Category Archive

The Australians have done it again – providing leadership in the creation of a user-friendly website to help carers develop cultural awareness and build appropriate strategies for building a respectful, caring relationship with client who are Greek and who have limited knowledge of English.

Greek Care provides practical advice and information on how to work with Greek elders — communication strategies, activities, religious information, information about beliefs and values that impact on service delivery — as well as background information about Greek history, geography and tradition. There are many hints on how to enhance the practitioner-client relationship. Often they are quite simple strategies that will nevertheless engage your client and elicit satisfaction on their part.

In the past we’ve blogged about the Australian Centre for Cultural Diversity in Ageing – another example of the importance given to this complex issue.

Thanks to Tim Dixon, Deputy Editor of Australian Ageing Agenda for telling us about Greek Care.

During and after major disasters, the elderly are often forgotten in the rush to save everyone else. We saw it during the tsunami, during 911, during Katrina. And we’re seeing it again in China after the earthquake that struck on 12 May.

According to an article in the Washington Post, nearly 12,000 elderly Chinese lost their relatives in the quake and many more are separated from their families with their long time homes and belongings lost forever.

In a country known for its revering its elderly, China’s economic growth has altered traditional patterns between parents and their adult children as young people concentrate on making a living.

The provincial and central government officials have promised that all elderly left homeless will be taken care of. But with this disaster, as with others, attention to this population comes late. Help Age International is a world leader in helping countries provide for the elderly in times of need. The Chinese could benefit from their assistance.

Numerous studies have been published about global ageing – the most important demographic event of the 21^st Century. We’ve covered a number of studies on its impact on the workforce, migration, retirement systems, and health care, especially long term care.

Now we have a report from The Center for Strategic International Studies [CSIS] that focuses on its impact on national and global security.

The report, The Graying of the Great Powers: Demography and Geopolitics in the 21^st Century, explores how population ageing and decline will constrain the developed countries to maintain security over the next few decades. It also examines the security implications of emerging demographic trends in different regions of the developing world. While some political scientists and security experts argue that the forces of demography are pushing the world toward greater peace and stability, the CSIS report concludes that they pose growing security threats—and that the period of greatest danger lies just over the horizon in the 2020s.

For international groups like IAHSA this is an important study, increasing our awareness of the differences and similarities between our member countries.

Tomorrow is Pangea Day, a day devoted to bringing the world together through film.

At 18.00 GMT, locations in Cairo, Kigali, London, Los Angeles, Mumbai, and Rio de Janeiro will be linked for a live program of powerful films, live music, and visionary speakers. The entire program will be broadcast – in seven languages – to millions of people worldwide through the internet, television, and mobile phones.

The 24 short films to be featured have been selected from an international competition that generated more than 2,500 submissions from over one hundred countries. The films were chosen based on their ability to inspire, transform, and allow us see the world through another person’s eyes.

Filmmaker Jehane Noujaim is the inspiration behind Pangea Day – her vision is to find a way to change the world. Jehane, IAHSA supports your efforts.

The Institute for the Future of Aging Services recently published a new report based on analysis of the 2004 National Nursing Home Survey [USA]. The report shows that 1 in 4 nursing home residents aged 65 and older has diabetes. The report also examined the association between diabetes and ethnicity, activities of daily living, source of admission, payment sources, length of stay, pressure ulcers, emergency department visits and medication usage.

Not only does this brief demonstrate the extremely high prevalence of diabetes in U.S. nursing homes, but it raises important issues related to planning for the special needs of this large segment of the nursing home population.

And even though it is based on US data, the lessons learned can be applied in many countries around the world.

According to new data published in the Human Resources for Health journal, the international migration of doctors and nurses has contributed to the critical shortage and inequitable distribution of health workers in many developing countries, resulting in a situation where people living in the most deprived areas do not have access to health services.

