Tag Archives for Ph.D.

Rhode Island Families Can Benefit from Expanding State’s TDI Program

Published in Pawtucket Times, May 17, 2013

In the 2012 legislative session, it was very easy for Pawtucket Rep. Elaine A. Coderre to say yes to Sen. Rhoda E. Perry, when the Providence lawmaker came looking for a House sponsor of S 2734. Perry’s legislative proposal would amend the State’s existing Temporary Disability Insurance (TDI) program to include coverage for caregivers who care for loved ones during a health care emergency or to take time off to bond with a child.

Years before, unexpectedly being pushed into the role of caregiver would bring Coderre to become the primary sponsor of H 7862, the companion bill to S 2734. To the disappointment of the Pawtucket lawmaker and her Senate colleague, their legislative proposal would be held for further study, effectively killing it.
Understanding a Caregivers Needs

In 1997, taking care of her dying mother became time-consuming for Coderre, a part-time lawmaker who served full-time as Executive Director of the Emergency Shelter of Pawtucket. Before the onset of the terminal illness, Coderre’s 78-year-old mother had lived independently on the second floor of her daughter’s three floor tenement.

With her elderly mother quickly losing her ability to live independently, being diagnosed with fourth stage Alzheimer’s disease and fourth stage colon cancer, the fifty-year old Coderre instantly became a very stressed caregiver

For over ten months, Coderre skillfully juggled the responsibilities of working two very challenging jobs, meeting family demands, and becoming the primary caregiver to her frail mother. To provide care seven days a week, 24 hours a day, Coderre would rely on her husband, three adult children, sister and her husband, to assist.

“It was a scheduling nightmare, remembered Coderre, referring to the complexity of making sure each family member was inked in the schedule and were notified when to report for duty. “We were committed to making my mother, in her final days, feel safe, secure and to have a quality of life,” she said, noting that her family did work well together, making the care giving schedule work

Looking back, Coderre considers herself extremely fortunate because she had her immediate family and was able to hire a homemaker, to provide more of the physical care, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Supporting Temporary Caregiver Insurance

But, Coderre realized from this experience and calls from constituents that not everyone has a large network of family and friends, or adequate finances to take care of a very sick loved one, even to know where to find caregiver support services. Becoming a care giver to a frail family member, an experience that many Rhode Islanders will face during their adult life, pushed Coderre to again become the primary sponsor of House legislation to create a Temporary Caregiver Insurance Program (TCIP), for the second time around.

During the 2013 legislative session, Coderre has joined Sen. Gayle Goldin, who represents areas in Providence’s Eastside, to reintroduce companion measures in the Rhode Island General Assembly (H 5889 and S 231) to create a TCIP. The legislative proposal, modified to address opponent concerns from the last session over the length of the benefit, would expand TDI to employees who must take time out of work to care for a family member or bond with a new child in their home.

If enacted, employees would be eligible to receive up to 8 weeks of replacement income while providing care for a seriously ill family member or new child. The law would provide employees with job security by allowing them to return to work when their caregiver responsibilities have concluded. The average weekly benefit for an employee would be $408.

Like Coderre, Goldin, a first-term Senator, had her own life experience as a caregiver. Over the years she, as a family advocate, she has also talked with many parents who told her of their own children’s health needs and financial and emotional stress it created and how important this program was for them.

“Paid family leave is a cost-effective way to give employees the time to balance family and work responsibilities without jeopardizing their economic security,” said Goldin.

In the early 2000s, Goldin’s interest in research on TCIPs was piqued when the program was implemented in California. Last year, as a member of the Providence-based Women’s Fund of Rhode Island’s Policy Institute, she brought this knowledge to the table when working with seven women to get legislation introduced on Smith Hill.

At that time, out of five state’s nationwide that had TDI, like Rhode Island, identified two (California and New Jersey) allowed the program to be used by caregivers, not just those who are suffering the illness or injury themselves.

