an In The Media Appearance
"All Things Caregivers: Podcast with Chanee Fabius and Halima Amjad" - GeriPal Podcact. 05/27/2021
Chanee Fabius, Hopkins’ Economics of Alzheimer’s Disease and Services (HEADS) Center, and Halima Amjad discuss the critical role of Care Manager on the GeriPal podcast “All Things Caregivers: Podcast with Chanee Fabius and Halima Amjad.”
What is a care manager? In this podcast Alex Smith and Eric Widera talk with Chanee Fabius, who after a personal experience caring for a family member with dementia, became a care manager. Chanee explains in clear terms what a care manager is, what training is required, and what training is required. In essence, a care manager is a “glue person” who hold things together.
After observing major race/ethnic disparities in caregiving, Chanee was inspired to obtain a doctoral degree in gerontology, and her research is now directed toward reducing disparities in caregiving, particularly for patients with dementia. See for example, her recent paper in the Gerontologist describing Black and White differences in caregiving.
Also interviewed is Halima Amjad, a geriatrician-researcher, who, like Halima, is at Hopkins. Halima is very interested in improving care for people with dementia. As she notes, when we talk about outcomes for older adults, we often talk about the characteristics of the patient as predictors, but rarely do we consider how caregiver factors might influence important outcomes for older adults. In a paper published in JAGS, Halima found that caregiver factors predict hospitalization. For example, caregivers who are new to the caregiving role are more likely to care for someone who is subsequently hospitalized than someone who has been caregiving for longer.
Discussion includes all things caregivers, including research issues around the need to assess the needs of caregivers, health policy issues such as how to provide more support for caregivers, and clinical issues, such as the fact that the identity and contact information for caregivers are not routinely captured in the EHR.
Dr. Chanee Fabius is a gerontologist and health services researcher with an interdisciplinary background consisting of training in gerontology, human development and family studies, and public health. Her research informs aging and disability policies to reduce health care disparities and improve health equity for older adults and people with disabilities using long-term services and supports (LTSS). Her interests are informed by applied, clinical care management experience, where she helped older adults remain at home and delay the need for nursing home care. She is interested in: (1) better understanding networks of care (e.g. LTSS such as home and community-based services and family support) used by older people and how those may vary by race and socioeconomic status, (2) examining the effect of community-based LTSS utilization on quality of life and health service utilization across diverse groups of older adults, and (3) strengthening the direct care workforce that provides services and supports to vulnerable older adults, such as those with complex conditions like dementia.