Some countries have introduced voluntary Codes of Practice (COP) for the ethical recruitment of international health workers. These intend to restrict aggressive recruitment from countries experiencing shortages of their own and also to protect the rights of migrant workers and support them in their job.

IAHSA views this issue as a top priority in our long term care workforce strategy. We will continue to follow this issue very closely as it has a tremendous impact on the availability of workforce for ageing service providers.

The Australians continue to take a leadership position in providing resources for helping address issues facing people providing services to multiple cultures.

This time it is Multicultural Mental Health Australia, who recently released a number of new mental health resources in over 20 languages. The topics covered include mental illness, anxiety, bipolar mood disorder, eating disorders and depression and many more.

This would be a good resource to share with your staff and families, especially if you have residents and staff from many different cultures and language bases.

The Centre for Cultural Diversity in Ageing, located in Victoria, Australia, is an online source of information on culturally appropriate aged care.

The Centre was developed to guide and promote best practice standards of care that address cultural diversity across all levels of service design and delivery.

They have developed a glossary of over 1000 terms used in ageing and translated them into 13 community languages. Even though some of the terms are tailored to the Australian ageing service system, I would think that the Glossary of Aged Care Terminology would be very useful for organizations needing to promote consistency of translations of aged care information.

Everyone is interested in what’s happening in China, given the fact that theirs is one of the most rapidly growing ageing populations. And the challenges for caring for their 150 million older adults seem daunting. That’s more elderly in China than the entire population of Australia!!!

We’ve been following a newly formed group in China called Community Alliance, an independent local grassroots non-profit public interest organization. Their goal is to empower and support underprivileged and underserved communities in China; to ensure social justice and welfare for the elderly, especially elder women and those who are among the most disadvantaged in communities; and to protect the rights of the elderly as part of the struggle for legal rights and social progress in China.

Sign up for their email newsletter – it will help satisfy your curiosity!!

Recently Reuters told the story of Aisa, an elderly refugee from the war in Bosnia (1992-1995). She and 74 other elderly refugees live in Slovenia and are just a few of the more then 32 million people in the world uprooted from their homes and forced to start again somewhere else.

Aisa’s situation highlights the unique challenges of this special needs population in times of crisis. She and the other refugees in the community have found it difficult to assimilate into Slovenian society. The linguistic and cultural barriers make finding a job and meeting new people next to impossible. So they spend time visiting doctors, watching TV and drinking coffee with each other. The Slovenia government has done its best to make them feel welcome. As 84-year-old Osman said, “We have never been better in worse times.”

Groups of elderly refugees are living on the margins of society all across Europe. IAHSA would like to hear stories of how your organization is working with this special population. How might the global community help our elders in times of crisis?

To learn more about the unique situation facing elderly refugees visit the UN High Commission for Refugees. Or visit the Web site Forced Migration Online for a list of reports and research relating to the situation of older refugees.

Latinos and African Americans with Alzheimer’s disease live longer than do whites, Native Americans, and Asians, according to a study published by the journal NEUROLOGY. The findings transcended socioeconomic status, education levels, age when symptoms began, and other factors.

The study followed 31,000 Alzheimer’s patients for an average of 2.4 years and found that Latinos lived an average of 40% longer than whites, while African Americans lived 15% longer than whites. Asian and Native American patients’ longevity was similar to that of whites.

Factors that could account for the differences include the social support of extended families and varying levels of health and other diseases in addition to the Alzheimer’s, according to study author Kala Mehta of the University of California, San Francisco. “Determining the underlying factors behind this difference could lead to longer survival for everyone with Alzheimer’s disease,” says Mehta. “Regardless of the reason for this difference, these findings may have implications for health-care planning for people with Alzheimer’s disease.”

Author, Academy Award Winner, well-known celebrity, Sidney Poitier addressed the AAHSA conference this morning, sharing his life through his description of 12 snapshots.

