With nursing home operators bleating up a storm of weak defenses and denials, soaring Covid-19 infections and deaths have laid siege to far too many long-term care facilities in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. The consequences have been dire. In Maryland, the Baltimore Sun reported: “Nearly three-fifths of Marylanders killed by the coronavirus….
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For seniors, harsh realities about dying at home, dementia drugs, and job harms
Although Americans may have particular wishes as to how their lives might close out, they aren’t getting these optimal outcomes for themselves and their loved ones. Instead, the much-desired option of dying at home is proving to be stressful and draining to the extreme for families, and, when it comes to the dreaded loss of….
Continue ReadingNursing homes and long-term care facilities may be infection ‘cauldrons’
The battle to reduce the sky-high cost of hospital care may have created its own unforeseen and harmful consequence: By hastening to get patients out of traditional hospitals and into skilled nursing facilities and long-term care centers, doctors and policy-makers may be contributing to a medical nightmare — serious infections acquired in health care institutions…..
Continue ReadingMiddle-class seniors won’t be able to afford assisted care when they need it
As the nation rapidly grays and income disparities widen by the day, a sizable number of Americans — a group that built the nation to greatness and has been its economic bedrock — is headed to yet another ugly indignity: More than half of middle-income seniors won’t be able to afford their medical expenses and….
Continue ReadingAs GOP keeps slashing at health coverage, big strains of caregiving ignored
Americans have real reason to fear a health care catastrophe: If loved ones suffer major injury or illness, who will feed, bathe, and care for them 24/7 after they get out of the hospital and recuperate at home? Who will take time off from work to set up and take them to unending and long….
Continue ReadingFor frail seniors, program offers choices and supports to keep them home
With the nation fast graying, a long-term care crisis looms, and too many Americans may not realize that not only will nursing home care be tough to find and afford, it also may be less than ideal. But what happens if seniors themselves — especially the frail old — are asked how care-giving services might….
Continue ReadingNursing homes and assisted living facilities assailed for risky and shabby care
Nursing homes, by scrimping on their staffing to maximize their profits, put their residents at grave risk for infections that too often have grisly and deadly results. Low-rated facilities run by Uncle Sam to care for elderly veterans also may be concerning. And those oft-pricey assisted living facilities may have their own response to dealing….
Continue ReadingAmericans in their 60s and 70s struggle as caregivers for older relatives
Life can be hard, lonely, and difficult for adults who must become caregivers for their parents. If that sounds like the challenging story for tens of millions of millennials and Gen-Xers, yes, it’s true. But Judith Graham, in a column for the Kaiser Health News Service, describes what may be an even tougher role for….
Continue ReadingFor sick seniors, hospitals and nursing homes can be nothing but bad news
In many parts of the developing world, families play a big part in patients’ hospital care. They not only sit for long hours with loved ones, supporting and encouraging their recovery. They also may help with direct services, bathing and cleaning patients, tending to their beds and quarters, and even assisting with their medications and….
Continue ReadingMedical valor is on finest display as wind-whipped wildfires roar in California
When a raging wildfire — feeding off blowing winds and weeks of desiccating heat, also whipped up a freak, blazing tornado-like vortex with 140-mile-an-hour gusts and a 500-yard diameter — common sense might have dictated that affected Northern Californians should flee as fast and as far as possible. While many did, correctly heeding authorities’ emergency….
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