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Reduce Suffering, Urge Heart Failure Patients and Caregivers
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Page: << Prev | 1 | 2 Bekelman said he hopes to pilot a program to address the different needs of those with heart failure and their caretakers. If he can obtain funding, the program would start "sometime next year," he said.
"It would have a nursing care manager who is competent in cardiac care and trained in community psychosocial care," he said. "There would be regular meetings in which they would talk about the future prospects. The benefits for patients could be better control of some symptoms and better coping with the limitations imposed by heart failure."
A successful program could make financial sense, Bekelman said. "We hope that, because patients and their caregivers would be less distressed, they would be better able to manage at home without medical care visits, so that would reduce costs," he said. "By reducing caregiver distress, it may help caregivers to be more productive at work and understand better how to care for the patient."
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Family members who look after people with heart failure are important in the overall picture of medical care, said Dr. Gregg Fonarow, director of the Ahmanson-UCLA Cardiomyopathy Center and associate chief of the UCLA Division of Cardiology at the University of California, Los Angeles.
"We recognize that patients who do well have engaged family members," Fonarow said. "They assist in monitoring and frequently in medical follow-up. Caregivers can be critically important because traditional delivery systems might not be adequate."
More information
The Cleveland Clinic has more on heart failure treatment.
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Copyright © 2009 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.
Last updated 4/24/2009
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SOURCES: David Bekelman, M.D., M.P.H., assistant professor, medicine, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver; Gregg Fonarow, M.D., director, Ahmanson-UCLA Cardiomyopathy Center, and associate chief, division of cardiology, University of California, Los Angeles; April 24, 2009, American Heart Association 10th Scientific Forum on Quality of Care and Outcomes Research in Cardiovascular Disease and Stroke, Washington, D.C.
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