IPA SF Meeting

by Jay Luxenberg

Recently, I was invited to participate in a week-long series of events in Taiwan –Aging Innovation Week. While meeting with government officials, it became evident that they are considering adding a Long Term Care insurance benefit to their national health insurance. In recent years I have attended meetings in the Netherlands, Germany, South Korea, Australia and Japan – all countries that offer their citizens a universal long term care benefit.

Each country faces challenges doing this. How to allocate scarce and expensive resources like nursing homes? How to determine which level of benefit a person gets? Each society has to determine whether to pay family caregivers or to rely on “free” family labor to supplement paid professional caregivers. Each of these countries faces demographic challenges, with increasing number of elderly potential beneficiaries compared to a shrinking labor pool of young persons able and willing to serve as caregivers. Of course, this puts economic pressure on caregiver wages, or prompts societal decisions on immigration policy to meet the labor needs. Each country has an interest in fostering technological solutions to minimize the need to use labor and institutionalization. 

What can we learn from their efforts? I can share that I find it very worthwhile to attend these international meetings. I learn from meeting colleagues, asking questions at poster sessions, and listening to lectures offering an international perspective. Of course, the downside is that it is expensive to travel to these meetings. The great news is that one of the better international organizations with a focus on aging and long term care is having their International Congress next year in San Francisco. The2016 International Psychogeriatric Association Congress will be in San Francisco September 6-9. Although the program and meeting details have not yet been posted, this is the time to block off on your calendar so you can get the benefit of attending an international meeting without the expense of international travel.  The IPA has a long interest in addressing long-term care and nursing home issues related to mental health in the elderly – theirLong-Term Care shared interest forum is active and they always schedule visits to local long-term care facilities as part of the meetings. I hope to see you there!