This is an great read, full of hope and inspiration.

Ten years ago, medical experts often wrote off patients who had suffered a severe stroke as untreatable. Even today, conventional wisdom is that recovery essentially stops sometime after the first year following a stroke — a dismal outlook for people who have passed that deadline.

But those assumptions are slowly being sloughed off as “old school” by a new breed of neurologists and therapists who say breakthroughs in stroke treatment — some developed in the Bay Area - - have proved to restore brain function in some of the most severe cases.

Stroke victims who a decade ago would have been sent to a nursing home are now being given a fighting chance by doctors who have seen remarkable, unexpected recoveries. Still, many caregivers hesitate to raise unrealistic hopes in family members.

“We’ve found that we might not be able to eliminate a disability, but we can soften the deficits much more than we once thought,” said Linda Goshgarian, an occupational therapist at Community Hospital in Los Gatos.

A stroke occurs when a blood vessel clots or ruptures, causing a lack of oxygen to the brain and sometimes seizures. Known causes include high blood pressure and hypertension.

Some people who seek treatment immediately recover with only mild damage and can return to their normal lifestyle. Others lose motor skills or the ability to communicate. The most extreme cases can be fatal or leave a patient in a permanent coma.

At least three East Bay companies are developing equipment that researchers consider important tools to limit brain damage at the onset of stroke and to restore communication skills lost by prolonged lack of oxygen to the brain.

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A man with Alzheimer’s disease wandered away from an assisted living home. He hasn’t been found yet and the search has been called off.

The search for an 86-year-old man suffering from Alzheimer’s disease was called off Tuesday after hundreds of volunteers completed a 30-hour rescue effort that began Monday morning.

Herbert Moore was last seen at the Carolina House assisted-living facility on Hastings Lane at 5:30 a.m. Monday, according to Elizabeth City Police Capt. G.F. Koch. Moore was discovered to be missing at 8:30 a.m. and authorities began searching for him at about 10:30 a.m.

Moore was convalescing at Carolina House after a recent medical procedure at Albemarle Hospital, according to Moore’s son, Herbert Moore Jr. He had been telling relatives he wanted to go back to his home on Loop Lane, off Millpond Road in Morgan’s Corner.

Moore is a World War II veteran and a father of nine. He is a retired longshoreman and minister.

Since retiring 22 years ago, Moore has enjoyed an active life, fishing, hunting and raising pigs, his son said. But his health had been deteriorating in recent years.

His son said it is difficult to know what state of mind Moore was in when he left the nursing home.

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Unfortunately, in the modern world, family often do not visit their homebound loved ones often. Along comes the holiday season, and this is when they notice changes and seek help. Sometimes this means an admission to a nursing home.

Christmas is one of the most hectic times of the year for nursing homes and visiting nurse agencies because when adult children come home for the holidays, they often realize that their elderly parents can no longer care for themselves.

As a result, eldercare workers stay busy well into the New Year, handling requests for tours of assisted living centers, appointments for social workers or tips on hiring a housekeeper.

The increase is difficult to quantify, but most long-term care agencies know that the holidays bring an onslaught of families looking for help.

“The typical scenario is the son or daughter coming to stay for a few days with mom, who they haven’t seen in a few months,” said John Poirier, president of the New Hampshire Healthcare Association, which represents 85 nursing homes and assisted living centers. “They realize (their parent) can’t do a number of things they used to do by themselves.”

Even children who often call or write their parents can be shocked when they visit in person: A typically neat house is messy, Mom is unsteady on her feet or Dad can’t remember what happened the day before.

“The elderly are classic at hiding stuff, because they don’t want anyone to take them out of their home,” said Mary DeVeau, president of the Concord Regional Visiting Nurse Association. “They don’t want to lose their independence.”

The Concord VNA usually sees a 5 percent increase in referrals around Christmas. In addition to requests for evaluations, DeVeau says, many families want to bring their ill parents or grandparents home for the holidays. Social workers and nurses spend most of December scrambling to prepare seniors recovering from illness or injury to leave the hospital or nursing home.

“Those are the patients that you see everybody wants to get home,”DeVeau said.

“We really try to bring them home and keep them home.”

Community Health and Hospice’s Laconia office handles more inquiries around the holidays about housekeepers, respite care and adult day care services.

