prognosUs

Earlier this month, we were invited by Masala Radio, South Asian ethnic media in #Houston, to chat about #dementia. Since we quietly launched our efforts in 2022, when we began with an educational dementia screening event at a senior center here in #Korean, we continue to engage with our culturally and linguistically diverse communities on facts vs fiction in dementia. Here is a common misunderstanding about brain games among doctors and patients and family #caregivers alike. As a neurologist, neuroscientist, and patient and family centered support caregiver, listen to what our founder, Dona Murphey MD PhD, has to say about the role of brain games in protecting brain function in dementia. #NationalFamilyCaregiversMonth #NationalAlzheimersAwarenessMonth

We hit 600 followers over the weekend and what better way to celebrate than convening with colleagues at the United Way of Greater Houston Elderly Service Providers Network. We were invited to speak about our work in the community and kicked off the talk with an implicit call to action by activist poet June Jordan, appropriate on the horizon of what we anticipate will be a historic dismantling of publicly funded healthcare. When institutions fail us, we rise together. "We are the ones we have been waiting for." We discussed the following: 1. policy threats to family caregiving in #dementia 2. the ways in which dementia and caregiving in dementia are racialized 3. how we accelerate diagnosis, educate, and expand natural support systems. If you have been here a minute, it is likely no surprise to you that we are working on mitigating 1 and 2 and confidently claim to be the most holistic, culturally tailored, convenient, consistent, community-centered, and credible solution for families dealing with the costliest disease of aging. We relentlessly connect the dots in our work, as they have real material consequences for our family caregivers. #NationalFamilyCaregiversMonth and #AlzheimersAwarenessMonth [video: connecting the dots]

Too often we do not disaggregate health data reported by race. In dementia, this has consequences for tackling racialized #healthdisparities. With a spectacular American born Nigerian sister duo on our community health worker team, we make sure that beyond bringing visibility to the disproportionate doubling of incident #dementia for Black families in the United States (in general), that we are mindful to tailor our support in resources to specific Black migrant communities. Below we share a portion of the heritage food adaptations we crowdsourced and co-created with a professional chef in #Houston and with the guidance of Maggie Moon, MS, RD in the categories of foods that should be optimized in the Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay (MIND) #Diet to help prevent and slow the progression of dementia. What a great reminder of how to eat healthier with the fall harvest upon us! **If you are interested in our heritage foods reference for Soul Food, Mexican, Ecuadorian, and Korean food, send us a request at our website!

With our lived expertise as #caregivers and our learned expertise in #neurology and #communityHealth, we at prognosUs are increasingly concerned about the dangers of further deregulation of healthcare, medical and scientific disinformation, and explicit withdrawal of efforts to address racialized health disparities for dementia. What's at stake? ?? Home-based services becoming even less accessible to already very poorly supported family caregivers. ?? Exacerbating an already tenuous understanding of dementia, which perpetuates shame and fear in our communities. ?? Increasing diagnostic delay and the rate of progression of disease in disproportionately impacted families. How will caregivers navigate the coming storm ?? ? ?? We need people showing up for one another in a place-based way. ?? We need those spaces to be safe, relatable, holistic, and healing. ?? We need to offer material as well as moral support. Truly, how we at PrognosUs have been building all along. ?? For convenient (virtual), consistent (weekly), credible (expert facilitated), and low-cost caregiver support, make sure to check us out. #peopleOverProfit We are the ones who will save us. #health #justice #community

?? Curious about what it looks like to care for two parents with dementia simultaneously as a single mom? Laura Lam gives KHOU 11 an intimate look at her life doing just that. We honor all our #caregivers during #NationalFamilyCaregiversMonth and #Alzheimers disease awareness month. ? Unlike a tech first, market first, or profit first platform, we are #community first and intimately embedded within each of our communities. ? We fundamentally disrupt health care and health disparities by organizing and empowering (low-cost) subscribed caregivers based on place. ? We transform who sees the returns on investment through our commitment to significant mutual (moral and material) aid. Developed together by neurologists and caregivers, check out our holistic platform of educational screening and staging tools for dementia, our concise, comprehensive, and culturally fluent beginner's guide to this long and hard journey, and a caregiver audio library with over 400 searchable short stories in four languages, including more on Laura's trials and triumphs. #sandwichgeneration #health #justice

