Should My Patient Get an Amyloid PET Scan for the Diagnosis of Alzheimers?
November 19, 2013
In April, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved florbetapir F-18 (Amyvid) PET scans to identify areas of accumulation of…
A Better Health System for Frail and Disabled Elders
November 18, 2013
“The current ‘care system’ provides disjointed specialty services, ignores the challenges of living with disabilities, tolerates routine errors in medications…
The Quality of Palliative Care: It Can and Must Be Measured
November 11, 2013
Is it important to provide high quality palliative and supportive care in patients with serious illness? Does it matter if…
Using Tech to Engage Patients in Advance Care Planning
November 5, 2013
Advance care planning is a process; a seemingly hard to do, hard to document process that we just aren’t very…
On Cooks and Cookbooks: Failure of a Palliative Care Pathway
October 30, 2013
by: Alex Smith @AlexSmithMD Wouldn’t it be great if we came up with a standardized approach to caring for hospitalized…
Literature Potpourri
October 26, 2013
by: Alex Smith, @AlexSmithMD Ronald Reagan died in 2004 of advanced dementia Some great paper GeriPal readers should be award…
Doing the Right Thing and Making It Pay
October 19, 2013
Advanced care and palliative care can reduce healthcare costs for people with serious chronic illness. It’s hard to dispute that…
Specialized Care for Older Hospitalized Adults as a Palliative Care Intervention
October 19, 2013
Hospitals are dangerous places for older adults. Nearly a third of hospitalized older adults are discharged with a new…
Do Not Hospitalize orders for nursing home residents with advanced dementia
October 8, 2013
by: Alex Smith @alexsmithMD Advanced dementia is a terminal illness needing palliative care. Unfortunately, there is a great divide between this…