Lebanon Family Health – Splash of Color Party & Art Auction
View this email in your browser YOU’RE INVITED!Please join Lebanon Family Health Services as we celebrate the arts with our eighth annual Splash of Color on Saturday, June 18th, 2022, at 7 p.m. at The Red-Headed League and Market Mezzanine, 33 S. 8th St., Lebanon, PA 17042. Our silent auctions will be open for both virtual and in-person bidding, buying, and winning! Register Your Bidder Account Today! SPLASH OF COLOR will feature work from artists across Central Pennsylvania and beyond. Enjoy an exciting and entertaining evening of original art, music, live performances, and friendship as we kick off this year’s must-attend event! Seating will be limited, so reserve your spot today! ADMISSION IS $75 per person to attend the event in person. This year’s event will be held at The Red-Headed League’s Worrilow Room and Market Mezzanine and will begin at 7 p.m. Enjoy a selection of complimentary hors d’oeuvres along with 2 two drink tickets for your choice of beer, wine, or a signature mixed drink! DAZZLE YOUR SENSES! Bid on selected works and experiences from some of our area’s most celebrated artists while supporting Lebanon Family Health Services. Attending in person allows you to participate in our exciting live auction experiences! Registered bidders can actively bid and track their silent auction activity directly from their smartphones or mobile devices starting on May 21st. TEXT UPDATES Receive text updates for Splash of Color 2022 directly to your phone! To opt-in text SPLASH to 844-984-2454. Register Your Bidder Account Today! |
Last-Minute Lowdown: COVID-19 Resources from CDC, CMS, and Quality Insights
Welcome to the Last-Minute Lowdown! This weekly e-bulletin provides a summary of the week’s news and resources specific to immunizations, long-term care and skilled nursing facilities, a recording of our weekly webinar offering and any questions addressed during our weekly office hours.
Register and Attend Our Upcoming Webinar and Office Hours Next Week
Weekly Topic: Updates to COVID-19 Guidelines for Nursing Home Visitation & Testing. Ask your questions during open office hours and learn more during our weekly webinar.
Office Hours (now using a new live-chat platform instead of Zoom):
- Tuesday, March 29 @ 8 a.m.(No registration required. Follow this link to participate when office hours open.)
- Thursday, March 31 @ 2 p.m. (No registration required. Follow this link to participate when office hours open.)
Webinar:
CDC Resources
CDC campaign aims to raise awareness of TB amid COVID-19
Preliminary data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) this week show that reported tuberculosis (TB) disease diagnoses fell in 2020 and 2021. The CDC said the decline may be due to missed TB diagnoses amid the pandemic, and is campaigning to raise awareness of TB.
The CDC’s preliminary data show TB diagnoses fell 20% in 2020 and remained 13% lower in 2021 compared to pre-pandemic levels. The CDC said the decline may be due to the following:
- efforts to prevent COVID-19, such as wearing masks, may have also reduced the spread of TB
- disruptions to health care services during the pandemic may have delayed TB diagnoses and/or strained public health services from focusing on prevention and control of TB
- similarities in symptoms between COVID-19 and TB may have led to missed TB diagnoses
The CDC has renewed efforts to raise awareness of tuberculosis with the Think. Test. Treat TB campaign. The website serves as a one-stop hub with resources to help inform and guide conversations between patients and providers, as well as additional materials to communicate latent TB infection information.
- Click here to read the full CDC news release.
- Click here to download patient and health care provider education materials on TB.
