Nursing Home

Do you wonder what it would be like if your doctor had chosen to be specifically trained in geriatrics, felt proud to work with seniors and gave you the very best attention, respect and treatment? Can you imagine a hospital just for seniors? And what if this care were free or at minimal cost?The Institute of Geriatrics at the University of Montreal, Canada, has it all, which I discovered when I spent a day touring the facility. The institute is a teaching center, international interdisciplinary research center and a multicare hospital, all under one roof.

I GOT A letter from a familiar address -- Niagara Falls, N.Y., the place where I grew up. The question it asked could have come from anywhere today. "A financial planner thinks I should buy a tax-deferred variable annuity. What do you think?"Salespeople are selling annuities to anyone who breathes. The reason is simple. They earn big commissions, in the 5 percent to 7 percent range.You don't notice this commission because it's not deducted up front. In fact, the annuity brochure may boast, "No initial sales charge."

Surveys find that most people would rather continue living at home than go to a nursing home. But the aversion to such a facility is so strong that a new study of seriously ill people in hospitals found that 30 percent of those surveyed said they would rather die than live permanently in a nursing home.The study was the first to ask seriously ill patients to state a preference for either living in a nursing home or dying. The findings come from the Support study, the largest investigation in the United States of decision-making at the end of life.

An elderly man living at a local nursing home had bedsores and overgrown nails when he was brought in to Howard County General Hospital late last week, prompting an emergency room nurse to report suspected physical neglect to police.As a result of the police report, state officials say, they plan to investigate the care of Vernon Brown, 75, at the Lorien Nursing Home & Rehabilitation Center in Columbia's Hickory Ridge village.But the hospital already has determined that the elderly man did not suffer from any maltreatment, said Victor Broccolino, the hospital's president and chief executive officer.

EASTON -- The state medical examiner has found traces of morphine in the remains of a 91-year-old Eastern Shore woman whose body was exhumed last week to determine whether she was given a lethal dose of a powerful painkiller at a Worcester County nursing home.According to a preliminary autopsy report released by the medical examiner's office in Baltimore and made public yesterday, toxicological tests revealed an undisclosed level of the drug in tissue samples taken from the body of Maidie Lang Shay.

Western Tech senior right-handed pitcher Julianne Roper is 8-2 with a 0.67 ERA. She has struck out 85 in 63 innings. Roper, who also plays volleyball, is a certified nursing assistant who interns as a school nurse at a Catholic elementary school. She works in the kitchen at St. Joseph's Residence, a nursing home for retired nuns. Roper also plays softball for the Maryland Chill and will play for Villa Julie next year while she studies to become a registered nurse. She has a 4.0 grade point average and hasn't gotten a B since sixth grade.

About three-quarters of Maryland's roughly 1,500 licensed "assisted-living facilities" for the elderly went unchecked by regulators despite a state law that requires annual inspections, according to a legislative audit released yesterday. "It is something Maryland should be ashamed of," said Kate Ricks, chairwoman of Voices for Quality Care, a nonprofit group that advocates for the elderly. She said she is appalled that Maryland did only a fraction of the required annual inspections during the fiscal year ending June 30, 2006.

PAT FORDICE, 72 First lady of Mississippi Pat Fordice, a former first lady of Mississippi and a champion of the arts, literacy and beautification projects, died Thursday, her family said. Mrs. Fordice became a public figure after her husband, Kirk Fordice, a brash millionaire construction company owner, was elected in 1991 as Mississippi's first Republican governor since Reconstruction. She was instrumental in bringing two popular international art exhibitions to Jackson. In 1996, Palaces of St. Petersburg: Russian Imperial Style featured tapestries, china, paintings and other glittering objects.

Jake of Dundalk is aware that Congress last year toughened the rules to qualify for long-term care through Medicaid. The idea was to make it harder for people to shift assets to relatives so they can make themselves eligible to get Medicaid - a program for the poor - to pick up the nursing home tab. Given the changes, he asks in an e-mail: "How can an individual protect their certificates of deposits and IRA(s) from the nursing home costs?" Jake is asking a technical question, but he raises an ethical one: Is it right for middle-income and upper-income households to shelter their money and have taxpayers foot their nursing home bills?

A fourth person died yesterday of Legionnaires' disease at Harford Memorial Hospital where a hot water tank is believed to have been the source of a recent outbreak.Noting state confidentiality laws, officials declined to identify the patient. But a spokeswoman for a Havre de Grace nursing home last week confirmed that the patient was a woman in her 80s who became ill at the nursing home and was sent to the hospital.While giving no other details, Bob Netherland, a spokesman for Upper Chesapeake Health Systems Inc., which runs the Havre de Grace hospital, said the patient was admitted there on June 28 with pneumonia and Legionnaires' disease symptoms.

