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September resource fairs will offer information about services for vulnerable adults, and celebrate dedicated advocates with a community service award. There will be fairs in three communities this year, the third year that Alaska’s Adult Protective Services has held the event. All the fairs will be from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sept. 5 Anchorage BP Energy Center Sept. 19 Fairbanks Noel Wien Public Library Sept. 25 Juneau Mendenhall Mall & Library. The Juneau event will be broadcast by video conference to Cordova, Haines, Wrangell, Sitka, Hoonah a...
The Anchorage Senior Citizens Advisory Commission, as part of its Senior Needs Assessment, is hosting a forum to dialogue with interested community members and providers serving seniors about emerging and future trends vital to community health and behavioral health care for the elderly. Please join us! The forum will be held Wednesday, September 24 from 10 a.m. to noon at the Anchorage Public Library, Wilda Marston Auditorium. A panel of medical providers will be given five minutes to offer an overview presentation of how their organization...
Discussing aging issues, such as living arrangements, finances, dating, end-of-life decisions and driving, early and often can save families years of heartache, tension and even legal battles. Yet, research indicates that about two-thirds of American families put off these conversations, either because they are uncomfortable with the topics or they just don’t know where to start. Statistics show that 34 percent of adults surveyed are conversation avoiders. That is, they haven’t talked about any important end-of-life issues with their par...
Doctors often prescribe statins for people with high cholesterol to lower their total cholesterol and reduce their risk of a heart attack or stroke. The dangers of statins often seem to be brushed aside. Most people taking statins will take them for the rest of their lives unless they reach normal cholesterol levels through diet, exercise, weight loss and nutritional supplements. This can make statin side effects more difficult to manage. For some people, statin side effects can make any benefit of taking a statin hardly worth it. Now,...
Alaska Health Fairs, Inc. kicks off its fall series of health fair around the state this month, featuring free health screenings and education, low cost blood tests and more. These tests can help you learn about your health and detect potential problems early, when treatment or changes in personal habits can be most effective. The test results give you and your health care provider important information about your physical condition and vital organ functions. A complete and comprehensive chemistry/hematology test is available for only $45 and...
You may be able to take fewer medicines and pay less for the ones you do take by simply asking questions. Many people figure they are prescribed a medication for a good reason, and don’t ask why. But sometimes there’s another option — some conditions can be controlled through diet and exercise, for example. You can hear from a real, live Alaskan who whittled his prescriptions down substantially by asking what they were all for at MedEd.Alaska.gov (Success Stories video #2). Questions for your pr...
I hope you said happy birthday to Social Security, which had its 79th birthday on Aug. 14. In a 1938 article, the director of the Bureau of Old-Age Insurance described the challenges faced by the Social Security program in registering workers and posting wages to get the program started. On the heels of the 49th anniversary of the signing of Medicare and Medicaid into law, CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) projected that the average premium for basic Part D Medicare Prescription...
Medicare provides vital health insurance for 50 million seniors and people with disabilities. But even when you have Medicare, health care is not free. People with Medicare pay premiums and have other costs that they pay out of pocket, like deductibles and co-insurance. For lower-income people, these costs can be overwhelming. There are several programs that help low-income people with Medicare pay their health care costs – but many Medicare beneficiaries don’t know about these programs. Let’s see if we can shed some light on them. Why might...
Stroke rates decreasing in older adults A new analysis has found that there has been a 40 percent decrease in the incidence of stroke in adults over the age of 65. The decline is much greater than researchers had expected and the decline occurred in both ischemic and hemorrhagic strokes. In addition, deaths due to strokes are also steadily declining in older adults. Stroke is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States, with approximately 795,000 strokes occurring each year. In the...
The Kenai Peninsula Family Caregiver Support Program will hold the following peer support meetings in September. This month’s theme is “Healthy Aging Awareness Month”. Sept. 2, Caregiver support meeting at Sterling Senior Center, 1 p.m. Sept. 9, Caregiver support meeting at Soldotna Senior Center, 1 p.m. Sept. 16, Caregiver support meeting at Kenai Senior Center, 1 p.m. Sept. 30, Caregiver support meeting at Soldotna Senior Center, 1 p.m. Enjoy “Teatime with Judy”. Please join and share your experiences as a caregiver, or support someone w...
Providence Seward Mountain Haven (PSMH) is a long-term care facility tucked away in the trees on the side of a mountain in Seward. I had the opportunity to visit Alaska Native Elders living there on two recent occasions and prepare traditional lunches for them. The staff purchased salmon, vegetables, berries and bread dough and we prepared the food on-site. I chopped vegetables for salmon soup, which included cubed salmon, carrots, celery, onions and rice with salt and a little bit of pepper. Wh...
In April I challenged the Parnell administration to explain to the public the steps it has taken to fix Alaska’s Medicaid reimbursement system. This system compensates health care providers (i.e., hospitals, clinics, physicians, therapists, etc.) for the services they provide to the needy. The Parnell administration has taken three years to develop its new reimbursement system which it finally brought online last October. Ironically as Governor Parnell railed against the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, his own system utterly f...
Bipartisanship has surfaced, at least briefly, on Capitol Hill. More than 130 lawmakers, from both parties, are urging the Obama Administration to expand coverage for a lung-cancer test under Medicare – screening they see as vital for vulnerable seniors. But the decision could cost Medicare billions of dollars. In a letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the lawmakers called for a timely decision on coverage for low-dose CT scans for older patients at higher risk of d...
