Before and After Seniors’ Falls: What Family Caregivers Should Know
January 3, 2012
Hosted by Dr. Gordon Atherley
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Guest Information
Episode Description
Bob Pearson is President of Kimmel of Canada. Neila Curtin is responsible for oversight of the operation of the retirement home portfolio of Greenwood Retirement Communities. They say how and why they got involved with problems of seniors’ slips and falls, and how these influence their work. They discuss ways to prevent fail seniors’ slips and falls, explain where the risks are greatest at home and in facilities, and say what family caregivers should think and ask about. They discuss what happens after a senior’s serious fall, what emergency planning involves, and what family caregivers should know. They discuss the things that family caregivers should consider when a senior who’s had serious fall is discharged from hospital. They describe the things they would like to see done to improve slip and fall prevention and to improve the support for people and their families when a family member is recovering from a serious fall. They share their personal messages with family caregivers.
Family Caregivers Unite!
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Family caregivers are the people who provide care to partners, parents, children, brothers, sisters, cousins, friends, neighbors and even co-workers. They are the people who provide care when everyone else has gone home. They are the people who organize the functioning of the home for the person with special needs, and for the family as a whole. They are the coordinators of care, the managers of appointments, the preventers of loneliness, and the makers of decisions even to the point of Power of Attorney. And they are so often people who themselves are burdened with their own health challenges and who may be in only marginally better health than the persons to whom they are providing family caregiving.
Dr. Gordon Atherley
Dr Gordon Atherley holds the British equivalent of the Canadian PhD and MD degrees, and LLD, Honoris Causa, from Canada’s Simon Fraser University. His awards include Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, UK. His medical specialties are occupational medicine and public health.
As first President and Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, the Canadian equivalent of the US National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, he led the creation of Canada’s electronic information service in occupational health and safety, now used in more than 40 countries.
In academia, he held senior, tenured, full-time positions, including departmental chair, in university faculties of physics, engineering, and medicine. He is the author of a textbook and numerous articles and publications.
Since retiring from medical practice, he’s built up Greyhead Associates, which critically researches the safety, effectiveness and fairness of health services for persons with special needs.
Through Virtual Care International, a company of which he’s President, he’s involved in providing sensible technology to family caregivers to help them with their responsibilities, workloads, and concerns.
Now an activist, he urges family caregivers to unite because, more and more, it’s not just their families who depend on them, it’s also the healthcare system as a whole, as it struggles to meet more and more needs of more and more people.