November is both #Alzheimers disease awareness month and #NationalFamilyCaregiversMonth. Our founder has been busy chatting up KHOU 11 to bring #local visibility to the people who make an extraordinary commitment of care, rarely get acknowledged, and rarer still receive support or compensation. PrognosUs is mitigating and transforming both injustices. If you are caring for a loved one with dementia, which kind of caregiver are you? Credit to the incredible team at the Harris County Area Agency on Aging for organizing another successful #caregivers conference!

In one of the largest and most diverse counties in the United States, we work closely with community based organizations, federal agencies, and local elected officials to ensure that family caregivers of people living with dementia receive the support we need. Today, we were honored to speak in favor of a resolution recognizing #NationalFamilyCaregiversMonth What our founder, Dona Murphey MD PhD, had to say about it. “AARP estimates that 3.4 million family caregivers in Texas provide $41 billion of unpaid labor annually. In a state that has not expanded Medicaid, many lack access to vital home and community-based services that could ease this burden. Deregulation further threatens healthcare, raising costs without improving outcomes and deepening racialized health disparities. This highlights the need for Harris County to support caregivers. You can do this by ensuring our first responders are educated about how to manage people with dementia who may be wandering or publicly agitated and by investing in language access, public health, and healthcare measures to better meet the intersectional needs our families. As a neurologist and caregiver who founded PrognosUs, I work with families navigating dementia, the costliest disease of aging. The lifetime cost of dementia care can exceed $300,000, and the toll on caregivers is incalculable. Convenient, consistent, culturally fluent, credible, and low-cost support for caregivers is essential. With the help of Mater Osueke and our community health worker team, we achieve this. Rosalynn Carter famously said, “There are only four kinds of people in the world: those who have been caregivers, those who are currently caregivers, those who will be caregivers, and those who will need a caregiver.” We thank the court for your commitment to us all.” #dementia #caregiver

Veterans have 1.5-2X the incidence of dementia as non-veterans. We know intimately how this disease impacts their caregivers. Like the Area Agency on Aging, with whom we partner closely, the Veterans Health Administration does and will continue to play an important role in supporting family caregivers of people with dementia. Some highlights on caregiver support for veterans: ?? To qualify for caregiver support, your loved one must be eligible for VA healthcare. ?? Higher priority is given to those who have service connection due to illness or injury on active duty. ?? Service connection takes 6-9 months to complete. Veterans organizations help caregivers through this process. The goal is not to reapply and appeal repeatedly.? ?? Post-911 veterans receive five years of cost free healthcare if they were deployed. Copays may be applicable at 10-100% otherwise. ?? Apply in-person for VA healthcare if possible - complete VA Form 10-10 EZ. ?? Family and dependents of service members and veterans may be eligible for VA benefits. ?? Your loved one's primary care social worker can determine which caregiver support services are best for them. Primary care is always the entry point. For our military families - PrognosUs' caregivers share stories on their lived experiences with pursuing VA aid and attendance. 1. My walk from beneficiary to fiduciary. https://lnkd.in/g_5GDJAf 2. Veterans benefits https://lnkd.in/gJASB5Wu #dementia #caregivers #NationalFamilyCaregiversMonth #VeteransDay

This beautiful fall morning, we bring you a little bit of health justice in action.

“Wealth among traditional people is measured by having enough to give away.” ― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants In honor of Indigenous People's Day 2024, we wanted to share this specific notion of wealth, something we should be aspiring to collectively. We'd need to start with everyone having enough. One of the greatest physical, emotional, and financial challenges of our lives is the care of people with the costliest disease of aging (dementia). PrognosUs has been from its inception, a community-led and community-centered endeavor that acknowledges the injustice of health disparities and attempts to eliminate them through a model of mutual (moral and material) aid. If you are a family or informal caregiver of someone living with dementia, give/receive and heal through our community! #IndigenousPeoplesDay #dementia #caregiver Dona Murphey MD PhD