ACIP updates vaccine recommendations and guidelines The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) has made updates to its General Best Practice Guidelines for Immunization. In the Timing and Spacing of Immunobiologics section, a new table has been added highlighting categories of vaccines. There are four categories: live; live-attenuated; non-live; and non-replicating. The guidance says to check renumbering if you’ve exported stand-alone documents.Click here to download the updated section. Click here to go straight to the revised page.In the Contraindications and Precautions section, information has been added specifying that the dengue vaccine should be used only in persons in endemic areas who have evidence of prior infection with dengue virus. Additionally, “Lack of laboratory evidence of previous dengue infection” has been added as a contraindication to dengue vaccine. Click here to download the updated section. Click here to go straight to the revised page. AAP issues report on trends of vaccinations for US children The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has issued a report drawing on data recently released by the CDC. The CDC studied children and adolescents ages 5 to 15 who received two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. Its report found the vaccinations resulted in a reduced risk of Omicron infection. The AAP used the data obtained by the CDC to issue its own report on the trends of COVID-19 vaccinations for U.S. children.Click here to read the full report. Click here to read the AAP’s key findings from the report. |
| CMS Resources |
| CMS makes updates to QSO guidelines The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has made updates to its QSO-20-38-NH and QSO-20-39-NH guidelines. Revisions include: adoption of “up-to-date” vaccination languageclarified preference for antigen test if health care personnel/residents are tested within 90 days of prior infection (in general, testing is not necessary if asymptomatic)clarified that visitors should meet the same requirements as residents for ending quarantine/isolation before entering the facility (facilities should screen all who enter for these visitation exclusions)Download the revised guidelines by clicking the links below. Updates are colored red:QSO-20-38-NHQSO-20-39-NH |
PACES Connections = Positive and Adverse Childhood Experiences
| Roundup formerly ACEs Connection |
 Filmmaker Tom Weidlinger confronts his own ACEs while discovering his father’s hidden past Paul Weidlinger, a structural engineer who worked with some of the 20th century’s most famous modern architects, never talked about the Holocaust. He never told anyone in the U.S., including his son, that he was a Jew. By Sylvia Paull, PACEs Connection writer  NEW Parenting with PACEs resources! We know how hard parenting with PACEs can be. PACEs Connection supports you in your parenting journey, and we’re excited to announce that we have lots of resources for you. By Natalie Audage, PACEs Connection staff  ACEs and the Resilient Brain Here are six additional keys to optimal brain health and function, including “Nature” pills, reducing stress, and addressing brain-damaging medical conditions. By Glenn Schiraldi, PACEs Connection member What seems . . . reasonable . . . . For people who grew up focusing on survival, it’s not a lack of hard work that keeps them from changing. Surviving ACEs took hard work. What they didn’t have was the luxury or safety to turn their attention toward anything except day-to-day survival. By Ron Arnold, PACEs Connection member NEWS FROM AROUND THE STATE |
| QUICK LINKS |
| For more information about PACEs Connection Roundup contact Rafael Maravilla. Got a question, a correction, a good idea on how to improve PACEs Connection, contact the Community Manager. Visit or join the PACEs Connection website for regularly posted stories, share stories, comments, and calendar events! Sign up for our emails! |
PennCares Upcoming Trainings
PennCares conducts researched-based trainings designed to assist caregivers, families, and professional individuals working in the field of human services. PennCares provides trainings with excellent resources, current information, all in an engaging webinar format, which are fun, informative, and keeps the attention of participants.
This webinar is made possible through a generous
grant from the Memorial Health Fund
See additional trainings by clicking on Upcoming Trainings below!
New name for APPRISE: Pennsylvania Medicare Education and Decision Insight, PA (MEDI)
Effective July 1, 2021, APPRISE is now Pennsylvania Medicare Education and Decision Insight, PA MEDI – Same Program, Same Services for Pennsylvania’s Medicare Beneficiaries, now with a New Name.
Pennsylvania Medicare Education and Decision Insight (PA MEDI) offers free Medicare counseling to older Pennsylvanians. PA MEDI Counselors are specially trained to answer your questions and provide you with objective, easy-to-understand information about Medicare, Medicare Supplemental Insurance, Medicaid, and Long-Term Care Insurance.
PA MEDI Counselors do not sell Medicare products but rather offer current, non-biased Medicare education to help you make the most informed choice about the Medicare options available to you.
Read more about the name change here.
“What it feels like to live with Parkinson’s? – The New York Times
By Steven Heller and Véronique Vienne. Illustrations by Christoph Niemann.