The research findings gathered from the Women’s Fund of Rhode Island’s Policy Institute would give ammunition to Sen. Perry and Coderre to push for the TDI program expansion in 2012. When Goldin took over Perry’s Senatorial seat when the long-time Providence Senator retired, she picked up the TDI cause, bringing Coderre back to the plate this legislative session, to assist her in the House.
Advocates Rally to Support

On April 11, eleven groups, including AARP Rhode
Island, the Senior Agenda coalition, Woman’s Fund of Rhode Island, the Economic Progress Institute, Rhode Island Kids Count, and the Rhode Island SEIU State Council, came before the House Finance Committee, to push for passage of H 5889.

Dr. Marcia Conè, Ph.D., CEO, of the Woman’s Fund of Rhode Island, told lawmakers that the TCIP is just an updated extension of the current TDI program that “best addresses the new health and lifestyle changes of today’s society, giving “everyone the flexibility of needed to balance the new realities of family and work responsibilities.”

To put the brakes to a “brain drain” out of the Ocean State, due to higher salaries available in bordering states, Dr. Conè stressed that H 5889 would offer what all employees need, time off to care of family business in a crisis. “The prestige of having the most family friendly work environment in New England is a very strong incentive for families to stay in the state to make Rhode Island their home,” she told the panel.

In her testimony, Executive Director Kate Brewster, of The Economic Progress Institute, stated that the state’s Parental and Family Medical Leave Act of 1987, and the Federal Family Medical Leave Act of 1993, give employees up to 13 weeks of “unpaid leave” to care for a family member or new child. “These laws protect employees’ jobs, but not their wages,” she said, observing that low-income Rhode Islanders can not afford to take unpaid time off from work, they need their wages.

Countering Brewster’s comments, submitted testimony by R. Kelly Sheridan, representing The Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce, warned that H 5889 would expand the State’s existing TDI program to allow employees time off to care for family members, when most states do not even have a TDI system. This expansion “would make Rhode Island’s business climate an outlier compared to our neighboring states and would send the wrong message to the business community regarding improving the business climate in our state,” he said.

While Matt Weldon, Assistant Director, of the State’s Department of Labor and Training, took no position on the TCIP legislative proposal, he came to answer questions. Weldon noted that there could be a .2 increase to the rate an employee is mandated to pay into TDI. Currently, the state program takes 1.2% of the first $61,400 out of an employee’s paycheck.

Maureen Maigret, Policy Consultant for the Senior Agenda Coalition of Rhode Island, told the House panel that nobody can predict when a family crisis will come, specifically “the critical illness of a child or spouse, an older person’s fall and subsequent need for care.”

Maigret estimated, for just pennies per week paid by workers – the cost of a cup of coffee — passage of H 5889, would allow workers to take temporary leave to deal with sudden critical family needs and still have some income.

With the Rhode Island General Assembly gearing up to finish the people’s legislative business by the middle of June, We Care for Rhode Island (WCRI), a grass roots coalition consisting of 32 organizations, including small business owners, workers, policy centers and family and health care advocates, was established at the end of April, to push for the passage of a Rhode Island TCIP.

Last Saturday, visiting local retail stores on Hope Street, Steve Gerencser, of WCRI, passed out literature, calling on owners to support his group’s attempts to create a TCIP in the Ocean State. “It can be a boon for businesses,” he says, citing a 2011 research study detailed on his Legislative Fact Sheet, supporting the passage of H 5889 and S 231. Gerencser notes that the findings estimate that program would save employers $89 million a year by improving employee retention and reducing turnover costs.

Goldin agrees with WCRI’s assessment a TCIP’s benefit to businesses. Moreover, she claims that there is really no impact on the State’s budget, to start up this new program. “It’s revenue-neutral and is solely funded by the employee, business owners and taxpayers do not contribute.”

With a negligible expense to implement, with no cost to the taxpayer or even the business community, it’s penny-wise and pound foolish for state lawmakers to not create a Temporary Care Giver Insurance Program, to financially assist Rhode Island employees when they take off time to help seriously ill family members or to care for newly adopted child.

Sound public policy, like this legislative proposal, can only send a clear message across the United States, that the Ocean State is finally taking steps to become more family-friendly, a great way to competitively attract large corporations and even smaller businesses into our borders.

Herb Weiss, LRI ’12, is a writer covering aging, health care and medical issues. He can be reached at hweissri@aol.com.

