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Helping Older Adults Take Charge Of Their Own
Health -
Programs funded through the Illinois Department of Public Health
Alzheimer's
The Alzheimer's Demonstration Project
enrolls clients, escorted elders to their own
physicians for medical assessments and enrolls people with
memory problems in the Safe Return Program. One Safe
Return enrollee, who could not speak English at all, was safely
reunited with his family after getting off a bus many miles from
his home. We work closely with the Alzheimer's Association
and Northwestern's Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease
Center, bringing education to ethnic communities and a review of
the Alzheimer's Disease protocol to bi-lingual, bi-cultural
physicians.
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Alzheimer’s Project Summary
The Alzheimer’s Project is a unique collaboration of three
partners and nine ethnic specific organizations that seeks to
provide assistance and support to almost 400 families of
identified Alzheimer’s disease patients in underserved
populations that do not understand Alzheimer’s disease and find
it difficult, due to language and culture, to obtain a
comprehensive medical assessment, access services and provide
appropriate care in the home.
The partners and their role in the Alzheimer’s Project are:
Coalition of Limited English Speaking Elderly (CLESE): providing
overall project administration, coordination with nine participating
ethnic specific organizations; collecting and analyzing data; and
translating materials.
Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease Center (CNADC) at
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine: providing
established dementia diagnostic guidelines to bi-lingual community
physicians in an accessible, easy-to-use format and being a resource
for community physicians in evaluating, treating and managing the
care of their patients and families who have memory problems,
Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders.
Alzheimer’s Association, Greater Illinois Chapter: providing
staff members who give information to ethnic agency representatives
and presentations at the participating ethnic specific agencies on
Alzheimer’s disease and the management of symptoms associated with
memory problems.
Memory problems are considered a normal part of aging in Limited
English Proficient (LEP) communities; entire families, not
‘caregivers,’ provide care; support groups are culturally
unfamiliar; bi-lingual community physicians may not be familiar with
dementia assessment protocols. To overcome these barriers, ethnic
agency staff members are trained in distinguishing normal memory
loss from Alzheimer’s disease or other dementias. Community
physicians or the Alzheimer’s Association provide educational
sessions for family members and the larger community in how to cope
with disease symptoms.
Older
adults with memory problems are enrolled in the Safe Return Program;
they are provided with needed community-based services such as home
care or adult day service; and they are encouraged to visit their
physician for a comprehensive assessment to rule out and treat any
conditions causing memory problems. |
click for enlargement
Building Better Bones
Building Better Bones, an
osteoporosis education and screening program. Women attend sessions where a doctor presents information in their own
language on osteoporosis. After the education session,
women have their heel bone screened for osteoporosis.
Women at risk are referred to their own doctors.
Understanding
Menopause
Understanding Menopause, funded
through the Office of Women’s Health within the Illinois Department
of Public Health, brings education on how to manage this important
transition in women’s lives. Women make behavior or lifestyle changes as a result of the
education sessions.
Heart Disease and Stroke
Prevention Program
The Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention Program
teaches what the numbers of your body are
(for example, a
blood pressure reading of 120/80), the warning
signs of heart attack
and stroke and how to call 911 in an emergency.
Providing health information at community-based
agencies on topics such as osteoporosis, understanding
menopause, heart disease, stroke prevention and smoking
cessation.
 Coalition
of Limited English
Speaking Elderly (CLESE)
53 West Jackson,
Suite 1301
Chicago, IL 60604
312-461-0812
312-461-1466 (fax)
info@clese.org
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