The Search For HealthCare

Your search for healthcare that really meets your needs as a senior adult can seem almost as futile as Ponce de Leon’s search for the fountain of youth. Finding appropriate medical care is an important part of blazing this new ‘living longer’ trail.

Where can you find the people who have the experience to understand and provide medical care when you need it? Believe it or not, it is right at your own physician’s office! Surprised? I thought you might be.

Thanks to a new program designed to help your physician better understand and serve the new “living longer generation,” your physician now has access to everything you need.

There is no need to change doctors. This trail has already been marked out for you. It is found at the Senior Assessment Program provided by Bon Secours.

The Senior Assessment Program brings an office full of professionals, trained specifically to understand and treat senior adults, to work for your physician. The comprehensive assessment gives you, your physician, and your caregivers a complete picture of your health. Your team, headed by a geriatrician, includes a physician, nurse practitioner, nurse supervisor and a social worker.

The program’s Nurse Supervisor, Jill Mitchell, explains, “Physicians have sent us patients that seem healthy enough at first glance, but physicians usually have great insight and can see when there is more than meets the eye. In some cases we have been able to isolate memory issues that would have otherwise gone undiagnosed. We can also look more closely at issues like incontinence to determine whether the problem is emotional, physical, or nutritional. We help your physician in a variety of ways, from making sure you have proper nutritional resources at home to confirming that your medicines don’t conflict with one another. We work with your physician to piece together the reality of your situation.”

So how does this program work? Since this program supports the efforts of your own physician, you can take advantage of the program regardless of where you live in Hampton Roads. The assessment includes medication, memory, nutrition, social, and physical evaluations. You, your caregiver, and your physician will receive an action plan, based on your specific indications, designed to help you maintain your health and independence.

Your physician will be looking for one or more of the following indications before referring you to this program:

• Decline in functional ability
  
• Increasing “frailness”
  
• Increasing forgetfulness
  
• Unsteadiness or falling
  
• Incontinence
  
• Use of multiple medications
  
• Multiple medical problems
  
• Social isolation
  
• Age-related depression

If you are 65 or over, or provide care for a senior, call your physician to have an assessment scheduled (physician referral is required). For more information, call the Senior Assessment Program at 889-4999.