Easter Seals
awarded grant from the Retirement Research
Foundation to bridge end-of-life care and adult
day services
CHICAGO, Aug. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- The Retirement Research Foundation recently
awarded Easter Seals a $220,000 grant to better
meet needs of persons at the end of their lives
-- no matter their care setting -- while
promoting dignity and choice for millions of
families across the country. The new Easter
Seals project will bridge the existing knowledge
and collaboration gap between two vital
community-based services, hospice/palliative
care and adult day services.
By 2025, the number of persons age 65 and older is estimated
to grow by 80 percent. The need for direct
services for individuals approaching the end of
their lives is more critical than ever.
About Easter Seals' Enhancing Community-Based Options for
End-of-Life Care
Easter Seals' two-year initiative, Enhancing Community-Based
Options for End-of-Life Care, launching this
month, will create tools and training resources
to help adult day services personnel and
hospice/palliative care personnel across the
country better understand each other's roles and
integrate clinical practices, programs, and
policies.
Easter Seals will convene a National Advisory Council with
experts from both the adult day and palliative
care communities to collaborate on improving
end-of-life care. Through providing leadership,
training, policy recommendations and tools &
materials, this initiative will enable adult day
and hospice organizations to collaborate and
provide more comprehensive services for people
with life limiting illness and their families.
"No one should have to approach death without sufficient pain
management, compassion, and support. Too
many people experience the end of their
lives with untreated pain, unaddressed
depression and other mental health problems,
and debilitating physical symptoms due to a
lack of information and support," says Lisa
Peters-Beumer, Project Director, Easter
Seals. "This new program will help us begin
to make a real difference for many families
during such a difficult time."
"Family members who provide care often experience extreme
emotional and physical stress without adequate
support from professionals, experience economic
pressures, and become ill themselves as a result
of the pressing demands of caring for a loved
one who is dying. Many feel forced into making
decisions regarding care arrangements without
understanding their options," adds Peters-Beumer.
About The Retirement Research Foundation
For more than 20 years, The Retirement Research Foundation
has been at the forefront of efforts to meet the
ever-changing needs of older Americans,
investing more than $150 million to help build a
network of innovative and skilled individuals
and institutions committed to addressing aging
and retirement issues.
Established by the late John D. MacArthur and endowed in
1978, the Foundation invests approximately $9
million each year to support efforts that enable
older adults to live at home or in residential
settings that facilitate independent living,
improve the quality of care at nursing homes,
leverage the wisdom and experience of older
adults and promote community involvement, and
increase understanding of the aging process and
age-associated diseases through various
education and advocacy efforts. To learn more,
visit
http://www.rrf.org/.
About Easter Seals
For 85 years, Easter Seals has been providing services that
help children and adults with disabilities gain
greater independence. Our primary services --
medical rehabilitation, job training and
employment, child care, adult day services, and
camping and recreation -- benefit more than one
million individuals with disabilities and their
families each year through more than 500 centers
nationwide. Support children and adults with
disabilities at
http://www.easterseals.com/.
Source:
National Easter Seal Society
