A User's Guide to Finding and Evaluating Health Information on the Web

Millions of Americans search for health information on the web every year. Sometimes the information found is just what was needed. Other searches end in frustration or retrieval of inaccurate, even dangerous, information.

This guide outlines the collective wisdom of medical librarians who surf the web every day to discover quality information in support of clinical and scientific decision making by doctors, scientists, and other health practitioners responsible for the nation’s health.

The guide is presented in three brief sections:

1. “Getting Started,” provides tips on filtering the millions of health-related web pages through the health subsets of major search engines and using quality electronic finding tools developed by the U.S. government to do an initial screen of websites for further examination.

2. Guidelines developed for evaluating the content of health related websites

3. Additional information of interest to consumers searching for health-related information on the web.

Access the Complete Document

Source: Medical Library Association

Smell and Taste: Spice of Life

“Smell and Taste: Spice of Life” is part of the NIA’s series of free AgePage fact sheets on more than 40 topics of interest to older adults and caregivers.

Each provides an overview of the subject and resources for more information. Individual AgePages address specific diseases/conditions, planning for later years, safety, health promotion/disease prevention, and medical care. Many of the AgePages are available in Spanish.

To download or order free copies of “Smell and Taste: Spice of Life,” visit www.nia.nih.gov/HealthInformation/Publications/smell.htm

Tips for Caregivers: Alzheimer's Association (Greater Iowa) Newsletter

The Summer Issue of the Alzheimer's Association of Greater Iowa has three excellent articles on tips for caregivers:

Know the Ten Signs (Early detection of Alzheimer's)
Ten Real Life Strategies for Dementia Caregiving
Travel Safety for People with Dementia

This issue can be read and/or downloaded at the following:
http://www.alz.org/greateriowa/documents/summer_2009_nl_for_web.pdf

Download Your State's Advance Directives

Caring Connections provides free advance directives and instructions for each state that can be opened as a PDF (Portable Document Format) file.

While these materials are copyrighted by Caring Connections, permission is granted to download a single copy of any portion of these texts and use by individuals for personal and family benefit is specifically authorized and encouraged. Further copies or publication are prohibited without express written permission.

http://www.caringinfo.org/stateaddownload

Living with Alzheimer's

New in May, 2009 from the Alliance for Aging Research, this booklet is part of the larger Living with Alzheimer’s: Personal Health Organizer.

The organizer is a 3-ring, hardcover binder including the necessary tools you need to sort through all the Alzheimer's information you come across and keep track of only that which is relevant to you.

The binder can be organized in to best fits your needs, and is designed to help the person who has just been diagnosed. Worksheets can be used together with family members or by caregivers of those who are in later stages of the disease. The cost for the binder is $10, and can be ordered at the Personal Health Organizer link above.

The brochure may be downloaded for no cost, and provides detailed information to guide you through using the worksheets, tips on finding help in your community, and a list of resources for more information.

How to Find the Best Eldercare

Marilyn Rantz, RN, PhD and Mary Zwygart-Stauffacher, RN, PhD each have more than two decades of experience researching and improving American eldercare. They are two-time winners of the American Journal of Nursing's Book of the Year Award. Marilyn Rantz lives in Columbia, Missouri; Mary Zwygart-Stauffacher lives in Colfax, Wisconsin.

 This book will hellp you find answers by providing questions to ask about a variety of service options. They have included easy-to-use guides for assisted-living facilities and nursing homes that allow you to evaluate such places in a twenty- to thirty-minute walk-through. They  have carefully designed and tested the guides so that you can be sure they will give the information you need about quality care.

They also offer advice on how to adapt to life in any new type of
housing, whether it’s senior housing, assisted living, or a nursing home,
and we suggest ways to finance care and locate resources locally and nationwide.

Their advice we’ve assembled here is based on years of experience working in and managing homecare, independent living, assisted living, and nursing homes. It’s also based on research that the authors and
other professionals have conducted on the quality of care in various settings—aging in place, assisted living, and nursing homes—and on conversations we’ve had with hundreds of long-term care staff members.

How to find the best eldercare was published in June, 2009 by Fairview Press. ISBN: 9781577491903  http://www.nursinghomehelp.org/eldercarebook.pdf

Appreciating the Elderly: Children's Books

From the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, this is a list of ten children's books to share with young readers that provide positive images of the elderly.

http://www.clpgh.org/research/parentseducators/parents/bibliotherapy/showbooklist.cfm?list=elderly

Carers of People with Dementia: Their Personal Stories @Healthtalkonline

Healthtalkonline is the award-winning website of the DIPEx charity (a registered charity funded by the Department of Health (UK). Healthtalkonline lets you share in other people's experiences of health and illness. You can watch or listen to videos of the interviews, read about people's experiences and find reliable information about conditions, treatment choices and support.

Based on qualitative research into patient experiences, and led by experts at the University of Oxford, these personal stories of health and illness will enable patients, families and healthcare professionals to benefit from the experiences of others.

This section of the site contains videotaped interviews of 31 people about their experiences of caring for a person with dementia, and includes the following topics:

• Suspicions - early signs of dementia
• Signs of dementia
• Severe dementia
• Making the diagnosis
• Tests
• Getting the diagnosis
• Genetic testing
• Ideas about causes of dementia
• Treatment :
• Treatment for Alzheimer's disease
•  Relieving symptoms
•  Strategies- some suggestions from carers
• Becoming a carer :
• Becoming a carer
• Caring from a distance
•  Friends and family
•  Sources of support
•  Assessments and care plans
•  Home carers
•  Day care and respite
•  Problems with provision
•  Looking for information
• Arranging residential care
• Becoming a resident
• Spacer
• Difficult decisions :
• Wandering
• Driving
• Money
• Self care
• Respect
• Living with change
•       Complicated emotions
•       End of life

http://www.healthtalkonline.org/Nerves_and_brain/Carers_of_people_with_dementia

Mom, Dad...Can We Talk?

Mom, Dad…Can We Talk? is directed at adult children, the sandwich generation of boomers for whom aging-parent issues and care concerns are an increasing reality.

The book contains 100 personal stories and quotes from adult children who have journeyed with their parents through their later years.

The book offers practical advice for initiating caring conversations, and hints for managing issues such as dementia, drinking, depression, and driving.

The author Dick Edwards has thirty-five years of experience working closely with older adults and their families. For the past twenty years he served as administrator of Charter House, a nationally recognized model for excellence in retirement living and long-term health care affiliated with the world-renowned Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

Watch it online: Eager for Your Kisses: Love and Sex at 95.

After overcoming the loss of his wife of fifty years, a 95-year-old singer-songwriter places an ad in the personals and goes ballroom dancing. He soon finds himself singing and dancing his way into the hearts (and bedrooms) of the women in his life.

Watch it at the following link:
http://www.nomadsland.com/video/eager-for-your-kisses-love-and

SSA considers adding Alzheimer's to Compassionate Allowances list

The Social Security Administration (SSA) for held a hearing last week to examine whether these individuals with younger-onset Alzheimer's disease or related dementias should be included in its Compassionate Allowances Initiative.

To read more about this hearing, go to: http://www.alz.org/news_and_events_ssa_considers.asp

Impact of Exercise in Community-Dwelling Older Adults

This article was published in the Open Access journal PLoS ONE, and investigates the impact of exercise on the probabilities of health improvement, deterioration and death in community-dwelling older people.

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0006174