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Splaine Consulting November 2019 Newsletter
Splaine Consulting Highlights
Our team’s advocacy work, here & abroad
Splaine Consulting Has Solutions for
Those Living Alone With Alzheimer’s
One in six people with Alzheimer’s disease or another form of dementia is living alone. That’s nearly 1 million Americans, many of whom have unmet social, medical and daily living needs and are at higher risk for alnutrition, falls, wandering, selfneglect and financial exploitation.
At Splaine Consulting, we’re here to offer help and insights. Our program, Living Alone With Alzheimer’s: A Solutions Summit, is a unique one-day conference that focuses on identifying and meeting the needs of individuals with dementia who are living on their own. We’ve presented this summit in major cities around the country, including Atlanta, Georgia; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Las Vegas, Nevada; and Reno, Nevada.
Among those who should attend the Summit are persons living with dementia, caregivers, administrators and staff from care communities, Alzheimer’s/dementia care providers, dementia-friendly community leaders, health-care professionals and elder care providers.
The day’s agenda includes conversations with people with are navigating life with Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia. Also included is a statistical overview, a discussion of health and social risk factors and a consideration of ethical dilemmas. In addition, the program highlights a variety of intervention strategies, such as medication reconciliation programs, home-delivered meals, home care services, social service options, community resources and technology.
Would you like more information about how to bring a solutions-based summit to your community? Click the button below.
Cognitive Solutions
Workshops Address Needs for New Health, Hospitalization Approaches
A recent article in U.S. News & World Report points to the need for new approaches for hospitalizations
of patients with Alzheimer’s disease.
The article, published Oct. 21, points out that hospital stays can be highly stressful for those who have Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia. The experience also takes its toll on family caregivers who accompany their loved ones.
Not only are the hospital stays for those with dementia often burdensome and traumatic, but they are often associated with worse end-of-life outcomes. That’s why it’s important to rethink the necessity and the purpose of hospitalizations for those with Alzheimer’s and dementia.
Our Cognitive Solutions seminars and workshops address the issue of
hospitalization for dementia patients with a presentation of facts, trends and evidence-based and evidence-informed tools and practices.
Among our offerings is a workshop highlighting our comprehensive Thinking About
Thinking® compendium of protocols for patients with cognitive impairment. Mike Splaine has brought attention to these protocols as an author and a keynoter, advocating for elevating cognitive evaluation as a “sixth vital sign” along with other traditional medical measurements such as blood pressure, heart rate, temperature, respiration rate and (when applicable) pain.
Cognitive Solutions also addresses the issue with Thoughtful Hospitalization, a workshop that provides information for caregivers to prepare for hospitalizations (either planned or unplanned) for their loved ones with memory disorders. This workshop covers such important topics as hospital risks for people with memory loss; being prepared for emergency hospitalization; returning home and recovery; and the
rights of caregivers.
To schedule a Thinking About Thinking or Thoughtful Hospitalization workshop for your company or organization, contact Cognitive Solutions by clicking the button below.
Kate Gordon Receives Thanks for Presentation to Geriatric Trainees at Mexican National Institute
The Department of Geriatrics at the Salvador Zubrirán National Institute of Health Sciences and Nutrition in Mexico City sent accolades to Kate Gordon for her presentation on how geriatricians can be
actively involved in health policy development at the organizational, municipal, state and national levels.
“[T]ruly enlightening and enriching; all of the attendees very much appreciated all of the information you shared and the way it was exposed,” wrote José Alberto Ávila-Funes, chair of the Division of Geriatric Medicine
in a letter of appreciation to Kate. He pointed out that this was the first time in the history of the department that the academic program had hosted an international speaker with Kate’s diverse experience to share information on topics going beyond the traditional spectrum of geriatric medicine into the realm of social disparities, policy, health economics, cognitive rehabilitation and the arts.
“Thanks to your participation, our young geriatricians now have a broader idea of how other disciplines contribute to their work, the many ways that we can improve our practice and that there are several paths to achieving better quality of care for our patients and community,” Dr. Ávila-Funes added. “Be assured that your wonderful insight has sparked interest in various of these areas and has inspired some to pursue further training (and) specialization or adoption of these concepts to help improve their work and careers, ultimately enhancing their practice and its results to
their beneficiaries.”
