Archive for the ‘Blog: Whose health is it anyway?’ Category

• Epiphany at the Canadian Home Care Conference

  Posted in Aging at home Blog: Whose health is it anyway? Communicating Planning for the future Who's the boss? on November 21, 2011 by kathy

  

  I had an epiphany at The Canadian Home Care Association Conference. I was on a panel announcing the report  Client-Centred Care: Future Directions for Policy and Practice in Home and Community Care The first question, from a crowd made up of home care providers, “Does client- centered care mean the client gets what they want?”
  You [...]

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• How ‘Participatory’ are you as a patient or caregiver?

  Posted in Blog: Whose health is it anyway? Communicating Day to day living Listen to me! Who's the boss? on October 17, 2011 by kathy

  

  The Society of Participatory Medicine supports
  “a movement in which networked patients shift from being mere passengers to responsible drivers of their health, and in which providers encourage and value them as full partners.”
  This concept seems especially essential for anyone caring for someone whose quality of life is constantly adversely affected by a health condition: get [...]

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• Grief and grieving: in life and death

  Posted in Blog: Whose health is it anyway? Communicating Fearful Topics on September 6, 2011 by kathy

  

  For each of us, our Book of Life has many chapters on grief and grieving, covering a broad spectrum: I can still conjure the pang of loss when my youngest went to Kindergarten;  the sense of betrayal caused by the end of a friendship, and seeing neighbourhoods change or vanish. I’ve grieved them all.
  We each [...]

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• Restless Leg Syndrome

  Posted in Blog: Whose health is it anyway? on August 2, 2011 by kathy

  Those of us in the know wish we weren’t, and really really wish the rest of you wouldn’t scoff. Restless legs weren’t invented by drug companies, and aren’t solved by (often) well-meaning skeptics who think the solution is to: just relax, take a walk, exercise more, ignore it, just sit still.
  One in 10 over 40 [...]

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• Family Caregiving Advocacy and Action Roundtable

  Posted in Aging at home Blog: Whose health is it anyway? Planning for the future Seen and heard on July 4, 2011 by kathy

  

  The objective: A Canada that recognizes and respects the integral role of family caregivers in society.

  “Almost one third of those providing care to seniors with dementia experience depression…Without (1) recognition of the importance of caregivers to the health and social service systems, (2) their inclusion in policy making and (3) adequate support for their role, [...]

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• I’m one of them: Non-compliant.

  Posted in Blog: Whose health is it anyway? Decisions on June 5, 2011 by kathy

  I just realized: I’m one of those people I read about. People who willfully lead unhealthy lifestyles. The ones who could (and by all accounts really should) control and be on top of things like taking their meds, exercising regularly, eating properly, drinking 8 glasses of water daily and managing stress. Those people. Us people. [...]

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• 5 Steps to a Patient Centered Hospital

  Posted in Blog: Whose health is it anyway? Communicating on February 26, 2011 by kathy

  

  Although filled to the brim with patients, hospitals were created to support doctors, not us patients. Historically, their organizational structure focused on doctors’ needs and doctors’ requirements. The concept of centering hospital care on patient needs and requirements is a relatively recent development.
  How can a hospital switch from being provider-centered to patient-centered? Shifting such a [...]

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• Hospice and Palliative Medicine

  Posted in Blog: Whose health is it anyway? Communicating Fearful Topics Many things I didn't know Sources and Resources on November 24, 2010 by kathy

  Until recently, I had but the vague-est idea of what hospice and palliative care and medicine (hpm) entailed. (I will urge anyone in the hpm community to skip next paragraph. If you must read, I apologize in advance. I am a changed person)
  Until tuning into the #hpm twitter group  – hospice and palliative medicine – [...]

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• When Doctors see patients it’s a cross-cultural event

  Posted in Blog: Whose health is it anyway? Communicating Day to day living on November 4, 2010 by kathy

  

  One of my favourite conferences is The Conference on Practice Improvement hosted by the  Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM) and American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP). For all the upset and negativity there seems to be toward doctors, these family docs (aka Family Practitioners FPs, Primary Care Docs PCP’s, General Practitioners GPs) are [...]

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• When is an ice cream label a health literacy tool?

  Posted in Blog: Whose health is it anyway? Communicating What is in the Medicine Cabinet on October 20, 2010 by kathy

  

  The answer: when  Dr Barry Weiss decided to use an ice cream label as a tool to asses whether we (patients) are able to understand medical instructions. Funded by Pfizer-backed Clear Health Communication initiative, Weiss’s research resulted in the creation of “The Newest Vital Sign”™ A health literacy assessment tool, with findings published in t

  he [...]

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