Get to Know: IlluminAge Communication Partners

IlluminAge Communication Partners - Seattle, Washington. The smart choice for outsourcing your web, print and multimedia projects.: IlluminAge Communications Partners – connecting you to older adults, caregivers and professionals in healthcare and aging. Better communications, both online and off, begin with a true understanding of your audience and the content they need. We have both, and can help you send your message through your website, print or online newsletter, video, or informative booklet or brochure.

Experts raise concerns over new unborn baby test

Experts raise concerns over new unborn baby test | News | The Christian Institute: A blood test that could allow genetic abnormalities to be detected early on in pregnancy has been met with caution over concerns it could lead to more abortions. The technique allows an unborn child’s entire genetic code to be “mapped” by examining the mother’s blood.

Peter Saunders, Chief Executive of the Christian Medical Fellowship, warned that the new technique could eventually be used to abort “individual babies with special needs.”

New palliative care funding system needed

New palliative care funding system needed : The Lancet: With aging populations and their associated chronic diseases, the demands for end-of-life care have risen sharply. However, palliative care is often poorly coordinated, even in the UK, which ranks top among 40 countries in a recent report. Palliative care should be the responsibility of every health professional, whereas for most health professionals there is limited training in end-of-life care. Moreover,of 500 000 deaths each year, only 18% of people die at home, yet 66% of those surveyed would like to do so.

Genetic tests could prevent those like me being born at all

Genetic tests could prevent those like me being born at all - Telegraph: "I have multiple sclerosis, which, though it has a genetic component, is not a single-gene disease and so cannot be detected in DNA. But just suppose that it could be. It is easy to understand how, under a policy that allowed abortion for any genetic defect, someone like me would have been aborted. And yet, I certainly think I have had, and still have, a life worth living, and I can’t accept that a diagnosis that a foetus would develop MS could be grounds for terminating it."

Narcotic Painkillers May Pose Danger to Elderly Patients

Narcotic Painkillers May Pose Danger to Elderly Patients, Study Says - NYTimes.com: Older patients with arthritis who take narcotic-based drugs to relieve pain face a higher risk of bone fracture, heart attack and death when compared to those taking non-narcotic drugs, according to a government-financed study published Monday.

Jewish Groups Revive Rituals of Caring for Dead

Jewish Groups Revive Rituals of Caring for Dead - NYTimes.com: The Jewish protocol for tending to the dead governs almost every interaction between the living and the deceased from the moment of death until burial. The ritual, which has been part of religious law for two millenniums, mandates the protection of the physical and spiritual remains.

Disabled child had a "right" to be aborted

Press review from 29th of November to 03rd of December 2010: The Brussels Court of Appeal ruled that a child, represented by his parents, could claim damages from physicians for the injury of being born disabled. 'Certainly, the misdiagnosis did not cause the child's disability, which existed before the error and which could not be remedied,' the Court considered. 'However, the injury which must be compensated is not the disability itself, but the fact of being born with such disabilities.'

For the Court, the child would have had 'right' to an abortion if the disability had been correctly diagnosed. Indeed, by making 'therapeutic abortion' part of Belgian law, 'the legislator must have intended to allow women to avoid giving birth to children with serious abnormalities, having regard not only to the interests of the mother, but also to those of the unborn child itself.' A similar judgment had been rendered on 21st April 2004 by the Brussels lower court for a Down’s Syndrome child.

Advice for Veterans: Disability Claims and Appeals

Jeremy M. Johnson, Client Relations Director with Plachta, Murphy & Associates, P.C., writes: Many veterans with service-related disabilities often have claims either denied or assigned a lower percentage rating than the facts of the case warrant. There is help: Our Attorneys and Government Benefits Specialists will coordinate with a veteran's medical team and navigate the bureaucracy of the VA on your behalf. Our team members will use their experience with the bureaucracy of the Department of Veterans Affairs, as well as their industry contacts, to navigate the rules and regulations to more effectively advocate on behalf of veterans. We help veterans avoid delays and mistakes, and work to ensure the best appeal possible.

Service Connected Injury
VA regulations require the Department to provide benefits to those who have been injured while in military service. Service Connection is the common term for these benefits. The injury or illness does not have to be caused by combat. To count as a Service Connection-eligible injury, it only needs to be incurred while on active service or under military orders.