Kate’s invitation to present was an extension of her work as health policy faculty through the Global Brain Health Initiative Fellows program.
The Salvador Zubrirán National Institute of Health Sciences and Nutrition is one of the National Institutes of Health under the Ministry of Health in Mexico. It is one of Mexico’s most prestigious medical and scientific assistance institutions.
Alzheimer’s Around the World
The latest policy, advocacy & research events and news
65-Plus Population to Hit 1.5 Billion by 2050
By 2050—just 31 years from now—the 65-plus population is projected to grow from the current worldwide total of 703 million people to a staggering 1.5 billion.That is one of the major takeaways from the World Population Ageing 2019 Highlights, recently released by the United Nations’ Department of Economic and Social Affairs’ Population Division.
Based on that projection, one in every six people in the world will be over the age 65 as compared to one in every 11 today. The number of people aged 80 or over is expected to grow even faster, tripling by 2050. Average
global life expectancy at age 65 will have increased by 19 years by 2050.
This longevity revolution is occurring in all societies around the world, though at varying paces. The worldwide trend has dramatically increased the odds of individuals surviving to age 65, increasing from less than 50%—as was the case in Sweden in the 1890s—to more than 90% at present in countries with the highest life expectancy. The proportion of adult life spent beyond the age of 65 increased from less than a fifth in the 1960s to a quarter or more in most developed countries today.
The World Population Ageing 2019 Highlights was published on Oct. 10 as part of the celebration of the International Day of Older Persons at the UN Headquarters in New York. This initial release presents the key findings of a larger and more comprehensive report on the same topic that will become available later this year. Highlights concludes with a set of evidence-based policy recommendations to promote the well-being of the world’s rising elder population with collective efforts to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
You can access the full text of the World Population Ageing 2019: Highlights by clicking the button below.
Woman’s Alzheimer’s Resistance Offers Hope For Treatment
Defying the odds, a woman at high risk for early-onset Alzheimer’s disease remained dementia-free for decades beyond what was expected. A study funded in part by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of the National Institutes of Health, has led researchers to believe that a gene variant may be the key to her Alzheimer’s resistance and could provide a new direction toward developing a treatment.
The findings, reported in Nature Medicine on Nov. 4, suggest that two copies of the APOE3 Christchurch variant (APOE3ch)—named after Christchurch, New Zealand, where it was first identified—may protect against Alzheimer’s.
The research focused on the case of a Columbian woman who carried a gene mutation—PSEN1 E280A—known to cause early-onset Alzheimer’s. Of the woman’s nearly 6,000 extended family members, who were tracked by researchers, one-fifth carried the mutation and developed the disease in their 40s. Researchers confirmed that the woman also carried the PSEN1 E280A mutation; however, unlike her family members, she additionally carried two copies of APOE3ch. The woman didn’t show any signs of Alzheimer’s until her 70s and only then had minor neurodegeneration.
The woman did have large amounts of amyloid protein deposits in her brain, a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease. But the amount of tau tangles, another disease hallmark and the one more closely correlated with how thinking and memory are affected, was relatively low. Experiments as part of the study showed that the APOE3ch variant may reduce the ability of APOE to bind to certain sugars that may contribute to amyloid and tau protein deposits. However, scientists caution that more study is needed to verify these relationships.
November Is National Family Caregivers Month
President Trump has declared November 2019 as National Family Caregivers Month in recognition of those who tirelessly work to improve the quality of life for Americans in need of care.
The Caregiver Action Network (CAN) reports that this year’s theme is “Be Care Curious.” CAN encourages family caregivers across the country to ask questions, explore options and share in the care decisions that affect the health and well-being of their loved ones. CAN urges family caregivers to #BeCareCurious about their loved one’s goals, treatment options, research, their care plan and their coverage (both their loved one’s Medicare plan and other options).
View CAN’s National Family Caregiver resources, including an NFC Month social media kit, by clicking on the button below.