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Commentary: Break Down Walls Between Services for Mental Health, Addiction
One in four. That’s how many adults in the U.S. living with severe mental illness are also living with substance use disorders. In New York, 1.4 million people are living with both mental health and substance use challenges. Yet these issues are too often addressed as distinct and separate,...
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Supporting Socially Isolated Seniors
For many seniors, especially those who live alone, life can become progressively more challenging and isolating, compromising their ability to age well and safely in place. According to a report from the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, nearly one-quarter of adults age 65...
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Enhancing Geriatric Behavioral Health: Best-Practices and Technology-Assisted Care Solutions
As the United States grapples with the realities of an aging population, the importance of adapting our health and social service system of care to meet the needs of older adults has never been more critical. In 2020, approximately one in six people in the U.S. were aged 65 or over, highlighting a...
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Supporting Seniors: Challenges and Solutions for Tomorrow
As the United States undergoes a profound demographic transformation, the aging population poses unprecedented challenges and opportunities. The proportion of individuals over 65 is projected to swell from 18% today to 23% by 2054, with the number of centenarians set to quadruple. This...
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Supporting Changing Needs Through the End of Life for Adults with Disabilities in Residential Settings
Everyone changes with aging, often in invisible ways. You may be surprised to learn that beginning at age 25, there is a slow decline in speed, reasoning, spatial skills, and memory (Salthouse, 2009). At the age of 30, there is a 3-8% loss of muscle mass per decade (Volpi, 2004). By the age of 65,...
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Innovative Delivery of Therapy for Older Adults with Depression
There are many changes that take place as we age, but many people assume that depression is a normal part of aging. Instead, depression is best thought of as a response to losses and changes associated with aging, and most importantly – it is treatable! In our work with community-dwelling older...
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We Can Break the Cycle of Preventable Emergency Room Visits and Improve Patients’ Lives
In New York State, almost half (48%) of emergency room visits are for routine, non-emergency care offered by community health providers or are otherwise preventable. These visits disrupt patients’ lives and strain limited hospital resources. Moreover, communication gaps between hospitals and...
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The Road to the Value-Based Care Promised Land
The current state of value-based care (VBC) can be characterized by the challenges many organizations face as they attempt to obtain and operationalize their value-based agreements. Stakeholders are trying to work through practical solutions for organizations representing services that weren’t...
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Five Areas Where “More Research” Isn’t Needed to Curb the Overdose Crisis
“…but more research is needed.” That’s often the refrain in science, and it includes addiction research. As the addiction epidemic and overdose crisis continue to claim an unprecedented number of lives and to fray communities, science is an essential part of the solution. In the...
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Harm Reduction in Treatment: A Simplified Overview
In the past, harm reduction was mainly associated with distributing clean needles to prevent the spread of infectious diseases. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (2022), there were over 100,000 deaths related to drug overdoses in 2022. Treatment has evolved to...