If your goal is to maintain good health, hightail it down to your local farmers market and try a selection from nature’s medicine chest. Rarely does a week go by without new research showing that the vitamins and minerals and many bioactive compounds in foods provide real medicine for what ails you. Despite Alaska’s relatively short growing season and cool climate, I am constantly astonished by the variety of high nutrient vegetables and fruits that grow locally. Here are a few Alaska “powerhouse” vegetables and fruits you may want to stock u...
The Third Annual Alaskan Plants as Food and Medicine Symposium will take place in the Anchorage area August 7-9. The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium sponsors the event and says they strive for a statewide reach and encourage participation from a diverse range of community roles – traditional healers, medical providers, public health educators and researchers, instructors, culture/language bearers, elders and youth, tribal leaders, traditional hunter/gatherers, policy makers and lands m...
So who would you consider the most important member of your health care team? Your primary care doctor? Your specialist? Your pharmacist? In a crucial way, you are the most important member of your health care team. No one but you knows how many medications you take, or what side effects you’re experiencing. Many of us expect our doctors to be the experts in charge of our health care. They are experts, but on medicine, not on each of their individual patients’ lives. More than one provider may...
To my wonderful readers, I must inform you that I may have to reboot my computer for nearly the last time, as I tell you about the inadvertent errors I made in my last column. It must have been a looong senior moment because I mistakenly used last year’s Medicare Deductible for Part B (hospitalization) which was $1,184 for 2013, and is now, $1,216 for 2014, and will probably change again in 2015, as it usually does every year. Also you can use the Medicare Easy Pay option, by getting form SF-551...
The Medicare Information Office is pleased to announce that the first volunteer has completed the Senior Medicare Patrol (SMP) Foundations Training and the Group Presentation Training. Ms. Sharon White-Wheeler has recently completed both preparatory trainings. This puts the SMP on track to begin offering the Medicare Minutes program starting this fall. The Medicare Minutes program is intended to help the Senior Medicare Patrol reach people under the age of 65 with Medicare with good information...
Registration is open for Alaska’s first-ever “VegFest,” a day-long event Sept. 6 in Anchorage focusing on vegetarian and vegan lifestyle choices. Activities include keynote presentations by three internationally known authors, cooking demonstrations and an organic lunch provided by Organic Oasis (included with cost of registration). Organizers say similar events are popular in other parts of the country. “As people become more health conscious, as awareness grows of the meat industry’s addition to greenhouse gases, and as the plight of farm a...
Brain implants may help restore memory loss Treatments for Alzheimer’s disease are severely lacking. Despite more than three decades of intense research and clinical trials, the only approved agents simply slow the progression of the disease. No agents have been able to reverse the damage caused by the disease. Now, researchers are taking a completely different approach. They are developing an implantable neural device to restore memory. Brain experts at the Lawrence Livermore National L...
The Kenai Peninsula Family Caregiver Support Program will hold the following peer support meetings in August. This month’s topic is “Immunizations for Older Adults.” Aug. 5, Caregiver support meeting at Sterling Senior Center, 1 p.m. Aug. 12, Caregiver support meeting at Soldotna Senior Center, 1 p.m. Aug. 19, Caregiver support meeting at Kenai Senior Center, 1 p.m. Aug. 26, Caregiver support meeting at Soldotna Senior Center, 1 p.m. Please join and share your experiences as a caregiver, or support someone who is a caregiver. If you are helpi...
In the last 30 days, the Ombudsman has received five complaints that seniors are being threatened with involuntary discharge from their assisted living homes. This is often a terrifying prospect to a frail senior who doesn’t have the energy or mental capacity to fight for the right to stay in the home. So this month’s column will consider the rights that residents have under state law. As one canny senior said to me, “I know they can’t just kick me to the curb.” First off, I hope that anyone wo...
The Alaska Commission on Aging will hold its quarterly meeting September 15 - 18 in Fairbanks. In addition to the usual business meeting and updates from senior service agencies, commissioners will attend site visits to local senior housing facilities, health care providers in and around the Fairbanks area on Sept. 17. There also will be an Elder-Senior Community Forum, to help assess activities and needs related to the Alaska State Plan for Senior Services, FY2016-2019. More information will be available on the commission’s website at w...
Dear Jonathan: What does it mean to have died intestate? Jonathan says: This simply means that a person died without making a last will and testament. If a person makes a last will and testament, then they will be deemed as having died testate. Dear Jonathan: What happens if the person appointed as agent under a power of attorney refuses to act and the person who made out the power of attorney now has dementia? Jonathan says: If there is no alternate agent named, the power of attorney will be ineffective and cannot be used. Consequently,...
"This is the heart of Sitka for so many seniors." Anita VanDyck shared this with me as she was busy serving desserts, fresh fruit cups, to several tables at Swan Lake Senior Center for the Friday noon meal. Anita is a longtime volunteer there. Fridays are Bingo days at the center and site manager Sandi Koval had assured me there would be quite a crowd. About 40 people had gathered there on a bleak, damp Sitka day, but inside there was sunshine. The minute I entered, I felt welcomed, almost as...
