Major insurer to offer elder care coordination service in 14 states

According to an article in the most recent issue of the Indianapolis Business Journal, WellPoint, Inc. has signed an agreement to offer the services of My Health Care Manager as part of the wellness benefits it offers to thousands of employers in 14 states.

My Health Care Manager offers care coordination services to seniors and adult children who are caregivers for their aging parents. A nurse or social worker is assigned as a Health Care Manager to help clients navigate the often-complex health care requirements of the older adult. The service is especially helpful to adult children who are trying to manage their parents' care long-distance.

WellPoint is a Blue Cross or Blue Cross Blue Shield licensee in 14 states: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

With this agreement, employers who offer employees insurance through WellPoint will pay between 40 cents and $1.50 per member per month to have the elder care coordination services included in their wellness offerings. The fee paid per member goes to cover an initial phone conversation and a recommended action plan. Individual members pay negotiated rates for services requested beyond that.

Employers should find the service attractive because it can take the pressure off employees who might otherwise take off work or use company time to manage issues related to dealing with an ailing parent or loved one. According to the IBJ article, the MetLife Mature Market Institute estimates that working caregivers cost U.S. employers $34 billion annually -- $2,110 per full-time employee.

The WellPoint connection is just one way My Health Care Manager is getting its services in front of people who need it. Families not affiliated with one of the WellPoint insurance plans can use the My Health Care Manager services, too. There is no long-term contract. Services can range from hourly support for crisis situations to a customized monthly plan.

Follow the tweets from today's pressure ulcer outcomes congress

Coming to you live from Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana, it's the Indiana Pressure Ulcer Intiative Outcomes Congress.

Follow @AllThingsAging for real time updates from speakers including:

Joyce Black, RN, PhD
Associate Professor, University of Nebraska Medical Center
Board of Directors, National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel

Marilyn Hirsch, PhD
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

Kathy Duncan, RN
Faculty Expert, Institute for Healthcare Improvement

Click here to follow us on Twitter.

Growing older: 6 important questions to determine if you're still relevant

When I was at Blog Indiana, I ran into an old friend, Duncan Alney of Firebelly Marketing. In the course of catching up on our personal and professional lives, I told Duncan about our All Things Aging blog. He immediately asked if his dad could contribute a post. I said sure, what better commentary on aging could there be than one who is living it and living it well. So without further adieu, please welcome Don Alney:

Doesn't matter if you're turning 50 or 70, staying relevant is key

Even the Beatles worried about getting older. "Will you still need me, Will you still feed me - when I'm 64?"

I'm 71 but it seems to me that growing older is something that’s invariably unwelcome, regardless if you're turning 20, 30, 40, 50, or 60. Somehow there is a sense that another major milestone has been passed, and "gosh we're really getting old now." Funny isn't it, how things look depending on where you are? When you're 30, 20 doesn't seem old, in fact it seems young. Imagine the view from 80 or 90.

Since we've no choice but to age we need to find a way to greet and accept our passing years with grace and a positive attitude. Growing older isn't as as traumatic as people imagine. And as hard as it may be to believe, but relevance is one of the keys to aging well.

As we get older, we realize that the jostling, single-minded pursuits and the make-or-break scuffles of life don't matter. Eventually, we all recognize that its the simple things that matter most. Love, family, and doing things that make us happy. This is what I have come to understand - that the simple choices are the ones that leaves the deepest marks.

In his book, Prime Time: How Baby Boomers Will Revolutionize Retirement and Transform America, Marc Freedman spells out his perception of a huge, aging generation engaging in social activism, volunteer activities, and lifelong learning. He feels "The boomers will not accept the old notions of later life, and retirement. They will refuse to remove themselves, go away, or put up with being taken 'out of use or circulation.' "

In the spirit of staying in circulation, being relevant is key. To determine whether you're still relevant in changing times, here are some simple questions to ask yourself

• Is there a social or familial need I can satisfy?
• Is my thinking in tune with the times?
• Do I still possess the ability to anticipate situations?
• Is my thinking reasonably dynamic and socially acceptable?
• Do I have things that I am still passionate about and keep my mind occupied?
• Are I staying in touch with things as they're changing?

