Assisted Living Memory Care Units Following Suit Wisconsin’s Music & Memory initiative is part of a broader effort, spearheaded by Secretary Rhoades, to become “dementia capable.” Coughlin says DHS priorities include making dementia training programs more affordable and accessible, creating and supporting dementia-friendly communities, improving options for individuals with dementia to live at home, and adapting facility physical environments to needs of those with dementia. Organizations within states can tap those funds for nursing home improvements.įollowing Wisconsin’s lead, Ohio and Utah are launching their own statewide Music & Memory initiatives, and other states are expressing significant interest in bringing personalized music to their long-term care facilities. Funding for Music & Memory’s certification program comes from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Civil Monetary Penalties fund, comprised of financial penalties for accreditation shortfalls. Response to Music & Memory at the facility level has been so enthusiastic that DHS is bringing the program to another 150 long-term care facilities this fall. “Touring the facilities that were implementing the program, she was very moved to witness the positive impact on residents,” says Coughlin.
Research, in partnership with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, is underway to provide a rigorous assessment of program benefits for residents.Įven before the data were published, evidence of the program’s success persuaded DHS Secretary Kitty Rhoades to champion Music & Memory, not only across Wisconsin, but also to her state executive counterparts nationwide. While DHS officials say they can’t yet definitively attribute all of the progress to the Music & Memory program, they believe personalized music has played a significant role in efforts to reduce antipsychotic use and improve residents’ lives. “We were really amazed.” A Positive Change for Nursing Home Residents “The initiative is pulling the whole state in a positive direction,” he says.
Before the state’s Music & Memory initiative, across all nursing homes in the second quarter of 2013, 17.4 percent of residents were taking antipsychotics a year later, use had dropped to 14.6 percent.Īccording to DHS’s Kevin Coughlin, the 100 nursing homes represent about a quarter of all facilities in Wisconsin. The Music & Memory program is one of the alternatives to medications implemented by Wisconsin nursing homes to reduce unnecessary prescribing of antipsychotic drugs to residents.
One year later, the evidence is persuasive: Wisconsin has moved from tenth to fourth place among all 50 states in a national effort to reduce use of antipsychotic drugs in nursing homes. But they had no idea just how significant the improvements might be. When Wisconsin’s Department of Health Services (DHS) decided to implement Music & Memory’s personalized music program in 100 long-term care facilities in September 2013, officials were hopeful that the initiative would improve residents’ quality of life.
0 kommentar(er)