“Steven Heller, 70, has lived with Parkinson’s for more than 10 years. Véronique Vienne, 79, only recently learned that she had the disease. Both have had long careers as art directors, and the two have been friends for more than three decades. Back in March, the pair exchanged a flurry of emails over a 10-day period, where they explored the “before” and “after” of a Parkinson’s diagnosis. Here is an edited version of their conversation.”
Click here to read this New York Times article in its entirety.
“To Keep Your Brain Young, Take Some Tips From Our Earliest Ancestors” – NPR
“Without a cure for Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia, prevention is paramount. Habits that helped early humans thrive still make sense; a varied diet, exercise and an engaging social life.”
“Reconstructions from the Daynès Studio in Paris depict a male Neanderthal (right) face to face with a human, Homo sapiens.” – Science Source
by Brett Stretka
“It’s something that many of us reckon with: the sense that we’re not quite as sharp as we once were.
“I recently turned 42. Having lost my grandfather to Alzheimer’s, and with my mom suffering from a similar neurodegenerative disease, I’m very aware of what pathologies might lurk beneath my cranium.
“In the absence of a cure for Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia, the most important interventions for upholding brain function are preventive — those that help maintain our most marvelous, mysterious organ.
“Based on the science, I take fish oil and broil salmon. I exercise. I try to challenge my cortex to the unfamiliar.
“As I wrote my recent book, A History of the Human Brain, which recounts the evolutionary tale of how our brain got here, I began to realize that so many of the same influences that shaped our brain evolution in the first place reflect the very measures we use to preserve our cognitive function today.
“Being social, and highly communicative. ”
Continue reading this column at NPR; click here.
“Aging While Black: The Crisis Among Black Americans as They Grow Old” – The Crisis
by Rodney A. Brooks
“After a lifetime of racial and health inequities, Black seniors are at risk of spending their last years with declining health, little income and virtually no savings.
“Numerous studies have noted that Black Americans have worse health than their white counterparts, including chronic diseases and disabilities leading to shorter and sicker lives than white Americans. A recent 2016 CIGNA Health Disparities report found:
- Four in 10 Black men aged 20 or older have high blood pressure, a rate 30 percent higher than that of white men. Black men’s risk of a stroke is twice that of white men. For Black women, 45 percent of those aged 20 and older have high blood pressure, a rate 60 percent higher than white women.
- Black women are 40 percent more likely to die of breast cancer than white women.
- Black men have a 40 percent higher cancer death rate than white men.
- Black Americans are 80 percent more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes than whites, and nearly twice as likely to be hospitalized.
- Blacks are more than twice as likely as whites to suffer from Alzheimer’s and other kinds of dementia.
“Black women, said Tyson Brown, associate professor of sociology at Duke University, suffer from some of the highest levels of diabetes, hypertension, and other disabilities. Their health problems limit their ability to continue working. But many Black women have to continue working because of declining income as they age.
“’And so, it’s sort of a Catch-22,’ said Brown. ‘They’re often sort of put in a bind there.’”
Continue reading this article at The Crisis, click here.
“New Device Taps Brain Signals To Help Stroke Patients Regain Hand Function” – NPR
“A woman demonstrates the IpsiHand rehabilitation device for stroke patients.” – NeuroLutions
by Jon Hamilton
“People recovering from a stroke will soon have access to a device that can help restore a disabled hand.
“The Food And Drug Administration has authorized a device called IpsiHand, which uses signals from the uninjured side of a patient’s brain to help rewire circuits controlling the hand, wrist and arm.
“The device can be used at home and offers stroke patients “an additional treatment option to help them move their hands and arms again,” said Dr. Christopher Loftus of the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health in a statement.
“IpsiHand’s authorization comes after the FDA reviewed results on patients like Mark Forrest, who had a stroke in 2015.
“‘We called 911 and off to the hospital I went,’ Forrest, who lives near St. Louis with his wife, Patti. ‘By the time I got there most of my right side was paralyzed.’
“After six months of rehabilitation, Forrest was walking again, but still had little control over his right hand. He struggled to pull on socks and button shirts.”
Keep reading this article at National Public Radio, click here.
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