"Long-term Caring has been updated throughout and addresses the requirements of the National Aged Care Training Package for students undertaking the Certificate III in Aged Care. Written by leading educators and practitioners from Australia and New Zealand, the text provides information on all aspects of personal caring to prepare students for work in a range of aged care settings. The focus is on the delivery of long-term care that complements an individual's needs and enhances quality of life." --Back cover.
The number of elderly and disabled adults who require assistance with day-to-day activities is expected to double over the next twenty-five years. As a result, direct care workers such as home care aides and certified nursing assistants (CNAs) will become essential to many more families. Yet these workers tend to be low-paid, poorly trained, and receive little respect. Is such a workforce capable of addressing the needs of our aging population? In Who Will Care for Us? economist Paul Osterman assesses the challenges facing the long-term care industry. He presents an innovative policy agenda that reconceives direct care workers’ work roles and would improve both the quality of their jobs and the quality of elder care. Using national surveys, administrative data, and nearly 120 original interviews with workers, employers, advocates, and policymakers, Osterman finds that direct care workers are marginalized and often invisible in the health care system. While doctors and families alike agree that good home care aides and CNAs are crucial to the well-being of their patients, the workers report poverty-level wages, erratic schedules, exclusion from care teams, and frequent incidences of physical injury on the job. Direct care workers are also highly constrained by policies that specify what they are allowed to do on the job, and in some states are even prevented from simple tasks such as administering eye drops. Osterman concludes that broadening the scope of care workers’ duties will simultaneously boost the quality of care for patients and lead to better jobs and higher wages. He proposes integrating home care aides and CNAs into larger medical teams and training them as “health coaches” who educate patients on concerns such as managing chronic conditions and transitioning out of hospitals. Osterman shows that restructuring direct care workers’ jobs, and providing the appropriate training, could lower health spending in the long term by reducing unnecessary emergency room and hospital visits, limiting the use of nursing homes, and lowering the rate of turnover among care workers. As the Baby Boom generation ages, Who Will Care for Us? demonstrates the importance of restructuring the long-term care industry and establishing a new relationship between direct care workers, patients, and the medical system.
Among the issues confronting America is long-term care for frail, older persons and others with chronic conditions and functional limitations that limit their ability to care for themselves. Improving the Quality of Long-Term Care takes a comprehensive look at the quality of care and quality of life in long-term care, including nursing homes, home health agencies, residential care facilities, family members and a variety of others. This book describes the current state of long-term care, identifying problem areas and offering recommendations for federal and state policymakers. Who uses long-term care? How have the characteristics of this population changed over time? What paths do people follow in long term care? The committee provides the latest information on these and other key questions. This book explores strengths and limitations of available data and research literature especially for settings other than nursing homes, on methods to measure, oversee, and improve the quality of long-term care. The committee makes recommendations on setting and enforcing standards of care, strengthening the caregiving workforce, reimbursement issues, and expanding the knowledge base to guide organizational and individual caregivers in improving the quality of care.
Binstock Ethical Issues in Long-Term Care Nancy Neveloff Dubler American Culture and Long-Term Care Otto von Mering Forecasting the Future of Long-Term Care Dennis L. Kodner
"Population aging is challenging countries around the globe to adapt their public policy responses to the new world. Long-term care is a relevant topic today both because of the rapid growth in long-term care needs in every country and the lack of responses from governments. The Future of Long-term Care explores some issues related to the implementation of long-term care responses in different countries. Looking at six different cases, the book highlights the need to foster an urgent debate in the area, as well as emphasizing the need for action in the coming years. The examples analyzed show common problems faced by countries trying to respond to their people's needs, as well as the dissimilar stages, contexts, and paths followed by each one in the endeavour for providing long-term care services to the population. Whether the analysis is carried out in countries with well-established long-term care systems or in places where the debate is just starting, the book proves that this is an area in which many challenges remain. Learning lessons from others is important but providing a space for countries to frame their problems and propose their solutions is crucial. This book contributes to fill this gap and contribute to a debate that is just starting in many places around the world"--
Long-term care in the United States has taken the nursing home as its benchmark, but the monetary, social, and psychological costs of nursing home care are all too high. This book challenges the current dominance of nursing homes as the principal institution of long-term care. It offers a series of alternative models where both services and housing can be provided in a way that allows long-term consumers to enjoy dignified, "normal" lifestyles. It addresses the political and economic consequences of making this decision. The authors start with the premise that long-term care is designed to assist people who lack the capacity to function fully independently. They argue that no disabled person of any age should be required to forsake his/her humanity in exchange for care. The book rejects the artificial dichotomy between social and medical care, asserting that both play important roles in psychological and physical well-being of long-term care patients. The authors consider the need for competent and compassionate medicine and discuss the methods for improving both its coordination of care and its effectiveness. The book redefines the meaning of safety and protection in long-term care, and how this goal can be accomplished without sacrificing quality of living. As the new millennium and the aging of baby boomers approaches, more creative approaches to providing better long-term care are required. This volume outlines a useful framework for the provision of effective and humane community-based programs that are both feasible and affordable. It will be an invaluable guide for geriatricians, public health professionals, family physicians, nurses and others who care for elderly patients.