Disability Compensation
Compensation benefits are paid monthly. The benefit depends on the level of severity of the disability. The VA assigns the severity a "percentage disabled" number called the disability rating. Amounts paid can range from $123 to $2,673 per month -- or more if very severe conditions exist. This is not an income-based benefit. We encourage any veteran who believes he or she has an injury from their service to apply for disability compensation, especially since there is typically no statute of limitations for these claims.

Vietnam Era
The Secretary of Veterans Affairs has recently established a service connection for Vietnam Veterans with three specific illnesses based on the latest evidence of an association with the herbicides referred to as "Agent Orange." The illnesses are B cell leukemia’s (such as hair cell leukemia), Parkinson's disease, and ischemic heart disease. Veterans who served in Vietnam during the war and who have a "presumed" illness don't have to prove an association between their illnesses and their military service: this simplifies and speeds up the application process for benefits.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Sometimes disabilities are visible to all. But there are also times where pain is hidden deep inside. The stress of combat can linger for years before any problems are apparent. One of the most common diagnoses of combat veterans is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Compensation can be paid for PTSD, but the veteran must take the initiative by filing a claim for benefits.

For more information and eligibility requirements please visit http://pmalawpc.com/va.html or contact Government Benefits Specialist Rick Cross at (616) 458-3994.

Swiss Court Effectively Legalizes Active Euthanasia

Swiss Court Effectively Legalizes Active Euthanasia » Secondhand Smoke | A First Things Blog: Wesley Smith: "I have warned and warned that legalizing assisted suicide leads directly to permitting active euthanasia, as I once put it, like the left leg follows the right, while walking. And now, in Switzerland, a court has taken the poisonous leap."

MT Supreme Court legalizes assisted suicide

Montana became the third state where physician assisted suicide is “legal.” However, it is the first state where this change occurred as a result of a court decision, as opposed to legislative action. Federalist Society

Cutting human beings

Articles & Commentary: Arizona attempted to save money by curtailing expensive procedures that were believed to be relatively ineffective. From the standpoint of hard choices and cold calculation, this principle is defensible. But there is little reason to believe that Arizona undertook the time-consuming and painstaking data collection and cost-benefit analyses that should inform such policy change. Instead, it clumsily targeted a discrete group of people with names and faces who will die without a standard procedure that is proven to be successful in so many cases.

Watch Out! New Problems Coming Your Way

Watch Out! New Problems Coming Your Way: One way or another, either by panels that set standards or fiscal incentives, the next 5 years are going to hold rationing and allocation of resources as a key ethical challenge for physicians, both general practitioners and for specialists.

Nazi war crimes provide lessons in medical ethics

amednews: Nazi war crimes provide lessons in medical ethics :: Dec. 6, 2010 ... American Medical News: German physicians and scientists helped carry out the regime's policies. What can today's doctors learn from this tragic history?

In the 1930s and 1940s, hundreds of German medical professionals took part in a euthanasia program that targeted children younger than 3 years old with severe birth defects. Doctors and midwives were required to report such cases, and parents were told that advanced care could be given to children at 30 special pediatric wards around Germany. Instead, the children were murdered, usually with sedatives. Physicians drew up falsified death certificates, and parents were told their children died of natural causes such as pneumonia. An estimated 5,000 children fell victim to physicians and other medical professionals who went from healers to killers.

These actions were far from the exception in Nazi Germany. As evil as these actions appear in retrospect, they arose out of a highly sophisticated German medical culture. More than half of the Nobel Prizes that were awarded in science through the 1930s went to Germans. Where German medicine then went wrong is that physicians began to view improving the health of the "body politic" as a whole as their principal aim.

Danish Cytogenetic Registry shows all time low number of Downs Syndrome births

26 out of 160 born in 2009. You don't need to read Danish to know this is a horrible statistic. Ja till Livet

Belgium study finds that nearly half of all euthanasia deaths unreported.

Euthanasia Prevention Coalition: Belgium euthanasia: Study finds that nearly half of all euthanasia deaths unreported. Recently, retired Belgian euthanasia activist Jan bernheim toured Quebec telling audiences that the Belgium euthanasia law is operating without any problems or abuses. Yet, a study recently published in the British Medical Journal found that nearly half of all euthanasia deaths in the Flanders region of Belgium were not reported. Another study published in the CMAJ in May 2010 that indicated that 32% of all euthanasia deaths in the Flanders region of Belgium were without request or consent suggests that the Belgium euthanasia model is out-of-control.