The Best of…Keeping Your Memory Sharp in Your Later Years

Published October 2008, Pawtucket Times  

          In her twenties, while attending nursing school, Donna Policastro discovered she had a photographic memory.  Years later, even in her middle years, theProvidenceresident’s memory was still pretty good.  She had no need for appointment books or PDA’s to keep up with her hurried work schedule as a Registered Nurse.  Like an elephant, she never forgot, always remembering minute details, never missing an appointment or meeting.

             Approaching age 50, missing meetings and even some appointments forced Policastro, Executive Director of the Rhode Island State Nurses Association (RISNA), to keep a To-Do list and to use her computer’s calendar program. Policastro, now age 59, speculates that being overwhelmed at work because she had no support staff combined with not being able to say no to taking on new duties and responsibilities took a toll on her memory,

            Sometimes the aging baby boomer, like many,  would forget a colleague or patient’s name all together, or just not remember either their first or last moniker.  She became physically exhausted trying to remember their full name or little details of their initial meeting.  Sometimes it even bothered Policastro “to no end” when she could not remember an actor’s name she saw on a television program, becoming obsessed in an attempting to remember the name.

          As Policastro would ultimately discover when reading Aging With Grace, a book that described a longitudinal health study of an order of nuns, she was not losing her mind or becoming afflicted with dementia or devastating Alzheimer’s, her memory loss was due to normal aging. 

 Memory Gradually Declines with Age

           Laurence M. Hirshberg, Ph.D., Director of the Providence-based Neuro Development Center, would agree with Polacastro’s self-assessment of why her memory was not as sharp or clear as in her earlier years.  “Advancing age seems to cause gradual declines in some aspects of memory and thinking, brain structure, and brain functioning, while sparing others,” he says. 

            The Clinical Psychologist notes that research findings indicate that up to half of people over age 50 have mild forgetfulness linked to age-associated memory impairment,

           According to Dr. Hirshberg, who serves as a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown Medical School, as a person ages, there is often decline in one’s ability to encode new memories of events or facts, as well as the ability to hold the information you need to perform a simple task (for example, to dial a telephone number).  “Studies also show declines in memory of events, times, places, associated emotions., certain forms of reasoning, and numeric and verbal ability.  Procedural memory – remembering how to perform a process, for example playing the piano, is less affected by aging, as is memory of words and memory of emotional experience, both of which are enhanced with age,” Hirshberg says.

           “All of us show some forgetfulness at times, notes Dr. Hirshberg, especially when we forget where the car is parked, forget a persons name (but remember it later), forget events from the distant past, or forget parts of an experience.   He notes that signs of more serious memory problems include forgetting an experience or recent events, forgetting how to drive a car or read a clock, forgetting ever having known a particular person or loss of function, confusion or decreased alertness.

           Memory loss can be caused by a variety of factors, Dr. Hirshberg says, from lack of physical or mental activity, boredom, social isolation, stress, drug or alcohol use, smoking, poor nutrition, to an array of medical conditions that includes sleep disorders, head trauma, depression, diabetes, impairment to vision and hearing, head trauma, and even high blood pressure and cholesterol..

Living with Memory Loss

           Preventing memory loss in your later years can be as simple as staying socially active, keep learning and staying mentally active, eating nutritious meals, reducing stress and seeking help from medical conditions, Dr. Hirshberg suggested,  “Making lists and creating schedules can be effective strategies to increase memory skills. Many people use technological aids such as Palm Pilots.”  

            Even brain exercises can be helpful in keeping your memory sharp, Hirshberg says, specifically working cross word puzzles and soduko, playing chess, checkers, bridge and other card games. Reading, attending lectures, learning a new skill are also beneficial, along with using formal brain exercise programs for the computer (such a Mental Fitness, Brain Power, Captains Log, and Sharper Brain). Some examples of computerized brain exercise games can be seen at youcanstaysharp.com.

          Many aging baby boomers wonder when is the appropriate time to see their physician about memory loss.  Dr. Hirshberg says the rule of thumb that clinicians often use is, if you’re worried about your memory, it’s probably not that serious, but if your friends and relatives are worried about it, then it probably is more serious. . 

