| Thursday, July 12, 2007: 4:00 PM-5:30 PM | |||
| Access to Care: Caregiving Across the Life Span | |||
| Learning Objective #1: Discuss the characteristics of health delivery system and challenges of proxy-decision making in individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities and children with failure to thrive. | |||
| Learning Objective #2: Discuss issues and challenges of family caregivers with medically fragile infants and persons diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. | |||
| Improved access to care has been a major goal of much health legislation and planning. Access to care depends on individual and community (where they live) characteristics. While a great deal of theoretical and empirical work has been done on individual determinants/characteristics of access to care especially for low-income persons, less consideration has been given to a comprehensive approach that integrates individual and environmental/community factors in evaluating access to care. Since many programs influencing access to care are community- based or locally-based, this symposium will examine the effects of individual and community characteristics among children and adults on access to care. The conceptual framework for this symposium is derived from the Behavioral Model of Health Services Use (Andersen et al, 1983) emphasizing the importance of the characteristics of health services delivery system (the availability of health care providers and facilities), and individual determinants/characteristics (age, ethnicity, gender, education, values and beliefs, knowledge about disease, insurance coverage, and health status) on service utilization. This model implies that characteristics of the delivery system and characteristics of individuals living in the community reflect the potential levels of access to care. Four papers will be presented that address individual and community determinants/characteristics on access to care. The first two presentations will address the impact of multidisciplinary approach in minimizing the long-term health and developmental effects on children diagnosed with failure to thrive and the challenges of proxy-decision making in individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The next two presentations will address the challenges of family caregivers caring for medically fragile infants and persons diagnosed with dementia. | |||
| Organizer: | Elizabeth W. Gonzalez, PhD, APRN, BC | ||
| Caregiving of Children with Failure to Thrive: A multidisciplinary team approach Kathleen P. Falkenstein, PHD, CPNP | |||
| Getting the Feel for it: Mothering and Caregiving in First-Time Mothers of Medically Fragile Young Infants Marcia R. Gardner, PhD, RN, CPNP, CPN | |||
| Health Care Decision Making by Caregivers in the Community Kathleen M. Fisher, PhD, CRNP | |||
| Predictors of Depression in Family Caregivers of Persons with AD Elizabeth W. Gonzalez, PhD, APRN, BC | |||