ELF News Archives
July 2007
- Sexual offenders living in nursing homes -
Sex offenders in Ohio nursing homes, other facilities do not have to notify fellow residents of their status.
Dayton Daily News 07/31
- Agency takes gifts from those it regulates -
A state agency that helps protect older Iowans has accepted more than $70,000 in donations from senior-care companies doing business in Iowa during the past six years.
Desmoine Register 07/31
- Nursing homes must be more like home -
While the idea of turning one of the two Schenectady hospitals slated to close into a nursing home sounds like a good way to save money, it is crucial that any plans for a future nursing home are responsive to the needs of the people in the community who will be living in the home.
Times Union 07/30
- Elder care promise faltering -
Despite new rules for enforcement, dramatic change has not filtered down to nursing home residents,...
The Star 07/30
- Getting old an expensive prospect -
And lack of affordable housing makes it a whole lot worse...The United States is woefully unprepared for the coming surge in the population of people 65 and older, and lacking in policies to mitigate the high social and financial costs associated with aging...The long life expectancy brought about by modern medicine, as well as the high cost of achieving it, nearly guarantees that growing old will be an expensive prospect. A lack of affordable housing aggravates the situation, with 57 percent of renters over 62 paying more than 30 percent of their income on housing. Such a high proportion of an elder's income spent on housing limits her access to medical care and prevention, nutritional health, transportation, entertainment activities and her sense of financial security.
Seattle PI 07/27
- Survey directed towards senior citizens -
The Island JADE Society, that runs a legal advocacy service for low-income persons, has noticed a growing trend that seniors are suffering from poverty and its effects. These may include isolation, inadequate health service, unaffordable housing, access to social events and elder abuse.
Campbell River Mirror 07/27
- Elder Care Survival Steps -
More than 50 million people provide care for a chronically ill, disabled or aged family member or friend during any given year. Individuals caring for their aging parents face challenges on a multitude of fronts: financial, emotional, medical and legal.
Forbes 07/27
- Where's the outrage for helpless at home? -
Google "nursing home abuse" and you will get a long, long list of lawyers who specialize in suing dangerous and substandard facilities. You might get a hotline number to call or a link to some harried bureaucrat in a regulatory office...How about everybody else's great-aunt and brother, the legions of vulnerable Americans living in state schools and nursing homes and residential care centers? Can we spare a little outrage for them, too?
Dallas News 07/27
- More nursing homes facing spot checks -
A fifth South Australian aged care home has been sanctioned by federal authorities for failing to meet all 44 national aged care standards.
ABC News 07/27
- Companies helping employees care for their elderly parents -
Every week, Intel Corp. dispatches small armies of 20-something social scientists and engineers to households of old people living at the four corners of the earth -- to Rochester, N.Y. (with any luck, in the middle of a snowstorm), to an impoverished Ugandan village (where living to a ripe old age means making it to 40), to southern Italy, where there's barely a concept of "nursing home."
M Live 07/26
- TECHNOLOGY PRODUCT HELPS KEEP SENIORS INDEPENDENT LONGER -
ElderWatch provides information about the client’s environment, wellness, and activities of daily living to the family and caregiver network. ElderWatch issues alerts to reduce problems related to aging seniors. The system is customized by the family/care-giver for the senior’s lifestyle and special needs.
Home Toys 07/26
- Sandwich Generation Survival Skills -
How do care-givers balance competing demands on their time, attention and finances?
Forbes 07/26
- Nursing home looks to Eden -
A Newport nursing home is the first long-term care facility in New Hampshire to join a national organization that aims to eliminate loneliness, boredom and feelings of helplessness among nursing home residents.
Concord Monitor 07/26
- Nursing Homes, Medicaid and Your Assets -
Individuals generally become eligible for Medicaid assistance to pay for long-term care after using up all but a certain amount of assets. That level varies by state, but can be as little as $2,000 in cash and investments. For many people who had hoped to pass on even a small inheritance to their children, that's an unhappy prospect.
Wall Street Journal 07/24
- Assisted living an alternative to nursing homes -
Barriers remain to providing the less costly option to patients on Medicaid...Faced with a coming explosion in long-term care expenses created by aging baby boomers and skyrocketing health care costs, many states, including Ohio, are counting on the lower costs of assisted living to provide a buffer. At about half the cost of nursing home care, assisted living aims at giving residents maximum freedom in their own private rooms or apartments while providing a security net that includes transportation, housekeeping, meals, personal care and 24-hour supervision. Unlike nursing homes, however, they cannot provide intensive nursing care for the more severely disabled.
Dayton Daily News 07/24
- Charity raises aged care flags -
MORE than 50 complaints of appalling care in southeast Queensland nursing homes have been compiled by a Brisbane charity – including patients being left for hours on floors...Other complaints include patients being left unattended for hours after falls – one overnight – immobile nursing home patients not seeing staff for hours on end, poor hydration and chronic staff shortages.
CourierMail 07/24
- Vow to improve standards in care homes -
STANDARDS of care in Scotland's nursing homes need to be improved, according to the minister responsible for services for the elderly. Shona Robison, the public health minister, said she was "appalled" by the cases of neglect and mistreatment of elderly people highlighted by The Scotsman earlier this week, and pledged action to lift standards.
Scotsman 07/24
- Hospital, nursing home project prevents 70 percent of bedsores -
Scores of hospitals, nursing homes and home care agencies in New Jersey have eliminated nearly three-quarters of new bedsores in less than two years under a special prevention project, officials said Tuesday.