If yes, we can certainly assert, "I ain’t done yet!"

I've learned that my open mind, my ability to laugh and to take risks (even when I'm scared out of my wits), and remembering that love and passion can always fuel me -- no matter what -- help keep me relevant. Being older is really no different. My body may not agree - but the heart and mind are ultimately where we're either youngsters or old, irrelevant cows alone in a pasture. I'll take the first.

In the words of Bob Dylan, "May you stay forever young. Forever young. Forever young. May you stay forever young. May you grow up to be righteous, may you grow up to be true. May you always see the light surrounding you". Check out the video - I think you'll love it!

Don Alney is a freelance travel writer and photographer, seeking the ‘forever moment.’ He has sought it in Ansel Adam’s Yosemite and in the Big Sur in California, among the foothills of the eastern Himalayas, in the mountains of Himachal Pradesh, in the awesome grandeur of Tamil Nadu’s Chola Temples, and while hanging out on the beaches of Kerala and Goa.

He was a former diving champion of New Delhi’s aquatic scene, a state level gymnast and boxer. Equipped with two Masters degrees and an Associate Fellowship from the University of Cambridge, he has taught at some of India’s oldest and finest schools. His distinguished career in education peaked with an 18+ years spell as Principal of La Martiniere College, Calcutta. However, this was also the turning point when he re-focused his sights on the grand passions of his life and, resigning from his educational commitments, moved to full-time travel writing and photography. He has not looked back since.

Born in Lucknow, India, Don Alney lives with his wife Winnie, in Calcutta.

Central Indiana screening of HBO's Alzheimer's Project

The Indiana Alzheimer Disease Center (iADC) at the Indiana University School of Medicine will host a series of screenings of HBO's Alzheimer's Project.

Following each film, iADC faculty members will be available to answer questions about Alzheimer's disease, current diagnosis, treatment and promising areas of research.

Mark your calendars now so you don't miss this opportunity.

Monday August 31, 2009
Grandpa, Do You Know Who I Am?
*This installment is geared toward children; please bring your young family members with you.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Memory Loss Tapes: Part 1

Thursday, October 22, 2009
Memory Loss Tapes: Part 2

Thursday, November 12, 2009
Caregivers

All screenings will be held from 6:30-8:30pm in the Riley Outpatient Center Auditorium, 601 West Drive, Indianapolis, IN 46202

Please feel free to attend one or all of the screenings. The program is free of charge and open to the public but registration is required as space is limited. RSVP to (317) 274-4939 or rcludy@iupui.edu.

Join us for the Indiana Pressure Ulcer Initiative Outcomes Congress

In 2007, pressure ulcers were the most frequently cited problem in Indiana's annual report from its Medical Error Reporting System. They develop when a person stays in one position for too long without shifting his or her weight, as can happen within hours in a bed or wheelchair. The pressure of body weight diminishes blood supply to the affected area, causing tissue to die. The condition and resulting infection can be painful, damaging and even fatal if left untreated.

The Initiative
Since September 2008, the Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH) and the University of Indianapolis Center for Aging & Community (CAC) have been leading a collaborative effort to help reduce the incidence of pressure ulcers in Indiana health care facilities. Join ISDH and CAC in celebrating the successes of the Indiana Pressure Ulcer Initiative at an Outcomes Congress on August 26, 2009.

For nearly one year, more than 20 partner organizations, 95 nursing homes, 40 hospitals, 27 home health and hospice agencies and a Consumer Advisory Council made up of nursing home residents, patients and family members successfully worked together to implement improved pressure ulcer care practices and increase care coordination across the continuum of health care settings.

