Aging health Archives - Page 12 of 12 - Better Health While Aging

3 Things Caregivers Should Know About Better Healthcare in Alzheimer’s

Having dementia, such as Alzheimer’s, brings on special challenges when it comes to health and medical care.

Last fall, my friend and colleague Paula Spencer Scott interviewed me on what family caregivers can do to improve the health — and healthcare — of a loved one affected by dementia.

The interview turned into a chapter in her terrific new book, “Surviving Alzheimer’s: Practical tips and soul-saving wisdom for caregivers.”

Below, I share three things I wish more caregivers knew about better healthcare for someone with a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s or another dementia. (Read about two more things to know in the follow-up post here.)

3 things I wish caregivers knew about healthcare & dementia

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A common problem that speeds Alzheimer’s decline, and how to avoid it

by Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH

Earlier this week, while I was listening to a social work colleague (Mary Hulme of Moonstone Geriatrics) give a talk on dementia at the public library, the following question came up:

“How can one keep Alzheimer’s from getting worse?”

Now, Alzheimer’s disease — the most common underlying cause of dementia symptoms — does slowly get worse no matter what. (Given enough years, it will eventually damage the brain to the point of causing a slow death, which is why Alzheimer’s is a terminal disease.)

But on the other hand, we do know that some things tend to slow the progression of brain decline, whereas other things seem to speed up the decline. In other words, the actions we take — and don’t take — can influence a person’s dementia journey.

In my experience, people often have heard about things that might slow down decline (exercise is one of my favorites).

But it seems to me that people are often much less well-informed about the things that can speed up Alzheimer’s decline. This is too bad, because often it is possible to take actions to avoid or minimize things that might cause dementia to get worse faster.

So today I’m going to write about what I think is the most important of these potentially dementia-accelerating problems: delirium.

Delirium: What it is, why it matters

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Tools to Help with End-of-Life Planning

by Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH

Yesterday I did a webinar with Family Caregiver Alliance, on end-of-life issues for dementia caregivers.

(4/10/14: I have just uploaded this powerpoint to Slideshare, so you can see my slides here.)

As you can imagine, this is a big topic that can’t be covered comprehensively in an hour.

So, I focused the talk mainly on something that I often find myself wishing families had spent more time on: advance care planning. Specifically, I talked about how individuals and families can approach planning for future medical care, in the context of a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia.

Why? Because in my own experience, the last stage of life for a person with dementia is often strongly influenced by what kind of planning did — or didn’t — happen earlier on.

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Tools for caregivers: Keeping & Organizing Medical Information

by Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH

This post is part 3 of a series describing the four key types of tools that I recommended to caregivers at a retreat earlier this summer:

Journal/notebook, for notes and symptom tracking (see this post for details)
Portable and up-to-date medication list (see this post for details)
Organizer to keep copies of medical results and medical records
Personal/family task organizer

In this post, I’ll explain why it’s important to keep copies of medical results and key medical records. I’ll then explain which kinds of medical information is most useful to keep, and I’ll describe a few ways that caregivers can do this.

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Tools for Caregivers: the Portable & Up-to-date Medication List

by Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH

At a recent retreat for family caregivers, I proposed four key tools that I recommend to caregivers who want to improve the healthcare of an older person:

Journal/notebook, for notes and symptom tracking (see last week‘s post for more details)
Portable and up-to-date medication list
Organizer to keep copies of medical results and medical records
Personal/family task organizer

In this post, I’ll explain why I always recommend caregivers make an effort to maintain a portable and up-to-date medication list. Then I’ll discuss some tech tools that caregivers can consider.

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Tools for Caregivers: How journals can help

by Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH

Last month, as I was preparing to present a talk at a Family Caregiver Alliance retreat, I spent some time looking into tech tools to recommend to caregivers.

As you might imagine, there are many apps and programs to consider, and I quickly realized that it wasn’t going to be possible to review everything that’s available.

So instead, I decided to start by thinking about my patients and families, and trying to identify a few key areas in which I’d seen tools and organizational strategies really help caregivers better manage an older person’s health needs.

I came up with four key categories of tools that I’ve recommended to families:

Journal/notebook, for notes and symptom tracking
Portable and up-to-date medication list
Organizer to keep copies of medical results and medical records
Personal/family task organizer

In this post, I explain how a journal can help caregivers with the medical parts of their caregiving. Then I’ll describe a few tech tools that caregivers might want to try.

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How to identify risky medications for older adults

by Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH

Many family caregivers know that medications can cause side-effects in older people, and may worry that perhaps their loved ones are being affected by medications.

It’s a very reasonable concern to have. Studies have shown that older adults, especially those taking multiple prescription medications, often experience potentially serious side-effects from their medications.

But having talked with many family caregivers over the years, I’ve found that even the savvy ones often haven’t heard of the “Beer’s List.”

What is the Beer’s List?

Technically known as the “American Geriatrics Society Updated Beers Criteria: Medications that Older Adults Should Avoid or Use with Caution,” this is a carefully reviewed list of medications that are “potentially inappropriate” for older adults, and includes many of the medications that we geriatricians tend to stop or reduce in our patients. (Seriously, identifying and reducing these medications is a big part of my clinical practice!)

Although mainly meant to be used as a reference by clinicians, the American Geriatrics Society(AGS) also provides the information in an easier-to-read format here.

What to do if you realize that you or a loved one is taking a potentially risky medication? Conveniently, AGS addresses this very issue and provides a handy online guide on “What to Do and What to Ask Your Healthcare Provider if a Medication You Take is Listed in the Beers Criteria for Potentially Inappropriate Medications to Use in Older Adults.”

If you’re a caregiver: Have you ever used the Beer’s list as a resource? Other ideas for how caregivers can be empowered to check on their loved one’s medications?

A blog about geriatrics for caregivers

by Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH

Hello and welcome to this blog about geriatrics for caregivers.

I’m Leslie Kernisan, and I’m a geriatrician with a particular interest in enabling family caregivers to better manage the health needs of their older loved ones.

Through my Bay Area geriatrics consultation practice, I work closely with families and geriatric care managers, to improve the health and wellbeing of older adults.

But, I’d like to be able to help even more older adults get better medical care. (This in large part because I have a wonky health policy and quality improvement background, and I love to think about how we as a society and healthcare system can take better care of our aging population.)

So I’m starting this blog, in order to share tips and advice on better medical care for elders with as many caregivers as care to visit the blog.

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3 things I wish caregivers knew about healthcare & dementia

Delirium: What it is, why it matters

What is the Beer’s List?

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