Older Adults and Integrated Health Settings: Opportunities and Challenges for Mental Health Counselors

2015 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 124-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jill Goldsmith ◽  
Sharon Kurpius

The growing number of older adults and the increasing recognition and growth of integrated health teams are creating expanded career opportunities for mental health counselors (MHCs). Collaborative integrated teams, staffed with medical personnel and MHCs, can provide comprehensive patient-centered care that addresses client issues from a biopsychosocial perspective. However, working with older adults on an integrated health team or in an interdisciplinary setting presents unique challenges and raises ethical issues. The evolving opportunities and strategies to address accompanying challenges are highlighted so that MHCs can be prepared to work effectively with older adults in interdisciplinary settings and on integrated health care teams.

Author(s):  
Gary Epstein-Lubow ◽  
Elizabeth Tobin-Tyler

Providing patient-centered care for an elderly individual with a mental health condition requires clinicians and family caregivers to work together. This chapter provides a description of a mental health treatment model, the triadic model of caregiving, in which service delivery for a patient includes clinicians communicating with family members or caregivers. Description of the mental health workforce to support patient-centered care is provided along with laws and policies that support family caregivers in their aid of patients. The associated legal responsibilities and ethical issues related to working with patients who have impaired decision-making capacity due to a mental health or substance use condition are explained, including capacity, competence, informed consent, advance care planning, guardianship, fiduciary responsibilities, and ethical concerns.


Hematology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heidi D. Klepin

Abstract Older adults represent the growing majority of patients diagnosed with hematologic disorders, yet they remain underrepresented on clinical trials. Older patients of the same chronologic age differ from one another with varying comorbidity and functional reserve. The concepts of frailty and resilience are important to patient-centered care and are patient and setting specific. The use of geriatric assessment to inform tailored decision making and management can personalize care for older adults with hematologic malignancies. This article will highlight available evidence to support the role of geriatric assessment measures to enhance quality of care for older adults diagnosed with hematologic malignancies.


2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 205-216
Author(s):  
Anna Horton ◽  
Simon Horton

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how discourse theories can contribute to the concept of identity formation within a patient- or person-centered care (PCC) orientation, to enable more critical engagement with PCC in older people. Design/methodology/approach This is a conceptual paper. Findings This paper concludes that the discourse literature has important insights for understanding identity formation in older people as operationalized in the context of PCC in three particular ways: accounting for multiplicity in patients’ identity; exploring “the devolution of responsibility” to address shifts in performing identities in clinical encounters; and attending to a “crisis of positioning” to engage empowerment discourse within a PCC philosophy. Originality/value Whilst a notion of patient identity is at the heart of PCC, the concept remains inconsistent and underdeveloped. This is particularly problematic for the quality of care in older adults, as PCC has become increasingly synonymous with care of older people. Discourse theories of identity formation can be used to critically engage with identity within the context of PCC, so as to develop more nuanced understandings of “the person” or “the patient,” with the potential to improve research into care for aging and older adults.


2013 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. CMED.S12231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer M. Hackel

Purpose This paper serves to apply and compare aspects of person centered care and recent consensus guidelines to two cases of older adults with poorly controlled diabetes in the context of relatively similar multimorbidity. Methods After review of the literature regarding the shift from guidelines promoting tight control in diabetes management to individualized person centered care, as well as newer treatment approaches emerging in diabetes care, the newer guidelines and potential treatment approaches are applied to the cases. Results By delving into the clinical, behavioral, social, cultural and economic aspects of the two cases in applying the new guidelines, divergent care goals are reached for the cases. Conclusions Primary care practitioners must be vigilant in providing individualized diabetes treatment where multiple chronic illnesses increase the complexity of care. While two older adults with multimorbidity may appear at first to have similar care goals, their unique preferences and support systems, as well as their risks and benefits from tight control, must be carefully weighed in formulating the best approach. Newer pharmaceutical agents hold promise for improving the possibilities for better glycemic control with less self-care burden and risk of hypoglycemia.


2013 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 245-261 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cecile Brennan

Since mental health counselors in private practice often work in relative isolation, it is especially important that they attend to ethical issues. This article reviews four dimensions of ethical knowledge: the foundation of ethical actions, counselors as agents of ethical action, the need to establish a decision-making process, and the importance of sustaining ethical practice by keeping current with clinical developments and attending to their own well-being.


2004 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 260-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carla J. Sofka

As a result of the events of September 11, 2001, older adults have experienced a multitude of death-related and non-death losses. Mental health counselors who interact with older adults have a crucial role in identifying individuals who may be at risk for experiencing a subsequent, temporary, upsurge of grief. Following a review of basic concepts and underlying philosophies that can be utilized to inform work with bereaved older adults, interviewing strategies and standardized measures available for use with older adults experiencing trauma and grief are described. Then using Corr's (2003) task-based approach as a framework, strategies for identification of need and intervention are presented.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francois Durand ◽  
Marie-Josée Fleury

Abstract Background: The successful combination of interprofessional collaboration in multidisciplinary teams with patient-centered care is necessary when it comes to delivering complex mental health services. Yet collaboration is challenging and patient-centered care is intricate to manage. This study examines correlates of patient-centered care such as team adaptivity and proactivity, collaboration, belief in interprofessional collaboration and informational role self-efficacy in multidisciplinary mental health teams.Method: A cross-sectional multilevel survey design was used, based on self-administered bilingual validated questionnaires. Participants (N=314) were mental health professionals and managers working in public primary care or specialized mental health services, in inpatient or outpatient settings. Results: This study showed that belief in interprofessional collaboration’s relationship with patient-centered perceptions is increased in teams with high collaboration. Collaboration is also found as a mediator, representing a process by which team adaptive and proactive behaviors are transformed into positive patient-centered perceptions.Conclusions: Our results were in line with recent studies on team processes establishing that collaboration is a key component in multilevel examinations of predictors of patient-centered care. In terms of practice, our study showed that multidisciplinary teams should know that working hard on collaboration is an answer to the complexity of patient-centered care. Collaboration is related to the teams’ ability to respond to its challenges. It is also related to individuals’ beliefs central to the delivery of interprofessional care.


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