There is a growing body of evidence suggesting that older adults who are walked routinely while hospitalized have shorter lengths of stay and return to home with less frailty and functional decline than those who are not walked. On Thursday, December 29, 2016, on HealthCetera, producer and nurse Diana Mason talks about this issue with one of the leaders in this field, Dr. Barbara King, an assistant professor of nursing at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. She is the lead researcher on a study on walking older adults during hospitalization that was recently published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. Dr. Linsey Barker Steege joined Barbara King on this study as an engineer. Dr. Steege is also an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. You can listen to the interview here:
Dr. Mason then turns her attention to another approach to keeping older adults functioning as independently as possible in their own homes. She talks with Dr. Sarah Szanton, a nurse practitioner and professor of nursing at Johns Hopkins University, about her model of care that keeps older adults functioning at higher levels in their own homes or apartments by providing support to enhance their capacity to live independently through limited nursing care, occupational therapy and home repairs. Called CAPABLE (Community Aging in Place – Advancing Better Living for Elders), the model is reducing nursing home and hospital admissions, improving functioning and quality of life, and reducing health care costs. You can listen to the interview here:
So tune in at 1:00 to HealthCetera on Thursday, December 29, 2016, on WBAI, 99.5 FM in New York City, and streaming at www.wbai.org. Or listen anytime using the above links.
HealthCetera is sponsored by the Center for Health, Media & Policy.
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