"This book is a very welcome tool, which will enable health professionals to understand the complexity, challenge and rewards of proactively managing long-term conditions. Putting this knowledge into skilled practice, in partnership with patients, will transform the lives of many individuals and their families, and thus fulfil the fundamental purpose of nursing." —From the Foreword by Professor Rosemary Cook CBE, Director, the Queen's Nursing Institute and Visiting Professor of Enterprise, University of Northumbria Long-Term Conditions is a comprehensive, practical guide for nurses and healthcare professionals on the care and management of people with chronic illness. It explores case management, individual care and management, the role of the 'expert patient', quality-of-life issues, counselling skills, self-management, and optimum self-care. Long-Term Conditions discusses the three main long-term conditions currently resulting in most hospital admissions: diabetes, respiratory, and coronary heart disease, with a focus on empowering the patient to self-manage. Key Features: A comprehensive guide to the care and management of long-term conditions Focuses on the management of the conditions from the patients' perspective Practical and accessible in style
Developing Holistic Care for Long-term Conditions focuses on how to help people with long-term health conditions cope more effectively. It brings together physical and mental health, offering a holistic approach for students and practitioners in a variety of care settings. Comprising four sections, this text introduces the policy and background to caring for people with chronic illness as well as the psychosocial impact of long-term conditions. Essential skills for practice are explored including holistic assessment, symptom control and the promotion of effective partnership between client and carer in supporting coping, recovery and end of life care. There is an emphasis on maximising individual health potential and resilience with the role of nutrition, exercise, complementary therapy and spirituality considered. The focus is on client centred care which addresses the whole person, mind and body. The extensive final section presents examples of key health issues where UK national guidelines have been published including: Long-term neurological conditions Diabetes Mental health Cancer Coronary heart disease Older people This evidence-based book takes note of the relevant National Service Frameworks and offers an informative and pragmatic guide for all those learning about caring for the chronically ill, as well as providing a useful reference work for qualified nurses and allied health professionals.
Long-term care can be vexing on a personal as well as social level, and it will only grow more so as individuals continue to live longer and the population of aged persons increases in the United States and around the world. This volume explores the ethical issues surrounding elder care from an ecological perspective to propose a new theory of global justice for long-term care. Care work is organized not just nationally, as much current debate suggests, but also transnationally, through economic, labor, immigration, and health policies established by governments, international lending bodies, and for-profit entities. Taking an epistemological approach termed “ecological knowing,” Lisa A. Eckenwiler examines this organizational structure to show how it creates and sustains injustice against the dependent elderly and those who care for them, including a growing number of migrant care workers, and how it weakens the capacities of so-called source countries and their health care systems. By focusing on the fact that a range of policies, people, and places are interrelated and mutually dependent, Eckenwiler is able not only to provide a holistic understanding of the way long-term care works to generate injustice but also to find ethical and practicable policy solutions for caring for aging populations in the United States and in less well-off parts of the world. Deeply considered and empirically informed, this examination of the troubles in transnational long-term care is the first to probe the issue from a perspective that reckons with the interdependence of policies, people, and places, and the first to recommend ways policymakers, planners, and families can together develop cohesive, coherent long-term care policies around the ideal of justice.
Long-Term Care Medicine: A Pocket Guide lessens the uncertainty involved in caring for patients in a long-term care facility. This practical pocket guide is divided into four sections: Introduction, Common Clinical Conditions, Psychosocial Aspects, and Special Issues in Long-Term Care. The chapters address all the varied components of the LTC system as well as how to take care of the patients and residents living within it. The contributors to this easy-to-read guide are passionate about LTC and many have worked within the American Medical Directors Association to create and disseminate a knowledge base for practitioners. Long-Term Care Medicine: A Pocket Guide is an invaluable resource for clinicians, practitioners, and educators who are seeking to optimize the care and living experience of residents in LTC by providing resident-centered care as well as resident choice, well-being, dignity, and an improved quality of life.
