of AIP, the total care costs for residents were thousands less than traditional care options. Costs for living and health care never approached the costs for nursing homes and assisted-living services. In addition, AIP residents had improved mental and physical health outcomes.

“The goal is to restore people to their best possible health so they can remain independent,” Rantz said. “Once they are healthy, the additional care services are removed in order to minimize costs. AIP can be implemented by health care facilities and made available to seniors throughout the country.”

Related Articles

• Choosing an Aging in Place Specialist: Introduction (5min.com)
• SimplyHome – The Solution for Seniors Aging at Home (independentlivingblog.com)
• Where Will Mom & Dad Live? Start Here… (parentdwellings.com)
• Seniors embrace aging in place (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Nursing, Engineering Professors Developing Device to Get Seniors Moving (ScienceDaily)

 

Nursing homes are seeking to end the stupor

[Editor Flahiff’s note: I remember visiting my great aunt in a nursing home in the early 70’s (I was in my late teens) I found the stupor among the residents very sad…this story was very refreshing to read…

My husband can attest to the importance of personal attention…he is retired and goes to senior centers daily for lunch and the “pool halls”. He makes it a point to visit with those sitting alone at lunch…and has brought a number of folks out their shells during the past few years]

Instead of treating behavioral problems with antipsychotic drugs, the Ecumen chain of 15 homes is using strategies including aromatherapy, massage, music, games, exercise and good talk. The state is helping out.

From the December 4th Star Tribune article by Warren Wolfe (via a NetGold Posting by David P Dillard )

The aged woman had stopped biting aides and hitting other residents. That was the good news.

But in the North Shore nursing home‘s efforts to achieve peace, she and many other residents were drugged into a stupor — sleepy, lethargic, with little interest in food, activities and other people.

“You see that in just about any nursing home,” said Eva Lanigan, a nurse and resident care coordinator at Sunrise Home in Two Harbors, Minn. “But what kind of quality of life is that?”

Working with a psychiatrist and a pharmacist, Lanigan started a project last year to find other ways to ease the yelling, moaning, crying, spitting, biting and other disruptive behavior that sometimes accompany dementia.

They wanted to replace drugs with aromatherapy, massage, games, exercise, personal attention, better pain control and other techniques. The entire staff was trained and encouraged to interact with residents with dementia.

Within six months, they eliminated antipsychotic drugs and cut the use of antidepressants by half. The result, Lanigan said: “The chaos level is down, but the noise is up — the noise of people laughing, talking, much more engaged with life. It’s amazing.”…

….Medicare spends more than $5 billion a year on those [antipsychotic] drugs for its beneficiaries, including about 30 percent of nursing home residents. Several studies have concluded that more than half are prescribed inappropriately. The drugs are especially hazardous to older people, raising the risk of strokes, pneumonia, confusion, falls, diabetes and hospitalization….

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Instead of looking for causes of disruptive behavior among dementia patients, doctors typically prescribe drugs to mask the symptoms, he said, because “It’s the easy thing to do. … That’s true in hospitals, in clinics and in nursing homes.”

Federal regulators are cracking down on homes that don’t routinely reassess residents on psychotropic drugs. But use remains widespread….

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NPR Nursing Home Database

From the National Public Radio news release/ interactive database

This interactive database, an NPR News exclusive, has information about the independence level of residents at nearly 16,000 individual nursing homes around the country. For each facility, see what percentage of residents can do various daily living tasks by themselves — an indication of their potential for community-based living.

To use it, first select a state, then a county, then an individual facility. If you’re evaluating a nursing home, we recommend you consider these measures along with inspection results and quality indicators available at Medicare.gov. Also, ask nursing home administrators for their facility’s last full inspection report. They’re required to make it available to the public.

The detailed reports here reflect NPR’s analysis of the facilities’ answers to an annual census survey by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. NPR News obtained the data, released to the public for the first time, under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. The overall quality ratings reflect data available from CMS as of Nov. 5.

Other nursing home Web sites

• Nursing homes- MedlinePlus

• Consumer Guides to Nursing and Assisted Living Facilities(National Center for Assisted Living, American Health Care Association)
• Finding Quality Nursing Home Care(American Geriatrics Society)
• Guide to Choosing a Nursing Home(Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services)- PDF
• Also available in Spanish
• Understanding, Planning and Paying for Long-Term Care(Administration on Aging)

• Locate an Ombudsman and State Agencies(Administration on Aging)
• Nursing Home Compare(Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services)
• Also available in Spanish
• State Directory of Helplines, Hotlines, and Elder Abuse Prevention Resources(National Center on Elder Abuse)