Category: End-of-Life Care
The Obama administration is moving forward with an ambitious agenda to improve the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease and unlock a method to prevent it by 2025. The plan also sets up a wide-ranging effort to improve the care that Alzheimer’s patients receive and support families.
Of the 103 who received prescriptions last year, 94 are known to have died. Seventy of these died after taking the medication. Nineteen died without taking the medication. In five deaths, it is not known whether or not they took the medication.
Last interview with a doctor who fought for the right-to-die. Young doctors are turning away from careers in primary care. A solo practice sells out to the local hospital.
Oregon pioneered the Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST) form, which offers patients many more detailed options for end-of-life care than a simple “do not resuscitate” directive.
You can be healthy well beyond 60, but you’ll be different than you were when you were 20. You’ll have different posture, wrinkles and a lot of other changes that are less obvious but age appropriate. We have to be very, very careful about calling any difference from when we were younger an illness or a disease. And we have to be even more careful about telling people that we have things we can do to “fix” these differences, but this happens all the time. That’s the medicalization of aging.
Swedish Visiting Nurse Services will cease operating in April. The service provides in-home medical care to about 300 home-health patients, about 125 hospice patients and 80 home-infusion patients. Swedish said the service is projected to lose $12 million in this year, which would put its total loss since 2009 at $51 million. Swedish blamed losses on the high cost of wages, benefits and overtime and low reimbursement from commercial payers as well as “productivity issues.”
Sarah Palin on special needs. When doctors treat their family members. The neurology of ethics. Not all memory loss is Alzheimer’s. And the politics of the Komen-Planned Parenthood controversy.
The latest casualty of the Great Recession may soon be the nation’s elderly. Cuts in government payments for patient care and less construction of new nursing homes are already taking a toll. Add to this the aging baby boom generation and you have a worst-case scenario.
Will it cover your needs? Can you pay for it? Can you afford not to have it?
Don’t buy if the out-of-pocket cost for the coverage would be more than you can afford. Policies differ greatly so know what you are buying. Shop around.
How doctors die (Hint: Not like the rest of us). Can vaccines end cancer? Newt Gingrich’s health-care heresies. Should your doctor take money from drug companies? — This week’s top stories.
96 percent responding that they believe enhancing the quality of life for seriously ill patients is more important than extending life as long as possible.
LocalHealthGuide is a health news and information web service for Seattle and the Puget Sound Region. We are independent and unaffiliated with any hospital, medical association or insurer. If you have questions or if your group has an upcoming event that you would like us to cover, please let us know by going to our "Contact Us" page and dropping us a note. -- Michael McCarthy, Editor
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Lost in translation: Lack of trained interpreters can lead to medical errors
Interpreter services at hospitals and other medical settings are often inadequate, forcing family members, including children, to step in, or the task falls to medical staff members who may not speak the language well.
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Travel insurance can protect your wallet — and your health on vacation
Think your regular health insurance policy will cover you if you get into medical trouble overseas?
Don’t bet on it.
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