The Initiative included:

• 12 learning sessions, 10 held regionally
• 2 statewide webinars for hospitals
• 2 statewide webinars for home health and hospice agencies
• 2 statewide teleconferences for residents and families
• Ongoing technical assistance and data collection efforts

In addition, the ISDH recently posted on its website six online learning training modules developed through the Initiative. The modules are a tremendous resource available to health care workers from any organization to access and learn the fundamentals of pressure ulcer prevention.

The Outcomes Congress
The Outcomes Congress on August 26 will include presentations by:

• Joyce Black, RN, PhD, Associate Professor, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Board of Directors, National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel
• Kathy Duncan, RN, Faculty Expert, Institute for Healthcare Improvement
• Judy Monroe, MD, FAAFP, State Health Commissioner, Indiana State Department of Health
• and Beverley Pitts, EdD, President, University of Indianapolis

The Initiative's current participating organizations will champion their successes and share their journeys through a panel discussion and storyboard displays. Everyone who attends the Congress can take advantage of opportunities for networking, collaboration and partnering to build and strengthen the climate for improved transition of care.

Registration Information
The cost to attend the Outcomes Congress is $40, which includes continental breakfast and a catered lunch. If you would like to join us on August 26 from 8:30am - 3:00pm at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, see below:

The Indiana State Department of Health is financially supporting all aspects of the Outcomes Congress with the exception of the meals. Advanced registration is required at www.congress.eventbrite.com

For a list of steering group organizations and other updates, please visit the CAC website.

Offline social networking with aging advocate Dale Carter

I'm attending the third day of the 2009 Blog Indiana conference. As I walked out of a session this morning, a woman and man walked out behind me and called my name.

Turned out it was Dale Carter and her husband Bill. Dale is the brains and the heart behind the website Transition Aging Parents.com Over lunch I learned that Dale is on a mission to connect with adult children of aging parents, helping them to navigate this phase of life with vigor and joy.

She is not a gerontologist. Dale's "expertise" in aging came the same way it comes to many people -- she is a long-distance caregiver for an elderly mother who experienced an acute crisis. Once the dust settled, Dale, at her husband's suggestion, turned to the internet to create a place where people could find resources and support for their caregiving roles, much the way many parenting websites offer help to those in the throes of raising children.

Transition Aging Parents is not just a site for emotional support. There are no forums or community boards, though Q&A is encouraged in response to articles and blog entries. Rather, the site provides concrete support by offering articles such as "Five things you need to know about geriatric care managers."

Dale has also branched out into Blog Talk Radio, where she has interviewed guests ranging from Denise Brown, founder of Caregiving.com, to Dr. William Shankle, author of "Preventing Alzheimer's (Ways to Help Prevent, Delay, Detect, and Halt Alzheimer's Disease and Other Forms of Memory Loss)." Check out Dale's Blog Talk Radio channel here.

My meet up with Dale and her husband really underscores the importance of taking social networking -- blogging, Facebook and Twitter -- offline and moving it into face to face communication whenever possible. I can't wait to see her again at the Indiana Collaborative Conference on Aging.

Could a 40-year-old have invented Twitter?

That's the question posed by social media entrepreneur and founder of Smaller Indiana Pat Coyle. In a recent post on SI, Pat -- one of the over-40 set himself (at least I think so) -- wonders:

"Even as Twitter continues its meteoric rise, many of us old foggies are having trouble conceiving why would anyone want to use such a tool? This got us wondering...is there a such a thing as a design generation? Are applications like Twitter, which flow out of young, wired brains, so radically different from what came before that those of us who think like 40 or 50 or 60 year olds simply could not have conceived them? Are these young designers simply unencumbered by the burden of historical knowledge? Are they blessed to not know what they don't know?

Could a 40-year-old have invented Twitter? "

Follow the conversation and add your two cents here.

And if you're not already one of our followers, follow All Things Aging on Twitter by clicking here.

