Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH

Practical advice to help caregivers help aging adults

end-of-life care

Upcoming Webinar on Dementia & End-of-Life Planning

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Are you caring for an older person with Alzheimer’s or another dementia?

Would you like to learn more about planning and managing end-of-life issues?

If so, you might be interested in an online webinar this week that I’ll be doing in collaboration with Family Caregiver Alliance.

It’s scheduled for Thursday, November 7th, at 1pm PST (4pm EST). During the webinar, I’ll review how families can better address end-of-life planning in the context of a dementia diagnosis. I’ll also offer some suggestions as to how to handle common challenges at the end-of-life itself.

I will be taking live questions during the last part of the webinar. This is the part that I’m most looking forward to!

To sign up for the webinar, click here: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/764240806

Please note that Family Caregiver Alliance, who invited me to present, is charging $15 for the webinar.

How We Can Get to Better End-of-Life Care

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What is good care at the end-of-life, and how can we do better as a society?

This is the question that the Institute of Medicine (IOM) is now studying, and they have created a “Committee on Approaching Death: Addressing Key End-of-Life Issues.”

As part of their research into the current state of end-of-life care, the IOM is inviting the public to send them comments via this online comments page. (Comments must be submitted by November 1st, 2013.)

In particular, the IOM wants to hear about the following topics:

  • Barriers to and opportunities for improving care for individuals and their families,
  • Patient and family experiences with care, and
  • Health care provider experiences.

Now, as you can imagine, addressing end-of-life issues is a big part of what we do in geriatrics. Furthermore, I’m thrilled to see the IOM addressing this issue, since their reports are highly respected and often end up influencing policy and funding.

So I was very glad to provide some comments to the IOM, and encourage others — family caregivers, geriatric care managers, clinicians, or really anyone who has had personal experiences with end-of-life situations in the US — to submit comments as well.

The best reports, after all, result from the academics’ expert opinions being informed by the experiences of those of us in the trenches, trying to navigate real end-of-life situations.

My comments on Better End-of-Life Care for Older Adults

Below, I share the comments that I’m submitting in response to the IOM’s questions.

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