Families Caring for an Aging America PDF Download

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309448093
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 367

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Book Description
Family caregiving affects millions of Americans every day, in all walks of life. At least 17.7 million individuals in the United States are caregivers of an older adult with a health or functional limitation. The nation's family caregivers provide the lion's share of long-term care for our older adult population. They are also central to older adults' access to and receipt of health care and community-based social services. Yet the need to recognize and support caregivers is among the least appreciated challenges facing the aging U.S. population. Families Caring for an Aging America examines the prevalence and nature of family caregiving of older adults and the available evidence on the effectiveness of programs, supports, and other interventions designed to support family caregivers. This report also assesses and recommends policies to address the needs of family caregivers and to minimize the barriers that they encounter in trying to meet the needs of older adults.

Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309158834
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Does a longer life mean a healthier life? The number of adults over 65 in the United States is growing, but many may not be aware that they are at greater risk from foodborne diseases and their nutritional needs change as they age. The IOM's Food Forum held a workshop October 29-30, 2009, to discuss food safety and nutrition concerns for older adults.

Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309115876
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Book Description
As the first of the nation's 78 million baby boomers begin reaching age 65 in 2011, they will face a health care workforce that is too small and woefully unprepared to meet their specific health needs. Retooling for an Aging America calls for bold initiatives starting immediately to train all health care providers in the basics of geriatric care and to prepare family members and other informal caregivers, who currently receive little or no training in how to tend to their aging loved ones. The book also recommends that Medicare, Medicaid, and other health plans pay higher rates to boost recruitment and retention of geriatric specialists and care aides. Educators and health professional groups can use Retooling for an Aging America to institute or increase formal education and training in geriatrics. Consumer groups can use the book to advocate for improving the care for older adults. Health care professional and occupational groups can use it to improve the quality of health care jobs.

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309671035
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Book Description
Social isolation and loneliness are serious yet underappreciated public health risks that affect a significant portion of the older adult population. Approximately one-quarter of community-dwelling Americans aged 65 and older are considered to be socially isolated, and a significant proportion of adults in the United States report feeling lonely. People who are 50 years of age or older are more likely to experience many of the risk factors that can cause or exacerbate social isolation or loneliness, such as living alone, the loss of family or friends, chronic illness, and sensory impairments. Over a life course, social isolation and loneliness may be episodic or chronic, depending upon an individual's circumstances and perceptions. A substantial body of evidence demonstrates that social isolation presents a major risk for premature mortality, comparable to other risk factors such as high blood pressure, smoking, or obesity. As older adults are particularly high-volume and high-frequency users of the health care system, there is an opportunity for health care professionals to identify, prevent, and mitigate the adverse health impacts of social isolation and loneliness in older adults. Social Isolation and Loneliness in Older Adults summarizes the evidence base and explores how social isolation and loneliness affect health and quality of life in adults aged 50 and older, particularly among low income, underserved, and vulnerable populations. This report makes recommendations specifically for clinical settings of health care to identify those who suffer the resultant negative health impacts of social isolation and loneliness and target interventions to improve their social conditions. Social Isolation and Loneliness in Older Adults considers clinical tools and methodologies, better education and training for the health care workforce, and dissemination and implementation that will be important for translating research into practice, especially as the evidence base for effective interventions continues to flourish.

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
Essays and interviews by Julie Winokur. It's estimated that by the middle of this century the senior citizen population of America will outnumber the population of young people for the first time in history. Chronicling this unprecedented OAP-boom, Aging in America looks at the changes confronting the States as old-age goes mainstream. Originating as an award-winning story in the New York Times Magazine, Kashi and Winokur's project soon took them all round America as they celebrated the diverse lives of the elderly.

