Healthcare Archives - Read. Think. Act.

Healwell Massage Therapy with Lauren Cates

(Sept. 12, 2018) Catherine Read sits down with Executive Director Lauren Cates of Healwell Massage Therapy. They are a nonprofit with the mission of providing exceptional and compassionate massage therapy in hospitals and other care settings to patients living with acute, chronic or terminal illness. Their therapists work in direct partnership with the medical teams in clinical settings to help decrease pain, manage symptoms and bring greater comfort to those living with advanced disease.

Cates acknowledges that not all massage therapists are created equal. Those who are practicing the trade, come to the profession with varying degrees of training and experience. Additionally, the industry does not have a lot of standards by which to judge practitioners, and every state classifies and regulates the profession in a different manner. Healwell offers training to their therapists, so when they enter a clinical environment they are aware of the challenges that the patients are facing.

At then end of the day, their goal is to provide a safe and effective massage, which eases pain, increases comfort and hopefully make the patient forget that they are suffering, even if it is only for the short hour that they spend together. Many studies have shown that there is a direct link between brain health and physical health, and the goal of Healwell massage therapists is to bring patients relief and freedom from their pain.

Healwell works with three large hospital systems in the Washington, DC area – Medstar Georgetown, Children’s National and Virginia Hospital Center. Their therapists all undergo training through the Hospital Massage Therapy Stewardship Program, an intensive 9-day continuing education course run out of the Virginia Hospital Center. All of the students who come through this program experience a rotation in the hospital, working side by side with clinicians in three distinct patient units.

The Healwell team also offers a variety of courses in Oncology Massage and other aspects of clinical practice throughout the United States. They provide basic and advanced courses, designed to serve practitioners at all levels. The instructor teams all work actively in an oncology setting, and deliver courses that can prepare therapists to support a broad spectrum of medically complex patients. Ultimately, Cates would like to recruit more therapists to train and work in the clinical settings here in the Washington metro area. They are in search of trained professionals looking to elevate themselves to a new level of caregiving.

In addition to training therapists to deliver specifically adapted and supportive massage therapy to patients living with disease, Healwell partners with their partner organizations to demonstrate the hands on abilities of integrative therapies to measurably improve outcomes through clinically sound, replicable models. Their research measures the effect of massage therapy on patients during cancer treatments, as well as patients who are hospitalized for other life-limiting illnesses.

by Rachel Simon

Dementia Friendly America – Herndon, VA

(June 20, 2018) Catherine Read interviews Toni Reinhart, a Certified Dementia Practitioner and owner of Comfort Keepers in Herndon, VA. After caring for her own father, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, she noticed how difficult it was to navigate getting around in the community with him. Last March, Toni learned about Dementia Friendly America, an organization committed to helping communities support people living with dementia and their caregivers. Dementia friendly communities foster the ability of people living with dementia to remain in the community and engage and thrive in day-to-day living. Toni then went about establishing Herndon, VA as the first pilot community for the organization in Virginia.

After receiving the green light to move ahead with this initiative from Mayor Lisa Merkel, Reinhart put together an action team to get started on the work involved to establish Herndon as a dementia friendly town. This included meetings and trainings with everyone from the local police force to business owners. The trainings covered communication tips on best practices of how to interact with elders, including to make sure that they use eye contact, to wait and listen, to remain calm, to not be aggressive and to not touch anyone unexpectedly. As Reinhart points out, these habits are good ones to have when approaching all people, especially elders who may be confused. Other challenges that are faced by seniors include that people do not wait, stop and listen. This can be important if someone is searching for the proper words or vocabulary so they can effectively communicate their needs.

When Reinhart spoke with business owners or government officials, she stressed the importance of clear and simple signage, where instructions are short and easy to comprehend. Lighting in businesses like doctor’s offices and restaurants can help people see information on forms and menus. Restaurant owners were asked to instruct their employees to be sensitive to elderly guests and seat them in a quieter part of the restaurant, closer to the restrooms. These are all very common sense solutions that often do not cost a lot of money to implement, but can vastly improve the experience for someone suffering from dementia, and the caregivers who support them. There are also spillover benefits for many other people, especially those with other cognitive challenges such as autism, sensory processing or other mental health challenges.

In the second segment of the show, Toni discusses the challenges for family members in identifying weather or not their loved one may be experiencing dementia. She notes that changes in behavior, such as confusion or disruptive behavior that is out of the norm, may be indications that their loved one might be suffering. When elderly parents are living alone, it is important to have good communication channels with friends and neighbors who can help identify some of these patterns. If they notice unusual aggressive behavior, paranoia, loss of vocabulary or recollection of details like names and places then it might be time to have them undergo an evaluation by their physician.

