Dr. Carole Myers
Welcome to HealthConnections, the show about people, health, and policy. I'm Dr. Carole Myers. The Age-Friendly Health System Initiative is based on the idea that all decisions about caring for older adults should center on four key concepts. Dr. Kim Powell, an associate professor in the College of Nursing, will discuss age-friendly care and its relevance and value to older adults. Dr. Powell's research focuses in on informatics, aging, health equity, and how artificial intelligence and machine learning can improve care and outcomes for people living with dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Welcome, Dr. Powell.
Dr. Kim Powell
Thank you so much for having me.
Tell us more about age-friendly care. What is it?
In the recent past, a group came together, and this was the John A. Hartford Foundation and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. They kind of joined forces and said, taking care of older adults is really complex, and it's also complicated for providers. And so, when we think about clinicians and how we organize our care, centering it around these four concepts is supposed to make care more streamlined, more simplistic, but yet comprehensive. And so, the four key elements are mentation, medication, mobility, and what matters.
Let's look at those 4m's. What do they mean?
It means that when we make a decision, for example, about an older adult's medications, that we should also consider how that's going to impact their mobility, their mentation. Will it make them drowsy? Maybe it will sharpen or dull their senses. And is that what that person wants? Does that align with their goals, what they value in life, their priorities, and how they want their day to day to be?
The 4m's will be very individualistic.
Absolutely.
What is the significance of age-friendly care?
We need to have older adults and their loved ones aware of what their wishes and values are,. And this is a conversation that needs to happen more than once because, as we know, things change, and what you value today, what matters most to you today, might not be what matters most to you, or what you value in one year, or five years, or 10 years. Especially when we think about older adults who have some sort of cognitive impairment, like dementia, then those needs, the day-to-day needs, can change dramatically. Having these conversations early and often are really key to make sure that the 4m's are enacted in the way that we want them to be, and that is that all treatment decisions are aligned with what matters most.
What can you offer as far as tangible changes and benefits associated with age-friendly care?
We've studied text messages from nursing home staff as they're trying to make decisions about whether or not to send a nursing home resident to the hospital. And what we found is that when staff communicate more about the resident's mentation-that might be their mood or how confused they are-then the residents less likely to end up in the hospital, That means healthcare teams need to think about all 4m's when they're communicating and making healthcare decisions. And older adults, their families, people that care about and love them need to talk to them about what matters. Make sure that it's documented and to keep revisiting that conversation.
This is Dr. Carole Myers, joined today by Dr. Kim Powell of the University of Tennessee College of Nursing. Thank you for listening to Health Connections. All past episodes are available on WUOT.org for on-demand listening. And listeners, your suggestions and comments are always welcome.
