Gilbert Guide Care

Gilbert Guide is a web resource designed to provide information about quality senior care. The site offers a  wide range of resources to help families and caregivers including:

A comprehensive provider database allowing readers to identify options in every state across the country. Quality assessment tools to conduct  and evaluation of providers
practical information on senior care basics, developing a care plan or other issues in elder care

Readers can also subscribe to "The Weekly Insider", which consists of advice and reviews on new issues or read the column "New Experts".

To explore Gilbert Guide, go to  http://www.gilbertguide.com/

Direct Care Jobs and Long-Term Care

PHI has released an issue brief called Direct-Care Jobs & Long-Term Care: Untapped Engine for Job Creation & Economic Growth that outlines how direct-care jobs are uniquely positioned to help repair and stabilize America’s economy.

The issue brief provides compelling facts and figures about the impact of the direct-care workforce that our nation’s leaders must take into consideration as they develop and implement strategies for economic recovery.

http://phinational.org/archives/phi-releases-issue-brief-on-job-creation/

The Institute for Safe Medical Practices

The Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP), based in suburban Philadelphia, is the nation’s only 501c (3) nonprofit organization devoted entirely to medication error prevention and safe medication use.

ISMP represents over 30 years of experience in helping healthcare practitioners keep patients safe, and continues to lead efforts to improve the medication use process. The organization is known and respected worldwide as the premier resource for impartial, timely, and accurate medication safety information.

Publications available at the site include:

Error-Prone Abbreviation List (PDF; 73 KB)
High-Alert Medication List (PDF; 51 KB)
Confused Drug Name List (PDF; 101 KB)
“Do Not Crush” List (PDF; 52 KB)
Textbook and Publication Errata

The Caregiver: A Life with Alzheimer's

First published in 1999, this book by Aaron Alterrra, a pseudonym for E.S. Goldman, an award winning fiction writer who publishes frequently in the Atlantic, recounts the caregiver's experience.

From the point of view of both a husband and a writer, the book is an eloquent depiction of the early uncertainly and denial which takes place before diagnosis to the transition to the the disabilities and indignities often inflicted on the person with Alzheimer's.

Vancouver: UBC Press, 2007. ISBN: 978-0-7748-1538-3

Project 2020

Founded in 1964, the National Association of State Units on Aging (NASUA) is a non-profit association representing the nation's 56 officially designated state and territorial agencies on aging. The mission of the Association is to advance social, health, and economic policies responsive to the needs of a diverse aging population and to enhance the capacity of its membership to promote the rights, dignity and independence of, and expand opportunities and resources for, current and future generations of older persons, adults with disabilities and their families.

NASUA is the articulating force at the national level through which the state agencies on aging join together to promote social policy in the public and private sectors responsive to the challenges and opportunities of an aging America.

The National Association of State Units on Aging (NASUA) and the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging, conscious of the financial pressures facing states and the federal government, have developed a coordinated national long-term care strategy (Project 2020) that will generate
savings in Medicaid and Medicare at the federal and state levels while enabling older adults and individuals with disabilities to get the support they need to successfully age where they want to — in their own home and community.

The goal of 2020 is to provide the resources to implement consumer-centered and cost-effective long-termcare strategies authorized in the 2006 reauthorization of the Older Americans Act and to empower the Aging Services Network to implement these strategies through a three-pronged program encompassing person-centered access to information, evidence-based disease prevention and health promotion activities, and enhanced nursing home
diversion services.

http://www.nasua.org/issues/federal_policy/project_2020.html

Metlife Market Survey of Nursing Home and Assisted Living Costs, 2008

Released annually by Metlife Mature Market Institute, Medlife's center on aging and the 50+ market, in conjunction with Lifeplan.

MMI’s works to research, generate national partnerships, and educational materials to expand the knowledge and choices for those in, approaching, or caring for those in the mature market.

LifePlans, Inc. is a risk management and consulting firm, which provides data analysis and information to the long-term care insurance industry. The firm works with insurers, the federal government, industry groups, and other organizations to conduct research that helps these groups monitor their business, understand industry trends, perform effective advocacy, and modify their strategic direction.

http://www.metlife.com/FileAssets/MMI/MMIStudies2008NHALCosts.pdf

Vision Loss

From the Family Caregiver Alliance, this thorough fact sheet on vision and aging discusses the types of vision loss in aging and their treatment options, as well as strategies for living with vision loss, including rehabilitation strategies, home modifications, assistive devices, and traveling with vision impairment. The sheet also deals with emotional and financial issues that may arise with vision loss and provides further reading, and useful resources.

http://www.caregiver.org/caregiver/jsp/content_node.jsp?nodeid=2222

Valuing the Invaluable: The Economic Value of Family Caregiving, 2008 Update

This AARP Public Policy Institute Insight on the Issues by Ari Houser and Mary Jo Gibson presents recent data on the economic value of family caregiving at the national and state levels and summarizes findings about costs to caregivers and how caregiving helps contain health care and long-term care costs.

http://www.aarp.org/research/housing-mobility/caregiving/i13_caregiving.html