"Sharing Wisdom Conference" Literature Rundown

Sharing Wisdom Conference
Moderator: Gary Barg
Keynote Speaker: Deborah Reynolds
August 28, 2003; 9:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.
Phoenix, Arizona
Pointe South Mountain

Literature Description	Comp/Assoc
1 Quality of Life Packet Comprehensive collection of brochures and bookmarks outlining information and services provided through this agency:     Senior Adult Independent Living     Preventing Stress from Becoming Harmful     Family Caregiver Support Groups     Senior Help Line     Ombudsman Program     Caregiver Respite Program     Information, Assistance and Education     Elder Rights     Home and Community Based Services     Older Worker and Volunteer Programs     Board of Directors and Advisory Council     Senior Centers in Maricopa County     Eldervention 1 Elder Resources Guide Durable, softbound, tabbed booklet listing service and commercial agencies providing information and assistance to the elderly and their caregivers 1 Getting Around Guide Durable, softbound transportation and mobility guide for older adults 1 Caring for Loved Ones Guide Durable, softbound, short, pithy handbook with suggestions on a variety of caregiver concerns including such things as bathing, enriching the loved one's life and grandparents raising grandkids	Area Agency on Aging Region One
2 Glossy Reprints on the effects of types of brain fluid shunt systems THE LANCET: Relationship of senescence of cerebrospinal fluid circulatory system to dementias of the aged NEUROLOGY: Assessment of low-flow CSF dranage as a treatment for AD	EUNOE
1 pamphlet     prices for classes 1 AzNET Holistic Health Newsletter     Aug/Sep 2003 3 business cards     Resource Awarenes Information Network     RSAA - Referrals for Seniors     Senior B2B Networking	RSAA
1 Medicaring Brochure A four year demonstration project involving professionally managed caring for the elderly on Medicare A & B with CHF, COPD, cancer and/or neurological disease 1 Integrative Therapies Brochure On the therapeutic value of music, art and massage 1 When It Is Time to Consider... Brochure 1 Company Description Brochure 1 printed Roll-a-dex card	Hospice of the Valley
1 Company Descriptive Brochure 1 printed Roll-a-dex card	Hospice Family Care
1 Application for Membership	National Family Caregivers Association
1 S.E.A.L.S. Brochure A comprehensive, integrated program of evaluative and caregiving services 1 Business Card	Easter Seals
2 Brochures on Skin Cancer Prevention (one for children)	American Cancer Society
1 Finding the Silver Lining Brochure Help for children who live with an ill or disabled parent 1 Mainstay Newsletter Summer 2003 Very informative, supportive newsletter for spousal caregivers with application for all caregivers	Well Spouse Foundation
2 copies Arthritis Today A slick, smart magazine with informative articles, celebrity focus, vital styling and writing; loaded with adds for medications and therapies. Easily grabs the attention of those not suffering from arthritis.     Jul/Aug 2002     Nov/Dec 2002 1 2002-2003 Supplement Guide Very Informative and interesting 1 2003 Drug Guide ditto above	Arthritis Foundation
4 much appreciated copies of Today's Caregiver Very vital, timely, well presented magazine; found a lot to interest me. Surprised at the few ads; after careful consideration, think the mag, and the whole company, need more ads. Direct approach very welcome. Reminds me of Country Woman magazine, which isn't bad, but I think it should be reminding me of a cross between Country Woman and Harpers.     Jan/Feb 2003     Mar/Apr 2003     May/Jun 2003     Jul/Aug 2003 1 bought, autographed F.E. copy of The Fearless Caregiver All I can tell you is that my mother is still glued to the book and has taken to quoting me "particularly good paragraphs" out of the book, specifically on not feeling guilty and taking life as it comes. I can't wait to read it.	Caregiver.com
1 Brochure for The Patient Advocate Legal Services Care Notes Brochure Family Caregiving: When It Wears You Down AHCCCS Application Filing Brochure Not the application, for which I looked 1 Federal Medicare Hospice Benefits Brochure	Unidentified by Vendor

