Nursing home residents-Residents Rights Month

Activities directors and other healthcare professionals here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professinals.Benevolant Society

Here is information on being the best caregiver you can be


Here is a way for nurses administrators, social workers and other health care  professionals to get an easyceu or two




Follow alzheimersideas on twitter

Theconsumervoice.org

Residents' Rights

Residents' Rights Overview

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Residents’ Rights are guaranteed by the federal 1987 Nursing Home Reform Law. The law requires nursing homes to “promote and protect the rights of each resident” and places a strong emphasis on individual dignity and self-determination. Nursing homes must meet federal residents' rights requirements if they participate in Medicare or Medicaid. Some states have residents' rights in state law or regulation for nursing homes, licensed assisted living, adult care homes, and other board and care facilities. A person living in a long-term care facility maintains the same rights as an individual in the larger community.
View a Consumer Voice fact sheet on Residents' Rights.
Select on a below link to learn more about Residents' Rights.

• What are Residents' Rights?
• Residents' Rights in Other Languages
• National Residents' Rights Month
• Previous Residents' Rights Celebrations

What are Residents' Rights?

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Residents' Rights Guarantee Quality of Life
The 1987 Nursing Home Reform Law requires each nursing home to care for its residents in a manner that promotes and enhances the quality of life of each resident, ensuring dignity, choice, and self-determination.
All nursing homes are required "to provide services and activities to attain or maintain the highest practicable physical, mental, and psychosocial well-being of each resident in accordance with a written plan of care that… is initially prepared, with participation, to the extent practicable, of the resident, the resident's family, or legal representative." This means a resident should not decline in health or well-being as a result of the way a nursing facility provides care.
The 1987 Nursing Home Reform Law protects the following rights of nursing home residents:
The Right to Be Fully Informed of

• Available services and the charges for each service
• Facility rules and regulations, including a written copy of resident rights
• Address and telephone number of the State Ombudsman and state survey agency
• State survey reports and the nursing home’s plan of correction
• Advance plans of a change in rooms or roommates
• Assistance if a sensory impairment exists
• Residents have a right to receive information in a language they understand (Spanish, Braille, etc.)

Right to Complain

• Present grievances to staff or any other person, without fear of reprisal and with prompt efforts by the facility to resolve those grievances
• To complain to the ombudsman program
• To file a complaint with the state survey and certification agency

Right to Participate in One's Own Care

• Receive adequate and appropriate care
• Be informed of all changes in medical condition
• Participate in their own assessment, care-planning, treatment, and discharge
• Refuse medication and treatment
• Refuse chemical and physical restraints
• Review one's medical record
• Be free from charge for services covered by Medicaid or Medicare

Right to Privacy and Confidentiality

• Private and unrestricted communication with any person of their choice
• During treatment and care of one's personal needs
• Regarding medical, personal, or financial affairs

Rights During Transfers and Discharges

• Remain in the nursing facility unless a transfer or discharge:
• (a) is necessary to meet the resident’s welfare;
• (b) is appropriate because the resident’s health has improved and s/he no longer requires nursing home care;
• (c) is needed to protect the health and safety of other residents or staff;
• (d) is required because the resident has failed, after reasonable notice, to pay the facility charge for an item or service provided at the resident’s request
• Receive thirty-day notice of transfer or discharge which includes the reason, effective date, location to which the resident is transferred or discharged, the right to appeal, and the name, address, and telephone number of the state long-term care ombudsman
• Safe transfer or discharge through sufficient preparation by the nursing home

Right to Dignity, Respect, and Freedom

• To be treated with consideration, respect, and dignity
• To be free from mental and physical abuse, corporal punishment, involuntary seclusion, and physical and chemical restraints
• To self-determination
• Security of possessions

Right to Visits

• By a resident’s personal physician and representatives from the state survey agency and ombudsman programs
• By relatives, friends, and others of the residents' choosing
• By organizations or individuals providing health, social, legal, or other services
• Residents have the right to refuse visitors

Right to Make Independent Choices

• Make personal decisions, such as what to wear and how to spend free time
• Reasonable accommodation of one's needs and preferences
• Choose a physician
• Participate in community activities, both inside and outside the nursing home
• Organize and participate in a Resident Council
• Manage one's own financial affairs

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Residents' Rights in Other Languages

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The Center is pleased offer Residents' Rights in the following languages, English, French, Hindu, Korean (Illinois specific, not federal version) and Spanish. Select on the links below to access each version.

If you have a copy of Residents' Rights in a language not listed here and would like to share it with NORC, contact Becka Livesay, program associate, at rlivesay@theconsumervoice.org. Thank you!

