Pemi-Baker Community Health Recognized as a ‘We Honor Veterans’ Partner

November 11, 2019

It may surprise many people to learn that 25 percent of those who die every year in the U.S. are Veterans. To help provide care and support that reflect the important contributions made by these men and women, Pemi-Baker Community Health (PBCH) has become a national partner of We Honor Veterans, a pioneering campaign developed by National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization in collaboration with the Department of Veterans Affairs.

As a We Honor Veterans Partner, PBCH will implement ongoing Veteran-centered education for their staff and volunteers to help improve the care they provide to the Veterans they proudly serve. The nation is seeing many of the Veterans who served in World War II and Korean pass away—and the number of deaths of Vietnam Veterans is beginning to rise.

The We Honor Veterans campaign provides tiered recognition to organizations that demonstrate a systematic commitment to improving care for Veterans. “Partners” can assess their ability to serve Veterans and, using resources provided as part of the campaign, integrate best practices for providing end-of-life care to Veterans into their organization. By recognizing the unique needs of our nation’s Veterans who are facing a life-limiting illness, Pemi-Baker Community Health & Hospice is better able to accompany and guide Veterans and their families toward a more peaceful ending. And in cases where there might be some specific needs related to the Veteran’s military service, combat experience or other traumatic events, PBCH will find tools to help support those they are caring for.

“We thank Pemi-Baker Community Health for partnering in the We Honor Veterans program,” says NHPCO President & CEO Ed Banach. “We Honor Veterans partners are committed to providing quality Veteran-centric care to the Veteran patients they serve. They understand how a Veteran’s military service, combat experience or other traumatic events, could impact their end-of-life experience.”

The resources of We Honor Veterans focus on respectful inquiry, compassionate listening, and grateful acknowledgment, coupled with Veteran-centric education of health care staff caring for Veterans. To learn more about We Honor Veterans or to support this important work via a secure, online donation, please visit www.wehonorveterans.org.
“VA shares a common goal with our nation’s hospices, and that is to provide the best possible care specifically tailored for Veterans, meeting their goals of care in their preferred setting. As we focus on working together and unite our services and skills, We Honor Veterans will channel our combined strengths directly to Veterans – wherever they are receiving care,” added Banach.

With 52 years of experience, serving over 900 clients from 18 towns in central and northern New Hampshire, Pemi-Baker Community Health is the home care provider of choice for Grafton County. Services include at-home healthcare (VNA), hospice and palliative care, on-site physical and occupational therapy and fitness memberships including a fitness gym and fitness classes in our 90-degree therapy pool. PBCH is located at 101 Boulder Point Drive, Suite 3, Plymouth, NH. To contact us please call: 603-536-2232 or email: info@pbhha.org Visit our website: www.pbhha.org and like our Facebook Page: @PBCH4

~By Anna Swanson

Grieving In a Season of Celebration

November 6, 2019

Christmas decorations started being displayed in stores as early as August. It’s now autumn, so the awareness that “the holidays” will soon be upon us is unavoidable. Pumpkins sold in October became Halloween Jack-o-lanterns. Pumpkins sold in November will become the fixings for the pies for our Thanksgiving dinner dessert. Some years ago, a now-deceased friend of mine made the comment that “the holidays” were “The Bermuda Triangle of heightened family dysfunction.” Though we’ve usually thought of the holidays as Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s; traditions with the winter celebrations of the Solstice, Yule, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa probably have their own versions of holiday angst.
The Christmas movies that seem to run perpetually on the Hallmark Channel seem to poke at the discomfort of holiday stress with their standard and predictable happy endings. TV series will also portray something of holiday craziness. In 1995, the movie “Home For the Holidays’ unfolded the story of a museum restoration artist flying home for Thanksgiving with her affable parents, an eccentric maiden aunt, a black-sheep-of-the-family gay son, and an embittered sister. The star-studded cast included Holly Hunter, Anne Bancroft, Charles Durning, Geraldine Chaplain, and Robert Downey, Jr. Further back in 1968, there was a cinematic telling of a highly-conflicted medieval Christmas, “The Lion In Winter.” It won Katharine Hepburn her third Academy Award, and its own star-studded cast also featured Peter O’Toole, Anthony Hopkins, and Timothy Dalton. These powerful characters engage in some very brutal backbiting and hostile verbal exchange that is memorable in its cleverness. As entertaining as these portrayals might be, the element of recognition that strikes us is the familiar experience of holiday-related stress.

