Conducting Wellness Groups for Veterans and Older Adults: The Legacy Model offers an innovative wellness group model for mental health practitioners. Two curricula developed by the authors are explored, the Process-Focused Legacy Group curriculum for members who are high functioning and motivated adults, and the Activity-Based Legacy Group curriculum tailored for persons with disabilities and/or cognitive impairments. Detailed steps, prompts, and legacy activities are provided for each stage for both curriculum formats. This book provides clinical examples from the facilitator’s group experiences using the Legacy Model. The appendices provide further detailed resource materials that include descriptions of potential legacy projects and a vast assortment of legacy activities. This book is essential for mental health practitioners: mental health counselors, marriage and family therapists, social workers, and psychologists interested in conducting Legacy Groups with veterans and older adults.
Approximately 4 million U.S. service members took part in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Shortly after troops started returning from their deployments, some active-duty service members and veterans began experiencing mental health problems. Given the stressors associated with war, it is not surprising that some service members developed such mental health conditions as posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, and substance use disorder. Subsequent epidemiologic studies conducted on military and veteran populations that served in the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq provided scientific evidence that those who fought were in fact being diagnosed with mental illnesses and experiencing mental healthâ€"related outcomesâ€"in particular, suicideâ€"at a higher rate than the general population. This report provides a comprehensive assessment of the quality, capacity, and access to mental health care services for veterans who served in the Armed Forces in Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation New Dawn. It includes an analysis of not only the quality and capacity of mental health care services within the Department of Veterans Affairs, but also barriers faced by patients in utilizing those services.
How Change Happens in Equine-Assisted Interventions gives clinicians and researchers an intervention theory on the mechanisms of change during psychotherapy and other interventions that incorporate horses. Chapters introduce the concept of intervention theory, present a theory of the problem (what the client comes with), theories explaining the intervention (what is done during a session), and theories of change (what happens in the mind of a client), with each theory’s function described. Using an autoethnographic approach, the authors describe, deconstruct, and analyze personal experiences as clients during an equine-assisted intervention. Then the authors present and apply a unique intervention theory by linking it to the thoughts and experiences of clients in and after a session. Practitioners will come away from this book with a unique perspective on the field and with an increased understanding of what their clients are thinking both in and out of session. Researchers will have an explanatory theory from which to draw testable hypotheses when studying interventions incorporating horses.
At least 5.6 million to 8 million-nearly one in five-older adults in America have one or more mental health and substance use conditions, which present unique challenges for their care. With the number of adults age 65 and older projected to soar from 40.3 million in 2010 to 72.1 million by 2030, the aging of America holds profound consequences for the nation. For decades, policymakers have been warned that the nation's health care workforce is ill-equipped to care for a rapidly growing and increasingly diverse population. In the specific disciplines of mental health and substance use, there have been similar warnings about serious workforce shortages, insufficient workforce diversity, and lack of basic competence and core knowledge in key areas. Following its 2008 report highlighting the urgency of expanding and strengthening the geriatric health care workforce, the IOM was asked by the Department of Health and Human Services to undertake a complementary study on the geriatric mental health and substance use workforce. The Mental Health and Substance Use Workforce for Older Adults: In Whose Hands? assesses the needs of this population and the workforce that serves it. The breadth and magnitude of inadequate workforce training and personnel shortages have grown to such proportions, says the committee, that no single approach, nor a few isolated changes in disparate federal agencies or programs, can adequately address the issue. Overcoming these challenges will require focused and coordinated action by all.
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.
This four-volume set provides a history of veterans' healthcare that examines programs of care and veterans' special needs, and offers insight into future directions for veteran's healthcare in the 21st century. This comprehensive contribution to understanding veterans' healthcare uniquely draws on a national and international cadre of scientists and practitioners, both within the Department of Veterans Affairs and specialists beyond the institution, providing a matrix view of veterans' healthcare, past, present, and future, both nationally and internationally. This work will prove an essential reference set that examines and identifies veterans' healthcare through the first decade of the 21st century, invaluable to health and psychology researchers and students, policymakers, social workers, and veterans. The Praeger Handbook of Veterans' Health: History, Challenges, Issues, and Developments is organized to cover four key elements. Volume I presents a history of veterans' healthcare, the various veteran's eras, and the global healthcare provided to our veterans. Volume II examines several of the programs of care and veterans' special needs. Volume III is devoted to the several aspects of mental health care, treatment, and rehabilitation services offered to veterans through the healthcare system. The last volume offers insights into future directions for veterans' healthcare.
Publisher's Note: Products purchased from 3rd Party sellers are not guaranteed by the Publisher for quality, authenticity, or access to any online entitlements included with the product. This text covers the theory and practice of wellness–oriented gerontological nursing, addressing both physiologic and psychosocial aspects of aging. Organized around the author’s unique Functional Consequences Theory, the book explores age-related changes as well as the risk factors that often interfere with optimal health and functioning. Key features include: NEW! Technology to Promote Wellness in Older Adults boxes describe examples of technology-based interventions that can be effective for promoting wellness for older adults. NEW! Interprofessional Collaboration (IPC) material, which is found in boxes or is highlighted with orange bars in the margins, indicates the responsibilities of nurses to collaborate with other professionals and paraprofessionals in health care and community-based settings when caring for older adults. NEW! Global Perspective boxes provide examples of the various ways in which health care professionals in other countries provide care for older adults. NEW! Unfolding Patient Stories, written by the National League for Nursing, are an engaging way to begin meaningful conversations in the classroom. These vignettes, which open each unit, feature patients from Wolters Kluwer’s vSim for Nursing | Gerontology (co-developed with Laerdal Medical) and DocuCare products; however, each Unfolding Patient Story in the book stands alone, not requiring purchase of these products. For your convenience, a list of these case studies, along with their location in the book, appears in the “Case Studies in This Book” section later in this frontmatter. NEW! Transitional Care Unfolding Case Studies, which unfold across Chapters 27 through 29, to illustrate ways in which nurses can provide effective transitional care to an older adult whose progressively worsening condition requires that her needs be met in several settings. For your convenience, a list of these case studies, along with their location in the book, appears in the “Case Studies in This Book” section later in this frontmatter. Updated unfolding case studies illustrate common experiences of older adults as they progress from young-old to old-old and are affected by combinations of age-related changes and risk factors. Evidence-based information is threaded through the content and summarized in boxes in clinically oriented chapters. Assessment and intervention guidelines help nurses identify and address factors that affect the functioning and quality of life of older adults. Nursing interventions focus on teaching older adults and their caregivers about actions they can take to promote wellness. Case studies include content on transitional care, interprofessional collaboration, and QSEN!