• English
• French
• Hindu
• Korean (Illinois specific, not federal version)
• Spanish

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National Residents' Rights Month 2012

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Book quotes for National Author's Day

Here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professionals,

Your residents will love the Amazon Kindle Fire

Here is information on being the best caregiver you can be

Here is a way for nurses administrators, social workers and other health care  professionals to get an easyceu or two

Follow alzheimersideas on twitter

The Dementia Caregiver's Little Book of Hope [Kindle Edition]

Book Quotes

National Author's Day is coming.Be prepared with these book quotes.

The worth of a book is to be measured by what you can carry away from it. -James Bryce

Anyone who says they have only one life to live must not know how to read a book. -Unknown

There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and a tired man who wants a book to read. -G.K. Chesterton

Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers. -Charles W. Eliot

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them. -Mark Twain

Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own. -William Hazlitt

My test of a good novel is dreading to begin the last chapter. -Thomas Helm

The books which help you most are those which make you think most.  The hardest way of learning is by easy reading; but a great book that comes from a great thinker is a ship of thought, deep freighted with truth and beauty. -Theodore Parker

You know you’ve read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend. -Paul Sweeney

A book must be an ice-axe to break the seas frozen inside our soul. -Franz Kafka

Books are dangerous.  The best ones should be labeled “This could change your life.” -Helen Exley

Books are the glass of council to dress ourselves by. -Bulstrode Whitlock

Nothing is worth reading that does not require an alert mind. -Charles Dudley

To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting. -Edmund Burke

Books open your mind, broaden your mind, and strengthen you as nothing else can. -William Feather

A well-composed book is a magic carpet on which we are wafted to a world that we cannot enter in any other way. -Caroline Gordon

People get nothing out of books but what they bring to them. -George Bernard Shaw

Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations. -Henry David Thoreau

Books give not wisdom where none was before. But where some is, there reading makes it more. -Elizabeth Hardwick

Books are for people who wish they were somewhere else. -Mark Twain

Any thoughts about book quotes…or just thoughts about books?  Please share in the comment section below.   

Wear purple tomorrow

Here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professionals,

Your residents will love the Amazon Kindle Fire

Here is information on being the best caregiver you can be

Here is a way for nurses administrators, social workers and other health care  professionals to get an easyceu or two

Follow alzheimersideas on twitter

The Dementia Caregiver's Little Book of Hope [Kindle Edition]

Alzheimer's Association

This week, show your support of the fight against Alzheimer’s disease by going purple! Friday is Alzheimer’s Action Day, an opportunity to support the Alzheimer’s Association^® and help raise awareness of this devastating disease during World Alzheimer’s Month.

On Sept. 21, wear purple, the color of the Alzheimer’s movement, to honor the more than 5 million Americans living with Alzheimer’s disease and the millions more who care for them. Here are some ways you can go purple and take action:

Wear your support!  Pull out your purple and wear it with pride. Need more gear? • Check out our shirts, wrist bands and other purple items at Shop for a Cause. • This month, CJ Free is proud to introduce a limited edition bracelet to benefit the Alzheimer’s Association. In recognition of World Alzheimer’s Month, 20% of the sales price of bracelets sold from now until September 30 will benefit the Association.

Make a winning bid!  Take part in two eBay auctions running through Sept. 27 to benefit the Alzheimer’s Association: • Win a guitar signed by legendary singer Glen Campbell - now touring the country - who is living with Alzheimer’s disease. • Meet Celebrity Champion Seth Rogen as a VIP guest at the "Hilarity for Charity" fundraising event next spring.

In addition, eBay will feature the Alzheimer’s Association from September 17-23, and users will have the option to donate $1 or more at checkout to the Alzheimer’s Association when buying and selling on eBay.

Watch “Who Wants to be a Millionaire!” Watch the week of Sept. 17 to see contestants compete on behalf of the Alzheimer’s Association. Spread the word and ask your friends and family to tune in.

Share on social media! Talk about World Alzheimer’s Month and Alzheimer’s Action Day on your social networks. Turn Facebook purple by changing your profile picture to our END ALZ icon. And become a fan of the Alzheimer’s Association on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and join our community board on Pinterest.

Raise awareness! Because of misinformation or confusion, some people may hold those with Alzheimer’s disease and their families at arm’s length. But by educating others about the reality of Alzheimer’s, we can dispel the misconceptions. Speak up and tell others why you support the cause.

Become an enrolled agent for the IRS

Activity director, health care and other professionals, have you considered a career or a part time job to supplement your income?

You can become a tax preparer, or an enrolled agent. In order to become an enrolled agent you must take an exam with multiple portions. To learn all this information on your own can be a difficult task. Why not use the enrolled agent exam preparation. It is well worth the money. After you pass the exam, you will need to maintain your certification. In order to maintain this certification with the IRS, you must take continuing education courses.