On a lighter note, Reinhart shared some information about recent studies that indicate certain behaviors can help reverse aging in the brain. If your elderly loved one enjoys dancing, a recent Harvard study shows that dancing can reduce the risk of dementia by up to 75%, and 90 minutes of dancing a week has shown to reverse the aging of the brain. It has long been known that the music and rhythm is retained the longest, while we tend to lose other information like names and places. Listening to music can be therapeutic to elderly people suffering from dementia. Reinhart also notes that engaging in physical activity and following a heart-healthy and brain-healthy diet is also helpful. Social engagement is another important tool to keeping the brain healthy.

When elders are isolated it has been proven that their health deteriorates. This is a particular challenge for elders who are aging in place in suburban areas like Fairfax County, especially if they no longer drive. Many communities are now establishing volunteer networks to help seniors get out and about. In Reinhart’s community of Herndon there is the Herndon Village Network, where volunteer drivers are available to take seniors out to meet up with friends, attend events in the community or just simply get out to the store.

If people are interested in learning more about Dementia Friendly America, or perhaps starting this program in their own community, Reinhart is available to speak with you and lend her advice. Information about the program can be found at www.dfaherndon.org

by Rachel Simon

Del. Patrick Hope – Medicaid Expansion in Virginia

(June 4, 2018) Catherine Read interviews Delegate Patrick Hope (D-47) of Arlington to discuss the recent passage of the Medicaid Expansion in the Virginia General Assembly, as part of the biennial budget signed by Gov. Ralph Northam. Del. Hope currently sits on the the General Laws, Courts of Justice and Health and Welfare Committees in the House of Delegates, where he is able to lend his professional expertise from his career as a healthcare attorney. Del. Hope also serves on the Joint Commission on Healthcare and the Deeds Commission, which has been tasked with studying and making recommendations on improvements to Virginia’s mental health care delivery system.

Del. Hope was elected to office in 2009, one year before the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare, was passed into law. Under the ACA, Washington allows states to open their rolls to people with income up to 138% of the federal poverty level, which is $16,750 for an individual and $28,700 for a family of three. The federal government agrees to pay 90% of the cost of expanding the rolls, totaling approximately $2 billion a year. These are dollars that Virginians have been paying with their federal taxes that will now be returning home. Baked into this year’s proposed budget is a tax on hospitals in Virginia, which is designed to cover the 10% cost that the state will be responsible for.

Since the adoption of the ACA in 2010, Hope has advocated for expanding Medicaid, and bringing these federal tax dollars back to the commonwealth for individuals who fall in the “gap”. This gap exists because as the program works today, Medicaid in Virginia has a very low-income threshold for eligibility – $6900 for a family of three, $9700 for a disabled individual, and able-bodied childless adults are not eligible at all, no matter how poor they are. Therefore, insurance on the ACA marketplace was not accessible to the 300,00+ working poor citizens of Virginia.

Effective January 1, 2019 this will all change. The influx of federal dollars to provide healthcare to those in need will free up money in the biennial state budget to invest in other important initiatives. Teachers will receive a 3% pay raise, all judgeships will be fully funded (and 30 judgeships will be added to cover increase caseloads), and state employees will get a 2% pay raise. Money will also be allocated to improve mental health services, as well as addiction and substance abuse programs throughout the state. Del. Hope points out that these are important investments in our safety net and our future.

The adoption of Medicaid expansion will also be a big boost to the state’s economy. By bringing 300,000+ residents onto the healthcare rolls, we will need to find healthcare “homes” for all of the new patients. More doctors, nurses, support and administrative staff will be needed to accommodate the increase in patients. These will be new, well paying and sustainable jobs that will help drive the economy forward.

In order to bring Republicans on board with adopting Medicaid expansion, there are several provisions that were incorporated into the new law. Work requirements will be imposed on all able-bodied adults age 18-55, to ensure that nobody is getting a benefit without putting effort into finding or training for work. The program is called the Training, Education, Employment and Opportunity Program (TEEOP), and will have to seek approval by the Trump Administration before it can be implemented. Del. Hope praised the bipartisan work in the House of Delegates, who included Medicaid expansion in their original proposed budget, along with the hard work and brave efforts of Sens. Emmett Hangar (Hanover), Frank Wagner (Virginia Beach ) , Jill Holtzman Vogel (Faquier) and A. Benton Chafin, Jr. (Russell) who propelled the Senate to move the budget forward with Medicaid expansion included. There will be much work to be done to get the program off the ground, but passage of the budget was the first step of the process.