Going gray -- or purple -- is easier with friends

Earlier this summer, someone let it slip on this blog that I was celebrating a momentous birthday. I have to say, now almost two months into it, turning 50 wasn’t so bad after all.

My group of girls from high school (we called ourselves “JELD”—Jenny, Ellen, Linda and Dori—or our full JELD names, Jennifer Joy, Ellen Excellence, Linda Love and Dorinda Dedication) decided that we would celebrate all of our 50th birthdays with a weekend together in the north woods of Wisconsin. Linda has a gorgeous cottage on Long Lake and graciously invited all of us up for this momentous occasion. We hadn’t all been together for several years, and hadn’t done a weekend together for much longer than that. (None of us could remember the year—just how hard we had laughed trying on brassieres at the Chicago Water Tower Victoria’s Secret.)

Our time together was as expected—stories of husbands, children and grandchildren; lots of “remember when...;” giggling until we had to cross our legs; and of course the requisite “let’s do something to show we are still fun, spontaneous chicks.” Tattoos seemed too permanent (and painful) and nobody was up for a piercing of some sort. We agreed that dying a small piece of our hair purple in honor of our was just the thing (our high school color was purple).

We let Dori, who works for her parish, off the hook from the bleaching part. But the rest of us—in between making a wonderful Saturday supper, stopping to dance to a good 70s tune, answering yet another text from one of our kids, and enjoying some lovely red wine—went for it, complete with garbage bag capes, aluminum foil and clothes pins.

Step 1 - Bleaching. “No really---I’m just doing a little piece.”
Step 2 - Rinsing in the kitchen sink with the sprayer.
Step 3 - Screaming, laughing and taking pictures
Step 4 - Purple dye. Luscious Lavender to be exact.
Step 5 - The second rinsing in the kitchen sink.
Step 6 - Imagining the reactions of husbands, kids, co-workers, friends and even parents.

A good night’s rest did not make it look any better. Mine was definitely the worst and most obvious. The others have long hair and their underneath piece of purple hair just kind of peeked through. My purple hair just poked right out there. No hiding this thing.

We said our goodbyes on Sunday, headed back to our real lives with promises to do this – the getting together, not the hair dying -- every other year no matter what.

The weekend was such a rejuvenating time. You just can’t replace your girlfriends and can’t explain to others how it nurtures your soul to be with women who “get you” and who have gotten you for over 35 years.

The memories of our weekend stay with me. How could they not? The wisp of purple hair makes me smile – and cringe -- every time I catch a peek of it…or catch a glimpse of someone at a business meeting wondering what that thing is in my hair. I’d explain, but I’m pretty certain that they wouldn’t get it.


Ellen Miller, PhD
Executive Director

Too old for Facebook?

As someone who is sometimes resistant to popular or trendy culture, it took me a few years before becoming one of the Facebook crowd. "Why is it all the rage?," I wondered before joining. "Isn’t it simply just another way young adults can find old high school buddies, make new friends, and maybe even find a love interest?"

Maybe not.

Not long after joining up, I heard an NPR segment regarding Facebook and the demographic of its users. According to a recent study shared in the NPR report, Facebook is no longer a “young people only” social venue. Facebook users are getting older, with the largest group of participants falling between the ages of 35-54.

But not everyone sees Facebook as an “any age goes” universal friend finder and maker. One afternoon while on my daily commute, I flipped on the radio for a little company. What I dropped in on was an intriguing conversation about Facebook. The DJ was telling the audience how Facebook was a great way to reconnect with friends and continued to tell us about a “disturbing” experience he’d had the previous evening.

My interest totally piqued, I listened on.

To my surprise, the “disturbing” Facebook experience was nothing more than the fact that the DJ had been sent a friend invite by, GASP, a 64-year old woman he did not know. What I found disturbing was the DJ’s next comment, “Who would want to be friends with a 64-year old woman? That’s disgusting!”