Lest you think I’m a “Bah! Humbug!” Scrooge-like person, I want to assure you that I normally enjoy the holidays, despite the pressures of preparation and the cranked-up party-going that is a challenge to my normally introverted personality. In my forty-plus years of work in various helping professions, I have noticed that the holidays are sometimes dreaded rather than welcomed by more people than we might imagine. In our own lived real experience, the holidays become even more difficult if we have endured a significant loss. These losses can include the death of someone we have loved, the breakup of a relationship, the loss of employment, relocation, witnessing the debilitating disability of someone we are caring for, or financial or material disaster. It’s not for nothing that Elvis sang of a “Blue Christmas” in his throaty and soulful baritone.

Because the holidays can be especially difficult for persons grieving losses such as those noted above, Pemi-Baker Community Health & Hospice will be offering TWO Monday times to meet with those in need of support throughout the holiday season. The groups will start before Thanksgiving and conclude after New Year’s: November 18 and 25; December 2, 9, 16, 23, and 30, 2019; and, January 6, 2020. The daytime afternoon group (12:30-2pm), will meet in the Grady Conference Room at Speare Memorial Hospital, 16 Hospital Road, Plymouth, NH. The early evening group (5:30-7pm), will gather in the Main Conference Room at Pemi-Baker Community Health, 101 Boulder Point Drive, Suite 3, Plymouth, NH. There is no cost for attendance.

Topics at the sessions will include: emotional self-care during the holiday season; choosing (or NOT choosing) to attend gatherings and celebrations; not feeling like “making merry”; recollections and reminiscences of previous holidays; suggestions for home rituals to remember loved ones; and, entering upon a new year without someone who is no longer present.

The groups will be facilitated by Guy Tillson, MDiv, MA, Bereavement Counselor for Pemi-Baker Community Health. If you have questions about the program or are interested in participating in one of the groups, please contact Guy by email at gtillson@pbhha.org or by phone at (603) 536-2232, Extension 206 so that adequate preparations for the groups can be made.

Please consider donating to Pemi-Baker Community Health as the holidays approach. If you order gifts on line, Amazon will give a percentage of your purchases directly to Pemi-Baker Community health by using Amazon Smile. Visit www.smile.amazon.com and choose Pemi-Baker Community Health. Giving Tuesday, December 3rd, is the Tuesday after Thanksgiving and is a movement to create an international day of charitable giving at the beginning of the Christmas and holiday season. Visit our website to give: www.pbhha.org. Thank you from the team at Pemi-Baker!

~By Guy Tillson, MDiv, MA

Pemi-Baker Physical Therapist, Matt Scagliarini Explains Taping

October 22, 2019

October is National Physical Therapy month and one of the most common questions we here from our patients is ‘what does taping do and can it help my injury?’ There are many kinds of tape used in the world of physical therapy. Some tape is applied to limit motion such as athletic taping but, in physical therapy we use tape to limit motion, increase motion and decrease swelling depending on its application technique. You may have seen tape applied to professional athletes or Olympians over the years and wondered what does that do? How could it possibly work?

Over the course of years as a physical therapist performing both manual therapy and exercise therapy interventions, it has become apparent to me that a great deal of what I do is targeting the nervous system, whether intended or not! I believe tape placed on a patient’s skin is just that, mostly a neurological input.
For years I think healthcare practitioners hoped and believed that taping techniques changed the way muscles move by pulling on them through the skin. If we think about this it really seems unfathomable that tape could create force changes in muscle tissue. So, I often half-jokingly tell my patients that “tape is tape on the brain. It can change your nervous system’s input to the brain about pain, swelling, muscle or joint position and allow it to respond with improved movement in that area.” I stop short of making claims that tape could actually pull hard enough to physically change a muscles ability to contract or markedly change joint position.

One thing I have positively seen with taping (as in the crisscross pattern) is reduction in swelling when applied to the affected area. So much so that visible changes in edema and bruising can be seen easily. In this case, the tape must be lifting the skin enough to allow the lymphatic system to drain more effectively or so it is believed.

The best part about taping is that it can be left on for up to 5 days helping to retain any affect your therapist is trying to achieve, it is inexpensive, it can be applied by the patient at home and very few patients ever report a negative side effect from its application. Ask your therapist if this could be beneficial to your treatment here at Pemi-Baker Community Health!

~By Matt Scagliarini, PT, DPT