Newsday 07/18
- Try feeding your mom on $5.57 a day -
How could anyone provide three nutritious meals for so little, you might ask. Not surprisingly, the long-term care homes can't. The daily amount should actually be $7, the Dietitians of Canada say. The dietitians told the provincial government that last year, but it didn't act.
Ottaway Citizen 07/18
- Protect yourself when choosing a nursing home -
Most of us recognize that the time may come when our closest loved ones — or we ourselves — might have to move into a nursing home for much-needed round-the-clock care.
MSNBC 07/18
- Nursing Home Neglect Takes on Many Forms -
The widespread yet heavily underreported problem of Nursing Home Neglect takes on many unexpected forms, one of which being simple eye care. Nursing homes often neglect to provide residents with even the most basic vision care.
News Inferno 07/16
- How China respects its elders -
With 144million over-60s, China is having to devise new ways to care for its elderly. Chris Dalby reports from a retirement home near Beijing....Retirement homes are highly uncommon in rural areas of China where traditional entrenchment about the nuclear family is mainstream.
Spiked Online 07/16
- How many of Scotland's old folk are being neglected? -
"It's the mark of a civilised society that it cares for old people in a particular way, and people in Scotland are generally very positive and proud of free personal and nursing care. But I think people would be prepared to pay more if they knew the real situation."
Scotsman 07/16
- Overseeing elder care, nearby or long-distance -
MANY OLDER seniors start needing care to safely live at home. Their adult children can only do so much to directly help out because they work, have their own families and often live out of town. When the time comes, what decisions should they consider?
Inside Bay Area 07/12
- Violence in nursing homes an understudied threat -
While the traditional view of elder abuse in nursing homes involves staff harming residents, new research suggests residents may have more to fear from their peers.
Reuters 07/12
- Time to deal with long-term care -
The issue of long-term care and elder care in the near future is one that politicians and the general public tend to avoid at all costs. Politicians do not want to think about the cost to care for the burgeoning elderly population, and the general public, for the most part, do not want to deal with their own mortality...The train is coming down the track, and we must deal with the reality that the age 85-plus population will increase 40 percent in the next seven years, and the baby boomers will swell the age 65-plus population 26 percent by 2015. These numbers indicate that new tracks need to be laid in preparation for the train that will demand more services for the care of the elderly.
Daily Press 07/09
- Nursing homes’ litany of failures -
The reports reveal instances such as elderly residents being brought around in a state of undress, regularly woken from their beds at night, and cases where some were housed with rodent bait in their rooms.
Irish Examiner 07/09
- Private Equity Turns Focus to Nursing Homes -
In recent months, the market has lost companies in a wide array of sectors such as biopharmaceuticals and REITs to private equity action. We can now add nursing homes to that list.
Motley Fool 07/09
- Nursing homes in desperate need of funds: critics -
An 11-cent increase in the daily food allowance for elderly residents of long-term care facilities falls woefully short of what's required from the Ontario government...
CTV 07/09
- Consider the positives of nursing homes -
Contrary to stereotype, nursing homes can provide a positive experience for the elderly. Residents can get care 24 hours a day. They can participate in meaningful activities that keep their minds and bodies active. They can attend religious services in the nursing home, and clergy can be contacted at any time. Licensed social workers on staff can address the social and mental health of the residents.
USA Today 07/09
- Ed Koch, Bob Weiner Urge Home Care Alternatives to Nursing Homes -
Former Mayor and Congressman Ed Koch, and former U.S. House Aging Committee Chief of Staff Bob Weiner, are rejoining forces as they did in the 1970's to urge home care alternatives to nursing homes. Koch and Weiner, who was Koch's legislative assistant in Congress, say that "national policy has reversed" from "common sense legislation" Koch and Weiner worked on and got passed to give senior citizens alternatives to nursing homes -- health care in people's own homes.
PR News Wire 07/06
- Urgent need for long-term care delivery system -
New health care crisis: long-term care,” touches on several important issues. Public funding is inadequate for the needs of our growing elderly population and as our nation’s population continues to disperse, family structure will play a lesser role in helping to meet future elder care needs.
The PBJ 07/06
- Love, Care and the Inevitable Arguments -
Mediators Can Provide a Welcome Rational Approach to Realities of Elder Care...When siblings have to make decisions about care for their aging parents, the situation can spark such great disputes within the family that some are turning to a solution common in divorces and business disputes.
ABC News 07/06
- Elder Care: Get Advice on How to Secure Seniors' Finances -
Sonia Tanner was shocked when she discovered that her 73-year-old mother gave away $300,000 to strangers who claimed she had won millions and simply needed to pay the taxes in order to collect the cash prize.
ABC News 07/02
- Staff is at heart of "culture-change" revolution -
Because staff is the heart and soul of all eldercare, the most important leg of the culture change — what's truly revolutionary — is its ability to hire, train, and retain high-quality, caring aides and nurses...For decades, many care providers have paid lip service to this notion. However, the outcomes reflect something different: 60-to-80-percent annual turnover in most care settings, low job satisfaction, poor wages and few benefits, no career ladders, and jobs that go unfilled for months.
Seattle Times 07/02
- Our View — Nursing homes should be first budget priority -
The people of Minnesota have made a commitment to the elderly that we’re not keeping.
Free Press 07/02