Author: Elana D. Buch
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479807176
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
"Elana D. Buch's "Inequalities of Aging: Paradoxes of Independence in American Home Care" focuses on the topic of American home care and explores various contradictions and points of tension within the industry. It also raises awareness of the problematic inequality that exists in the American home care industry and argues for the creation of a more sustainable system."--

Author: Yohko Tsuji
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 1978819579
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
In Through Japanese Eyes, based on her thirty-year research at a senior center in upstate New York, anthropologist Yohko Tsuji describes old age in America from a cross-cultural perspective. Comparing aging in America and in her native Japan, she discovers that notable differences in the panhuman experience of aging are rooted in cultural differences between these two countries, and that Americans have strongly negative attitudes toward aging because it represents the antithesis of cherished American values, especially independence. Tsuji reveals that American culture, despite its seeming lack of guidance for those aging, plays a pivotal role in elders’ lives, simultaneously assisting and constraining them. Furthermore, the author’s lengthy period of research illustrates major changes in her interlocutors’ lives, incorporating their declines and death, and significant shifts in the culture of aging in American society as Tsuji herself gets to know American culture and grows into senescence herself. Through Japanese Eyes offers an ethnography of aging in America from a cross-cultural perspective based on a lengthy period of research. It illustrates how older Americans cope with the gap between the ideal (e.g., independence) and the real (e.g., needing assistance) of growing older, and the changes the author observed over thirty years of research.

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309175569
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
Older Americans, even the oldest, can now expect to live years longer than those who reached the same ages even a few decades ago. Although survival has improved for all racial and ethnic groups, strong differences persist, both in life expectancy and in the causes of disability and death at older ages. This book examines trends in mortality rates and selected causes of disability (cardiovascular disease, dementia) for older people of different racial and ethnic groups. The determinants of these trends and differences are also investigated, including differences in access to health care and experiences in early life, diet, health behaviors, genetic background, social class, wealth and income. Groups often neglected in analyses of national data, such as the elderly Hispanic and Asian Americans of different origin and immigrant generations, are compared. The volume provides understanding of research bearing on the health status and survival of the fastest-growing segment of the American population.

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309084342
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 569

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Book Description
Since the late 1970s when Congressman Claude Pepper held widely publicized hearings on the mistreatment of the elderly, policy makers and practitioners have sought ways to protect older Americans from physical, psychological, and financial abuse. Yet, during the last 20 years fewer than 50 articles have addressed the shameful problem that abusersâ€"and sometimes the abused themselvesâ€"want to conceal. Elder Mistreatment in an Aging America takes a giant step toward broadening our understanding of the mistreatment of the elderly and recommends specific research and funding strategies that can be used to deepen it. The book includes a discussion of the conceptual, methodological, and logistical issues needed to create a solid research base as well as the ethical concerns that must be considered when working with older subjects. It also looks at problems in determination of a report's reliability and the role of physicians, EMTs, and others who are among the first to recognize situations of mistreatment. Elder Mistreatment in an Aging America will be of interest to anyone concerned about the elderly and ways to intervene when abuse is suspected, including family members, caregivers, and advocates for the elderly. It will also be of interest to researchers, research sponsors, and policy makers who need to know how to advance our knowledge of this problem.

Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309042305
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 462

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Book Description
Health care for the elderly American is among our nation's more pressing social issues. Our society wishes to ensure quality health care for all older people, but there is growing concern about our ability to maintain and improve quality in the face of efforts to contain health care costs. Medicare: A Strategy for Quality Assurance answers the U.S. Congress' call for the Institute of Medicine to design a strategic plan for assessing and assuring the quality of medical care for the elderly. This book presents a proposed strategic plan for improving quality assurance in the Medicare program, along with steps and timetables for implementing the plan by the year 2000 and the 10 recommendations for action by Congress. The book explores quality of careâ€"how it is defined, measured, and improvedâ€"and reviews different types of quality problems. Major issues that affect approaches to assessing and assuring quality are examined. Medicare: A Strategy for Quality Assurance will be immediately useful to a wide audience, including policymakers, health administrators, individual providers, specialists in issues of the older American, researchers, educators, and students.