           Final note…You can also take part in a comprehensive mental fitness training program through the Stay Sharp Mental Fitness Center. This center offers brain fitness training exercise and EEG guided brain training to train your brain younger. For more information, visit youcanstaysharp.com or call 401 383 4104.

           Herb Weiss is a Pawtucket-based Freelance writing who has covered aging, health care and medical issues.  This article was published in October 2008.  Contact him at hweissri@aol.com .

The Best of…Program Shows It’s Never Too Late to Become Artistic

            Published November 12, 2001, Pawtucket Times

 

           The painting of large colorful murals not only brightened up the lobby area, the main hall, and the lunchroom’s blank white walls but sparked the interest for art among seniors at Providence’s Westminster Senior Center.    

            Last week, the budding artists along with their admirers gathered in the Center’s 1,000 square foot basement to show off their artistic works (created with charcoal, pastels, colored pencils and acrylic paints), all produced during 20 art classes held over a 10 month period..  

           Providence  resident Natalie Austin, 69, a former legal secretary who now works part-time at the Westminister Senior Center as a receptionist, had little exposure to the arts.  Courses taken in elementary and high school, an art history course at Brown University, along with some attempts to paint her summer home in Maine,  summed up Natalie’s life experience in the arts in one sentence.

           Austin, a graduate of Brown University who rallied the seniors at the Center to support the offering of art lessons, knew that it would become a popular program.  While not wishing to replace the late Grandma Moses, an American painter who in her late 70s began to paint, Austin paints for her own pleasure and that of others, she says.

         One of Austin’s class assignments was to draw a picture with charcoal using the elements of Van Gogh’s  famous painting, “The Starry Night.”  The drawing of a bag and straw hat were done fairly fast,Austin admits, noting that the swirling lines and distinct outlines of the Van Gogh masterpiece are incorporated into her work.   

         Another class assignment, using a landscape painting drawn by Pierre Bonnard-Ford, taught Austin the proper way to mix and use colors.  Her colorful drawing, using blues and oranges, followed her instructors assignment of copying the French artist’s palette while painting another subject.   

         While pleased with the quality of the art work she has produced in the art classes,Austin quips, “There’s always room for improvement.  I am always competing with myself, trying to improve.”

         Meanwhile, other lessons are learned besides the technical skills of mixing paint or sharpening charcoal pencils.  “Art gives you  insight into what people are like,”Austin says, noting that it also reveals their values too.

         Professional artists Pierre Lamuniere-Ford, his wife Jenny Booth and Jen Iwasyk were able to develop this unique art program for seniors which included  the purchase art supplies, courtesy of a $5,000 grant from the state’s Department of Elderly Affairs.

         Much thought was put into creating the curriculum for each class, Lamuniere-Ford told All About Seniors.                  

        The instructors, all in their 30s, taught basic drawing techniques, from gesture to realistic drawing, along with color mixing to their older students.    

         “When classes began it was hard to get people to get past their self doubts that they could become artists,” Lamuniere-Ford said.  “We worked very hard to dislodge the myth that you are [born] immediately talented, he added..

         According to Lamuniere-Ford, his students learned that art should not always be viewed as a pretty picture. “Art can be disturbing  and not pretty to see,” he says, noting that it can reflect one’s soul or a person’s state of mind.     

         Additionally, the students were able to use art to help them learn more about each other.  More important, he says, “they became less critical of self and of others.”

         Executive Director Marianela Dougal, of the Westminster Senior Center, acknowledges that she is not an artist, but views herself as an art lover.  She believes that art classes at her Center provide seniors with an avenue to express themselves and to be creative, giving them an opportunity to gain a sense of well being.

         Adds Rachel Filinson, Ph.D., Coordinator of Gerontology Program at Rhode Island College,  research findings indicate that creativity extends into the later years.  “People who are artists their whole life continue to be very prolific in producing quality work as they did in their earlier years,” she says. 

         “Anything that is stimulating will promote both your mental and physical health,” adds Filinson.  

          Herb Weiss is a Pawtucket, Rhode Island-based writer covering aging, health care and medical issues. This article appeared in the November 12, 2001 issue of the Pawtucket Times. He can be reached at hweissri@aol.com.