Paralyzed accident victim fights for right to die

Paralyzed accident victim fights for right to die - JSOnline: For the last year and a half, Dan Crews has battled Froedtert Hospital in Wauwatosa, IL, to remove his ventilator. Hospital psychiatrists and mental health professionals say he is depressed and must be treated for it before they will consider such an irrevocable step, according to his medical records. Crews said his desire to die stems not from his depression, but from his poor quality of life and the low odds that it will ever improve.

Crews' desire to die is not uncommon for people with spinal cord injuries, who often struggle to gain control over their own lives. Their suicide rate is two to six times that of the general population, depending on their specific situation. Their inability to end their lives themselves often compounds their sense of helplessness.

Yet stories like Crews' are troubling to disability rights activists. They argue his quality of life doesn't have to be inherently bad; rather, they say, society doesn't provide the resources for Crews and others to live a satisfying life.

'A robot is like a friend' in Japan

BBC News - 'A robot is like a friend' in Japan: Japan is pioneering robot technology to help make everyday life easier for people with disabilities. Pioneering inventions include a robot guide for the blind, and robotic legs which can help disabled people stand up and walk.

The Ethicist - Kidney Punch

The Ethicist - Kidney Punch - NYTimes.com: "My father-in-law suffers from chronic kidney disease and expects to need a transplant in the not-too-distant future. He does not wish either of his adult children or me to donate a kidney, on the grounds that even in our late 30s, we are too young and might need our other kidney at some point down the road. Instead, he plans to add his name to the recipient list and wait his turn. May we ignore his wishes and anonymously donate a kidney when the time comes?"

Margo MacDonald's End of Life Assistance Bill rejected

BBC News - Margo MacDonald's End of Life Assistance Bill rejected: The Scottish Parliament has rejected plans to give terminally ill people the right to choose when to die, despite claims they were widely backed. Independent MSP Margo MacDonald's End of Life Assistance Bill aimed to make it legal for someone to seek help to end his or her life. Ms MacDonald, who has Parkinson's disease, claimed there was wide public support for the legislation.

Euthanasia: a nurse admits killing

Euthanasia: a nurse admits killing live - AOL News The audience of a talk-back radio show on France Inter had frissons d'horreur recently when a caller named Cécile, a 70-year-old retired nurse admitted that she had euthanased several people. "I gave several people who were suffering euthanasia," she told the show's host, "and I made the decision all by myself."

Whether or not Cecile's confession was true, it sparked a debate on the show. The secular humanist philosopher Luc Ferry was outraged. "This is a scandal," he said. "I prefer for this to be a team decision and for the children or the partners of the person who is going to die be involved.... Someone's life cannot belong to a third person." The program's callers, however, were broadly supportive of euthanasia.

Spanish nursing home orderly admits 11 killings

BBC News - Spanish nursing home orderly admits 11 killings: Joan Vila, 45, said he poisoned them with bleach, an overdose of insulin or drugs at the home in the north-eastern town of Olot. He had confessed to killing three residents 'to end their suffering' when he was arrested in October. He then told a judge on Tuesday that he had killed another eight.

Concern over assisted suicide commission

Concern over assisted suicide commission | News | The Christian Institute: A commission, which will tomorrow begin investigating the law on assisted suicide, is not ‘independent’, critics have said. The Commission on Assisted Dying is backed by a pro-euthanasia group and will be chaired by a Peer who has previously tried to weaken the law on assisted suicide.

The beauty of 'nice'

Andrea Simantov: The beauty of 'nice': I recently co-planned a two-day charity event for my organization, and I'll admit on these pages (only to you) that I'm still not my perky self after many months of preparation. Literally day and night my cohort and I attempted to work out every detail and foresee potential 'glitches' before they occurred. There was an inordinate amount of list-making and record keeping in addition to hundreds of back-and-forth correspondences. But our end-goal was clear and, despite the stress, the joy in what we do and for whom we do it seemed downright corny. Several times a day the two of us would race throughout the building in order to 'high-five,' hug and wave to the special-needs children we promote in an effort to keep both the mission and goal of this particular project fresh in our minds.

Latimer granted full parole after murdering disabled daughter

Latimer granted full parole after murdering disabled daughter | LifeSiteNews.com: Robert Latimer, the infamous Canadian euthanasiast who murdered his disabled twelve-year-old daughter in 1993, has been granted full parole. Meanwhile, Swedish parents jailed for spanking; children seized.