This is a critical piece of news and everyone should know about. There are good resources for brain training and we have misleading resources out there that tarnish the names of good legit programmes.
Lumos Labs, developer of Lumosity “brain training” games, will pay $2 million to settle accusations it misled customers about the cognitive benefits of its apps.
Lumos Labs, the developer of Lumosity “brain training” games, will pay $2 million to settle accusations it misled customers about the cognitive benefits of its online apps and programs. The Federal Trade Commission said on Tuesday that ads deceptively suggested that playing the games a few times a week could increase work and school performance, and even delay conditions like dementia. Lumos Labs must contact customers and offer them an easy way to cancel their subscriptions, which range from $15 to $300. The $2 million will be refunded to customers. Jessica L. Rich, director of the F.T.C.’s Consumer Protection Bureau, said the company “simply did not have the science to back up its ads.” Only products that have been reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration can claim to treat or prevent serious diseases or conditions.
How can we create meaningful and sustainable rooftop gardens. For all the city dwellers reading this, it’s probably no surprise when you see a roottop garden looking tired and dried out after a while, people tend to potter around abit when the garden is first developed but it gets left lonely after a while. People start complaining about the heat in the garden, there is not much to do but wander around in the head. Staff finds that it’s too much of a pain and it get left unattended and left in the wayside. Before you know you the rooftop garden is an empty space with a few giant empty plant pots like hollowed sad eye staring at the sky.
Modern rooftop gardens look great in million dollar condominiums, hospitals and shopping malls. Very flashy and fresh with a multitude of plants, but for a nursing home or an agedcare facility, these are not temporary living spaces, there are people’s homes, where they spend a good number of years in their life. The space is needs to be much more then just therapeutic eye candy. It has to give meaning and purpose, to provide social activities, engagement and movement.
If you lived in an aged care facility don’t you want to be part of a garden that you feel that you can give life to, to contribute to growth, where the people who care for you can benefit from your work despite living with a chronic health condition and requiring much care. You don’t want to stare at people tending to the garden remaining you of restrictions, your loss of function and dignity. You want to be part of the action, to feel life in your hands, and to support growth in another.
Creating the right environment, a rooftop greenhouse or farm in an aged care facility can bring together staff and residents in a healthy and meaningful social activity. To grow sustainable, fresh and delicious produce for their own facility for everyone instead of eating produce that travelled 500kms from an unidentified farm using unknown chemicals and farming methods that you wouldn’t want to know about. Where families can join in and even students from community programmes.
I found this cool local website easigardens that promotes vegetable kits in Singapore and provide a range of vegetables like spinach, kang kong, xiao bai cai etc.
Rooftop greenhouses are a great sustainable idea for everyone. Anyway before I sign off, here are some videos that provide you the who, where, what, why and how regarding the concept, design and application of a rooftop greenhouse in urban residential living.
Let’s create an Inclusive not reclusive environment!
“It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.”
– Hubert H. Humphrey
Appears that single bedrooms for people with dementia in nursing homes are considered a luxury in Singapore.
This is a brilliant article by Dr Philip Yap and Dr Gerald Koh, and Singapore needs a serious conversation about how we can respectfully treat our elders with dignity.
How do want to care for our loved ones when they grow older? Singaporeans echo the fact that nursing homes are restrictive, institutionalised and lack personal care (Wee et al. 2015). Do we really want anyone we love to live the last years of their life an acute like facility, watching their neighbours beside them cognitively regress as a result of the tension and depression of the unfamiliar, undignified, and restrictive environment? What sort of morals and values will our children inherit when they are exposed to ideas that privacy, dignity, independence and quality of life is deemed a luxury for our elders living with a terminal condition? Are nursing homes, Singapore’s very own wooden bowl?
We need to do more to become a more inclusive Singapore.
Here’s some additional information about dementia.
“People with dementia are frequently denied the basic rights and freedoms available to others. In many countries, physical and chemical restraints are used extensively in care facilities for elderly people and in acute-care settings, even when regulations are in place to uphold the rights of people to freedom and choice.
An appropriate and supportive legislative environment based on internationally accepted human rights standards is required to ensure the highest quality of service provision to people with dementia and their caregivers.” (Source: WHO 2015)
Reference:
Wee, S.-L. et al., 2015. Singaporeans’ perceptions of and attitudes toward long-term care services. Qualitative health research, 25(2), pp.218–27.
How many times have we heard Falls and broken bones are one of the scariest things in aged care, the pain and impacted quality of life and not to mention the mortality rate that goes with it.
I saw this cool video on Youtube on Bone-foam, an Injectable bone-filling glue that sets pretty quickly and revolutionising the painful and cumbersome healing process of broken bones for everyone. I hope this will help make the long painful process of broken bones and osteoporosis history!
A really practical and simple article with tips from the Family Caregiver Alliance for staff and caregivers working with people with dementia. The article provides advice on communication and understanding changes in behaviours. With additional information on supporting a person with dementia to manage nutrition, hygiene, and incontinence.
I found the top 10 tips for communication very helpful and made a little facebook post sized image to help share these very practical caregiver tips with friends and colleagues. You can also print it out and pin it on the pinboards at the nurses station.
These tips are just straightforward and realistic, and transcend the boundaries of culture and language. I made some changes and replaced the word dementia with cognitive impairment because I thought the nurses on the neuro wards, or even care managers working with people with traumatic brain injuries may also find these tips very handy.
If I could buy one book this year, this would be it. Kate Swaffer is certainly an inspiration, her courage, strength and perserverence has broken the stigma of dementia. Starting out with a strong and meaningful dialogue, she shares with the world her diagnosis of dementia, her advantures, inspirationals and philosophioes in life; this is just a start. She has gone back to university and completing a Masters in Dementia Care from the university of Wollongong. She educates students on young onset dementia in the Wicking Dementia Centre Understanding Dementia Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), which has had more than 40,000 students worldwide. She’s also a key member of the Dementia Alliance International and I can’t even begin to list the number of awards she has attained and the number of communities and people that she has inspired.
If I could only get 1 book in 2016. This will be it.
Designing for Aged Care 