He even went as far to say that people 64 and older should not be allowed to participate on Facebook. Quite appalled by this blatantly ageist statement, I switched stations. This is a poignant example of our need as members of society to broaden our vision to see beyond the “young only” mind-set.

Since this experience, I have been sending friend invites to anyone and everyone I know considered to be “too old” for Facebook. Rather than discourage participation simply on the unfounded grounds of age, we need to encourage greater participation with this technology -- especially in the 64 and older crowd. For older adults, Facebook can be a great way to reconnect with friends, a way to remain connected with children and grandchildren, parents, siblings, communities and social groups. More importantly, it is a means to dissolve the monotonous isolation that many older adults can experience as they age.


Emily Austin
Emily is a graduate student in CAC's aging studies program. She lives in Jerome, Idaho.

Beyond respecting our elders

As a parent with three small-ish children, I take pretty seriously my responsibility to raise them to be good people. And, for the most part, I think my husband and I are doing a pretty good job. But a post last month by Pittsburgh Elder Care Examiner David Lindberg got me thinking about what I am teaching them about older adults.

To be sure, they are generally respectful of elders, as they are of most everyone (except for their own siblings from time to time!). But Lindberg made me wonder, am I teaching my children to appreciate older adults as well as to respect them? I think there is a difference.

To me, respecting someone means showing them kindness and courtesy simply because they are a human being. But appreciating someone means gratefully valuing what they have to offer -- whether those contributions may be in the form of skills and talents or in gifts of time and friendship.

It might mean sharing with my sports nut the stories of athletic triumph at the National Senior Games. Or making time for my daughter to learn the secrets of making peanut brittle with her Grandma when the holidays roll around. Or taking my retired-fire-chief grandfather on a tour of the fire station with my six-year-old so my little guy can appreciate not only the bright, shiny trucks, but also the stories his great-grandfather has to share.

Teaching our kids to appreciate the elderly can be as simple as reading books that drive home that message. As Lindberg notes, Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh offers a list of children's books that center on the theme of "appreciating the elderly."

I would add to that list a few favorites from my children's bookshelves:

• Dear Annie by Judith Casely
• The Secret of the Red Shoes by Joan Donaldson
• What Grandmas Do Best/What Grandpas Do Best by Laura Numeroff

Amy Magan
Communications Manager

There are no stupid questions

Helping your aging parents can be full of challenges. One of the things that has been frustrating to me lately is that my parents ask very few questions during their medical appointments.

They may ask about a symptom or about how to take a medication, but for the most part, they accept whatever their physician says as gospel. I know it is a generational thing, but as someone who has spent lots of time in health care, both as a professional and as a parent of a child with significant health issues, it still drives me nuts.

Makes me nuts that my parents don’t ask; makes me nuts that their health care providers don’t offer more information.

For example, last week Mom needed to have a procedure. The physician called my dad to tell him to call the hospital to schedule the appointment, but he didn’t explain why Mom was having the symptoms, if she would have anesthesia, how long it would take, or how much pain she might have. And Dad didn’t ask.

I can’t be unhappy with my dad. He was upset, and I guess he figured that the details didn’t make any difference. She would still have to have the procedure.

Turns out that most of their angst was for naught. The procedure only required a topical anesthesia, was reasonably painless and took only 30 minutes. They were home within a few hours.

So I have two requests. No matter what your age, ask questions. Take a notebook with you to your doctor's appointment to write down what your physician tells you. Write down any questions you might have in the same notebook so you can remember to ask them.

And, PLEASE— if you are a medical professional take the time to explain things, especially to your older patients who may be hesitant to ask questions. If you work with or are in a position of influence over healthcare providers, encourage them to do the same.

Information is known as power in the world of business, but in the real world of caregiving, it is known as being compassionate, patient, and the way to prevent much unnecessary worry.


Ellen Miller, PhD
Executive Director