He began our ’snapshot’ tour with his birth, a tribute to the tenacity of his mother in the face of adversity, through his hardscrapple life, first in Miami then New York City.   By the time he was 16 in NYC in 1943 he knew that he had to master the basics of life as fast as possible because there is limited room for wasted motion. 

He was especially eloquent about the “Whap Whap’ theory of child raising, a method used by his mother with great success.  

I’ve always been a great fan - loved all of his movies and watch them whenever I get a chance.   But I had no idea what he had to overcome to reach where he is today.   His life clearly reflects one of integrity and the power of helping those around you in the face of adversity.    

For more information on him and for a preview of his recent book, The Measure of A Man, see Sidney Poitier Biography - Biography.com

Elie Wiesel - Holocaust survivor, Nobel Peace Prize winner, author, and, most of all, champion in the fight against injustice, indifference and intolerance - addressed the Opening General Session at the AAHSA Conference yesterday morning, Sunday 21 October.

As an advocate for the downtrodden, his universal message is that ‘to remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all’.   

His message to the AAHSA members was to celebrate the elderly because the world is in danger - and a society is viewed, either negatively or positively, by the way they treat their elderly. 

And live in the moment. 

“Every day is a day of grace.  Every moment is a moment of truth.  Life is not made of years.  Life is made of moments.” 

For more information on Elie Wiesel and The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity visit http://www.eliewieselfoundation.org/homepage.aspx. 

I often scan the newsletters from IAHSA’s Global Ageing Network partners, such as ACSA in Australia. The articles reveal all of the productive and important activity going on amoung our members, both practical and political.

This week, ACSA featured a publication produced by Volunteering Australia entitled Involving Volunteers from Diverse Cultural and Language Backgrounds in Your Organizations. This is a practical guide to assist not-for-profit organizations to engage volunteers from diverse cultural backgrounds and provide more culturally sensitive services. It also helps organizations become aware fo issues specific to women from culturally diverse communities.

The guide is made up of five modules giving a comprehensive overview of the statistics about diversity, ways to reach out to target communities, recruitment challenges and best practice strategies for dealing with language and other problems.

Developed through funding by the Australian Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) Implementation Project, the guide can be downloaded free from the Volunteering Australia Web site.

This is our second blog about Australian leadership in addressing the issue of cultural diversity. Surely other countries are dealing with this issue as well. Share your programmes with us and the IAHSA family.

The Aussies have done it again.

Like many countries, the Australian population is growing older and becoming more diverse – there will be more people in the population, both old and young, from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

But unlike many countries, the Aussies have decided to be proactive in addressing the need to be able to provide a culturally competent aged care service system, addressing the needs of the consumer, the aged care provider and the worker.

I recently learned of two efforts underway ‘Down Under’ that I felt you should know about.

In June, the Centre for Diversity in Ageing’s conference, Behind Every Person is a Long Journey, drew more than 300 people to learn about best practice standards of care that address cultural diversity across all levels of service design and delivery. Those numbers show that there is a high level of interest in learning how to develop high quality and accessible aged care services responsive to the needs of a diverse community. And the Centre does more than run a conference. They also provide an on-line source of information for consumers, providers and government.

During the conference, IAHSA member, Aged & Community Services Australia called for the Australian Government to develop a national vision, in conjunction with major stakeholders, to provide a coordinated range of initiatives to create a culturally competent service system. ACSA’s policy, Strength through Diversity expands on what is required.

Greg Mundy, ACSA CEO, said: ‘cultural diversity is now a mainstream issue. The Australian demographics of the ageing of the population support this position in that 22.5% of people over 65 and 1 in 5 people over 80 will be from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds in 2011.” He went on to stress that “culture is not a separate need but rather a framework within which care and support is provided…..it belongs to every human being and not solely to people we view as ‘others.’”

Congratulations, Greg, for your visionary leadership. And to the Centre for Cultural Diversity in Ageing for providing a model that can be replicated in other countries around the world.