Many come from family members trying to ease the burden on a senior caring for an elderly spouse.

“Families tend to be in closer contact during the holidays, and an adult child gets concerned,” said Jackie Bonafide, the director of development. “Usually, caregivers try to be brave and have a stiff upper lip.”

I found this article about nursing homes, Christmas and family. I think every home should print this and send it to the familes. While it may make some uncomfortable, a visit to their loved one is so important. Not just at Christmas, but all the time. Nursing homes need culture change, and so do many families.

Highland Manor, like many of assisted living facilities and nursing homes around the country, is abuzz with activity this time of year as well wishers stop by to pay their respects to our senior citizens.

The outpouring of love and compassion exhibited toward people who are sick, lonely, elderly and infirm in small communities like Fallon is nothing less than extraordinary.

This is the essence of Christmas in a small town Ð close, personal and heart-warming.

No doubt these encounters are mutually beneficial. In some cases, the visit to a nursing home at Christmastime is the first exposure young people have to the realities of growing old. The great fallacy held by young minds is that youth will last forever, and if not forever, then a long, long time. It simply isn’t so, as 88-year-old Highland Manor resident Marian Estervog said: “I don’t feel that old. It seems like just yesterday I was a young woman.”

The men and women in the Alzheimer’s ward probably had no idea that some day they would spend their last days in a confused state, sitting in an institution. At one time old age and a mental disability probably were concepts so remote they probably never crossed their minds. Today and for the foreseeable future, it is their reality.

How we treat old people says a lot about us individually as well as our culture. Native Americans and many Asian cultures revere their elders absolutely, and not only take care of them to the very end but defer to them in matters of social order, family law, politics, custom and other high-level decisions. They couldn’t even conceive of putting their aged in a nursing home or assisted living facility. As a society, we Americans don’t do a great job of respecting or taking care of our senior citizens.

That’s not to say the people at Highland Manor aren’t treated well. In fact, by all outward appearances they are treated extraordinarily well. They live in first class surroundings and are treated like royalty by a very attentive, professional and compassionate staff. Without question, this is the best possible care that many of the people who live there could ever hope for. We suspect the same is true of other senior care facilities in and around Fallon, Northern Nevada and the United States.

Still, it is sad to think that responsibility for the health and welfare of the most needy and senior members of our society falls on the shoulders of professional health care providers, and, conversely, that so many of us take the attitude of “out of sight, out of mind,” except perhaps for an hour or two around Christmas. It’s too bad more of us don’t make the effort to do more with our elders more often, before they’re gone … forever.

The sobering truth is this is an inescapable reality that awaits all of us. The way we treat our elders today is the way our children are learning to treat us tomorrow.

Hospitals in Great Britain are having a hard time controlling C Diff.

LONDON, Dec. 21 (UPI) — One-third of British hospitals do not follow guidelines in dealing with outbreaks of the C. difficile virus, an interim government report said Wednesday.

The Clostridium difficile virus is a common hospital-acquired infection that usually causes diarrhea but can lead to fevers, more serious infections or deaths. It caused nearly 1,000 deaths in England in 2003.

The first set of data from a mandatory reporting scheme last year showed there had been more than 44,000 cases of the infection in hospitals in England — a 98 percent increase from 2001, the BBC reported.

One of the top measures to reduce risk include careful use of antibiotics and being able to isolate infected patients.

However 38 percent of hospitals did not have restrictions on the use of antibiotics, more than one-third of the facilities said they could not isolate patients routinely, and 11 percent have a ward that can be used for isolating patients with C. difficile.

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According to an FDA advisory panel, studies show that an experimental vaccine to prevent shingles can cut the rate of infection by about half in people 60 and older and help curb related pain.

But drug company Merck’s data also showed the vaccine, Zostavax, did not significantly reduce rates of death or hospitalization and became less effective after three years.

The advisory panel of outside health experts say that Zostavax showed no serious side effects and they will consider whether to recommend approval.

The FDA usually follows its advisory panels advice.

Apparently Merck is also seeking approval for another vaccine to help prevent rotavirus, the most common cause of diarrhea in children, and a panel will discuss the product this week.

Shingles is caused by the same virus that triggers chicken pox, the varicella-zoster virus, and is characterized by a wave of small rash-like blisters on the skin.

The virus targets the nerves and can lead to intense pain.