Retired Baltimore Transit Company worker Earl Lafayette Wilder, the 87-year-old accused of killing a 91-year-old fellow resident at their Columbia assisted-living home, is a one-time boxer who suffers from dementia, according to court records. The eldest of Wilder's five children, who is his guardian, said Tuesday that she was still struggling to comprehend the Aug. 17 incident in which Wilder is alleged to have risen from his wheelchair and attacked James W. Brown with his fists as the victim sat on a metal bench outside Harmony Hall.

On July 23, 2009 ANNE MARY SINDELAR (nee Wolczyk), beloved wife of the late Joseph B. Sindelar, M.D.; loving mother of Mary Josephine Blair, Patricia K. Cheatham, Joseph B. Sindelar, Jr. and Elizabeth Ann Plowman; cherished grandmother of seven grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. A Memorial Mass was celebrated on Saturday, July 25 at St. Joseph's Nursing Home Chapel. Interment is private. Arrangements by Sterling-Ashton-Schwab-Witzke Funeral Home of Catonsville, Inc. In lieu of flowers donations may be made to St. Joseph Nursing Home, 1222 Tugwell Drive, Catonsville, MD 21228.

Inside Prince George's County police headquarters yesterday, a squad of homicide detectives and nearly a dozen other senior investigators moved into a separate office and began poring over two recent cases that were suddenly the department's top priority. Not far away, in a quiet neighborhood near FedEx Field, all anyone talked about was the possibility that the cases - two double homicides - were connected, that someone is killing mothers and their daughters. The Loftons, Karen and Karissa, were the first, shot in late January in their Largo home.

Veterans Day ceremony slated at City Dock Annapolis Branch 24, Fleet Reserve Association, will host the City of Annapolis' Veterans Day ceremony at 11 a.m. Tuesday at Memorial Circle at City Dock. Veterans groups, youth organizations and the Annapolis Police Department will parade the colors before opening ceremonies. The Annapolis High School Band will play the national anthem. Annapolis Mayor Ellen Moyer will be the speaker. A member of the Naval Academy Band will play Taps. Information: 410-267-0621 or 410-533-7113.

DORIAN LEIGH, 91 Early supermodel Dorian Leigh, an early supermodel who made Revlon's 1950s "Fire and Ice" cosmetics line famous, died Monday at a nursing home in Falls Church, Va. Ms. Leigh was among the first models who signed with the Ford Agency.

Archbishop Curley's Andrew Sellers is the consummate athlete. The senior dominated on the football field this season as a middle linebacker, registering 176 total tackles and shattering the school season record by nearly 50 in the process. He wrestled for three varsity seasons, too, but his favorite sport is lacrosse. He helped Curley win a Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association B Conference title last year, and the Friars are expected to repeat this year, having reeled off 25 straight B Conference victories.

Mary Leonora Jones, a retired nursing home director who once challenged Parren J. Mitchell for a congressional seat, died of congestive heart failure May 3 at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. The Woodlawn resident was 85. Born Mary Leonora Williams in St. Pauls, N.C., she earned a nursing degree from Shaw University and moved to Baltimore with her parents in 1940. She worked as a nurse at the old Provident Hospital on Division Street and in 1959 became a Sinai Hospital charge nurse at a time when few African-Americans held the job. In 1970, she became head nurse at the Maryland General Hospital emergency room and went on to become the hospital's nursing director.

Work on a proposed nursing home at the western edge of Turf Valley could begin this year after Planning Board approval for the Lorien Nursing Home and Assisted Living Facility. The facility, which would feature 62 nursing home beds and an additional 100 assisted living beds, is to be on 6 acres on the east side of Marriottsville Road just south of Interstate 70. "It's an exciting first step in the creation of Lorien at Turf Valley," said Gina Ellrich, a spokeswoman for Mangione Family Enterprises, the developer.

We are in so much trouble, boomers. I know, I can hear the Gen-XYZs saying, "Please, not another baby boomer whining about getting older." Well, bear with me here. Our pain might be your pain one day. I've just come back from visiting my mom. She lives in a large, Baltimore-area retirement community. She'll turn 95 this fall, but she still steams through the halls behind her walker as if the place were on fire. She calls it "playing golf," and walks the "links" at least three times a day. But she is struggling with vascular dementia (hardly anybody hits 90 without slipping a cog)

Jacqueline A. Speciner, a staunch advocate for disabled people, died of undetermined causes Tuesday at St. Joseph Medical Center. She was 49. Friends and family described a gregarious and independent woman who didn't let her cerebral palsy get in the way of enjoying life. "She didn't like the word disabilities, said Phyllis Godwin, who co-wrote Mrs. Speciner's autobiography. "She liked the word challenge. She wanted to let people know they could live on their own." Mrs. Speciner lived in the Virginia Towers in Towson.