There are enrolled agent continuing education requirements that you must meet so consider entering into this professional area carefully. The IRS requires that you have a minimum of 16 continuing professional education hours a year or 72 hours every three years.

When fulfilling these requirements for the enrolled agent continuing education, you want to be able to have flexibility and financially affordable options especially if you want to take a significant number of courses.

Of course each course must meet certain standards. Thus you as an enrolled agent want to learn new information in an easy to understand format. You want to be able to see what information will be covered before you have to pay for it and you want to see how you are progressing in your quest to fulfill all the requirements.

A great way to supplement your income

Activities directors, healthcare professionals and others looking to supplement their income or move into a new career.

Let’s face it. The healthcare industry is extremely taxing on you mentally and possibly physically. While the rewards can be personally satisfying, the reality is you may not be making enough to pay your bills.

If you want to keep your hands in the healthcare industry and branch out into another area to provide you with some extra income, consider energy auditor training. What is energy auditor training you ask.

Simply put, it is becoming an energy efficiency expert. Some people call this grren training r becoming a green energy expert. You have experience in being an expert in the healthcare field you are in. Now you can get your resnet certification.

You could also learn about renewal energy. This is what everyone wants these days. Yes you can become a green energy expert with your green certification.

It will not take you that much time. You can learn around your schedule and you will have a great income source when you are done.

More about activities and dementia

Activities directors, caregivers, and healthcare professionals,here is some great information

Here is a great dementia resource for caregivers and healthcare professionals,

Your residents will love the Amazon Kindle Fire

Here is information on being the best caregiver you can be


Here is a way for nurses administrators, social workers and other health care  professionals to get an easyceu or two


Follow alzheimersideas on twitter

The Dementia Caregiver's Little Book of Hope [Kindle Edition]

Crisisprevention.com

1. All activities, even unplanned ones, can be meaningful. Activities don’t have to fit in a box on a calendar or whiteboard, and they don’t have to be held at intentionally carved-out hourly intervals throughout the day. There are countless opportunities for activities often right beneath the noses of all dementia care unit staff. Making the bed. Meal time. Watering the plants. Tidying up the room. Each of these things, small and simple though they seem, can provide rich opportunities for engaging a resident who is perhaps not interested in bingo, movies, or other group activities.

2. Simplify your schedule, routine, and approach; always adapt. I always found that the simpler the activity, the better it was for everyone (including the activity director, who is nearly always pressed for time and resources). That doesn’t mean dumbing things down, it means stripping away the nonessentials and getting to the heart of what makes a successful activity: meaningful interactions and purposeful occupation. Want to host an afternoon tea? Great. Don’t burn yourself out trying to find the daintiest napkins, the prettiest tea service, or the most prestigious teas. Cups, spoons, tea, condiments, napkins, and scones are all you really need. Also, don’t try to set it all up on your own. Get the residents to help you prepare for the event so they feel a sense of ownership about the activity. Discover that no one in the group particularly likes tea? Don’t take it personally—just adapt—and bring out a pot of coffee.

3. Engage the residents. I remember walking through the halls of that first community where I served, arm-in-arm with one of the residents, who only spoke Spanish. We would have lovely conversations, even though I didn’t speak or understand Spanish. Consequently, she did most of the talking, but I listened actively. I did my best to match her emotions (if she frowned or looked angry when she spoke, I frowned too; if she seemed to be asking a question, I would nod or shake my head in agreement or support) so that she could feel comfortable about speaking freely. I think those walks may have been among the few times that she was really and truly engaged with anyone in the wing, and I was happy to foster that opportunity for her, even though “walking the halls with residents” wasn’t listed on my daily activities planner.

4. Do some field research. Talk to the family members and friends who come to visit. Talk to the residents themselves. Find out what they enjoyed doing before they moved to the facility, and organize your programming efforts accordingly.

5. Use peer mentors. In most Alzheimer’s care facilities, residents will be in varying stages of dementia at any given time. If you’re doing a group activity, consider pairing up residents who are still in the earlier stages with those who may be further into the disease process. Be sure that their personalities complement each other so that you don’t create unnecessary conflict or tension. This is an approach used often in Montessori-based dementia programming that works well in terms of engaging and empowering both the mentor and the mentee.

6. Do intergenerational activities whenever possible. Music therapy and pet therapy programs are quite successful means for getting people who rarely smile or speak to light up and communicate, but bring a baby, a toddler, or any young child into the room and everyone, everything else disappears. Deep connections are made; the presence of the young life sparks something in the residents that no other activity can match.