Figures show that as many as 1 million people in the United States develop shingles each year.

Some antiviral drugs can help control the outbreak and prevent the pain, all of which can last for up to five weeks on average.

Other drugs such as antidepressants, steroids and anticonvulsants, also can help decrease the initial discomfort.

According to experts shingles is more prevalent among older people, and more will contract the infection as people live longer.

In their review, the FDA staff also noted age was a factor in how well the vaccine worked, saying it was less effective in people 70 and older.

Viral infections were reduced by 63.9 percent in people 60 to 69 years old, compared with 37.6 percent in those ages 70 and older, say the panel.

Illness-related pain dropped by 65.5 percent in 60- to 69-year-olds and by 55.5 percent in those 70 and older.

The CDC will be advising hospitals of new infection control rules.

Dec. 19 (Bloomberg) — U.S. health officials are preparing new hospital infection control guidelines to slow the growing spread of bacteria that has become resistant to antibiotics.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will release the new hospital rules within three months Michelle Pearson, chief of the National Center for Infectious Disease’s prevention and evaluation branch, said yesterday in an interview at an infectious disease meeting in Washington. The new rules will intensify sterilization requirements for health workers, increase testing of patients who may harbor dangerous germs, and may call for hospitals to create special quarantine wards.

Researchers are concerned especially about antibiotic resistant bacterial infections that arise in hospitals and spread to homes and crowded workplaces. The microbe, called methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, is creating a health hazard in the U.S. dwarfing the threat posed by the H5N1 avian flu, said Steve Projan, vice president of protein technologies for Wyeth, the drugmaker that markets the Tygacil antibiotic.

“This is a hyper-virulent virulent bug,” Projan said in a press conference at the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Therapy and Antibiotics on Friday. “While we’re very concerned about H5N1, we do have in front of us today this outbreak of community-acquired MRSA.”

Bacteria mutate constantly, sometimes in ways that allow them to overcome widely used antibiotics such as penicillin and methicillin. Doctors use stronger drugs, such as vancomycin, to treat the resistant infections. Other products that sometimes work against MRSA include Wyeth’s Tygacil and Cubist Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s Cubicin. Vancomycin is a generic drug sold by several companies.

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Wow…Illinois is clamping down.

Dec. 21–Two south suburban nursing homes have been fined $50,000 and a third $10,000 for failing to properly look after residents, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.

Mercy Health Care Rehabilitation Center, a 259-bed skilled care facility at 19000 Halsted St. in Homewood, was fined $50,000 for failing to provide appropriate wound care to at least 52 residents suffering from skin ulcers and pressure sores.

Embassy Care Center, a 171-bed skilled care facility at 555 W. Kahler Rd. in Wilmington, was penalized a like amount for failing to promptly notify the physician of a 53-year-old male resident having cerebral hemorrhage-type symptoms after falling and hitting his head. The patient died, and the cause of his death was listed as a cerebral hemorrhage, the agency noted in its citation.

Crestwood Care Centre, a 303-bed skilled care facility at 14255 S. Cicero Ave. in Crestwood, drew a $10,000 fine for failing to notify the physician of an 83-year-old male resident about his inability to swallow, causing a lack of nutrition and hydration for four days.

The citations and fines were handed down in November and made public this week. All three facilities have requested hearings to appeal the findings.

Public Health Department investigators contend Mercy Health Care personnel did not change dressings on patients’ wounds in some cases for days.

According to the agency, the facility also failed to ensure medications were administered according to a physician’s orders and did not provide a bed large enough to accommodate the needs of two residents who are obese and suffer from bedsores.

In addition, three residents of the home suffered weight loss due to the staff’s lack of assistance during meal times and the absence of care plans addressing their nutritional needs, the department said.

Nursing home officials said they immediately addressed the problems and expressed surprise at the large penalty.

The department said Embassy Care staff did not follow the home’s own policy of conducting frequent neurological checks on patients who have fallen.

And in Crestwood Care’s case, the agency said its investigators found that the home did not notify the family of the resident who couldn’t swallow when he developed a pressure sore and exhibited an inability to walk. His family also was not notified of his inadequate nutritional intake that resulted in significant weight loss, the department said.

The home also failed to promptly notify the resident’s physician when he developed a respiratory condition that resulted in him being placed on life support for three days, the agency said.