    I am an information junkie. I love collecting it, consuming it, cataloguing it, contemplating it and creating it. I am (relatedly, I'll bet) a magazine junkie. Although the universe periodically forces me to contemplate the necessity of detachment to things, either by chance or by obsession, I collect and read all kinds of printed information, love being surrounded by it, choosing it, and my favorite type of information presentation is the magazine type, either on
paper or on the computer.
    The most valuable (to me) and best presented information of all was the display by the Area Agency on Aging Region One, a local governmental aging resource. The presentation of their most important information in durable,softbound booklets is most appreciated. Their table was stocked with several exhibitors talking to everyone about everything. It was exhilarating. Of course I loved the magazines, was surprised that I found them interesting and eye catching (but, I'm easy when it comes to magazines). I was surprised that the drug booth didn't have more information but they may be keeping a low profile these days. I can't say whether there was too little or too much information; there weren't enough exhibitors nor was the variety of exhibitors at all inspired.
    On an individual basis, The Well Spouse Foundation was clearly understocked, most of their brochures were exhibited as examples pinned to a display board including one about the isolation of the charge rather than the caregiver of which I was sorry I couldn't obtain a copy. Easter Seals was set up to show a video presentation on the computer but the computer wasn't working. No one else was using computer information technology. One place was selling it. There were no interactive demonstrations, no active researching, no impromptu mini-panels. In some cases, most glaringly at the American Cancer Society, there was no one available knowledgeable enough to discuss the information being provided.
    From the exhibit point of view, the Sharing Wisdom Conference did have its satisfactions for me. It was a short conference and there was an badly handled attempt to corral us into various meeting formats but I went there to network and pick up information, and I did. I didn't visit all the booths because I wasn't interested in all the information. The Parkinson's Association booth, for instance; the booth featuring a modified automobile.
    I enjoyed animated conversations with gregarious, informed exhibitors at some of the booths I did visit. The woman at the Arthritis Foundation, for instance, chatted with me on the peculiarities of the therapeutic value of copper bracelets. The drug pusher at Pfizer was surprisingly knowledgeable about why Mom's doctor was avoiding Detrol LA and arthritis medications for her.
    I learned, from informal networking with attendees, that there is a helpful and meticulously sophisticated shorthand to identify the stage of caregiving in which one is involved although I got nowhere near learning it, have no idea what my catagory is, but I'll recognize the lingo and, hopefully, my place in it next time. I also learned that most caregivers my age are equally suspicious and intrigued by the 'new' buzzword, "Caregiver" and the self-conscious definition this attention is provoking among us on an individual level.
    I sorely missed lots of resource agencies and companies that I was expecting; The American Diabetes Association, for one (yes, I'm still pissed about that one, I had a host of questions prepared); The American Medical Association; more drug companies; convenience product companies; medical supply companies; commercial and private research companies...
    I think the lack of exhibitors and the poor forum panel are related. Of the three panel members one represented COGNIShunting. Only one question was directed at her, rightly so. The other two panelists, while undoubtably well informed, tended toward giving advice rather than giving problem feedback and provoking discussion. One very frustrating example of the panel discussion that touched me surrounded the issue of managing and augmenting the charge's professional medical care. When, to an earlier question, the appropriate panelist rattled off a list of 'to do's': fax your questions to your doctor (been there done that); call ahead and inform doctor of need for extra talk time (been there done that; have also done it, unsuccessfully, at the time follow-up appointments are made); all her regurgitated responses caused me to design a question about dealing with the defiance of doctors when you make medical decisions with which they disagree (whether or not your decisions later work out, which they often do). It was, admittedly, a jumbled question, but it sparked a few "yeah's" in the audience. No one addressed it and, finally, the moderator turned to me and challenged, "Do you have a support group?"
    What? Yeah...
    I'm aware that the paradigm for specialized professsional conferences (Well Spouse Foundation, for instance) is more sedate and requires 3 figure registration fees per person. I also understand that this helps keep them ethically clean and I'm not opposed to this tactic. What I'm saying is that Caregiver.com is already unabashedly commercial. Why not use this quality to both an economic and informal political advantage by building (and owning) very lucrative bridges between the commercial caregiving product and service community, the government caregiving community, the non-profit caregiving community and us caregivers by using your commericial base to lure support for sharp, locally based, much anticipated Conference Expos for Caregivers?
    I think if there had been more sponsors, thus more vendors, thus more funding, thus more information to be had and discussed, thus more people chomping at the bit to be panelists, that The Conference that Almost Didn't Convene would have been The Expo Conference for Caregivers by Caregiver.com and everyone it addressed would have known about it and attended, because, "if you don't care for someone, you're not alive".
- posted by Gail Rae @ 12:57   email...this post