Adjust Your Product Mix to Reflect the Challenge of Obesity in the Elderly

Recently, a client expressed difficulty in dealing with mobility issues in her home. The daughter of this client, who lives out of state, engaged our non-medical home care services because her 
elderly mother could no longer function by herself in her own home. She needed help with regular activities and required the use of Aids for Daily Living (ADLs)—an elderly person may have increased difficulty with bathing, dressing, toileting, eating and ambulating. Addressing these issues was no new task for our staff, as this is the reason we exist as a business—much like DME/HME providers meet the ADL needs with assistive devices. What is noteworthy about this particular client is that she had obesity issues that caused us challenges in delivering our services. Working with obese clients was a portion of the marketplace that our company had just begun to deal with—and therein lays the opportunity for DME/HME providers. The issue of obesity came to a point at our last quality assurance visit, which prompted a change in our non-medical plan of care for this client. To continue providing quality care, we needed to introduce the use of a lift. More specifically, a Hoyer lift—a patient hoist, jack hoist, hydraulic lift that may be either a sling lift or sit-to-stand lift. This is an assistive device that allows patients in hospitals and nursing homes and those receiving home health care to be transferred between a bed and a chair or other similar resting places, using hydraulic power. This lift is designed help with the ambulation and transferring needs of a client, and to provide a safe working environment for our caregiver. To compound the problem—and really this speaks to the heart of the issue—the out-of-state daughter staunchly expressed that she did not want “that car engine lift for human beings” used on her mother, as she considered it degrading, and insisted that her mother never would agree to such a device. We had to be creative to work around the daughter’s resistance against the use of this particular product. So, we asked if we could bring a Hoyer lift to her mother’s home, at no cost to her, and respectfully let us use it for the day with her mom. She skeptically agreed; as this was the only way we could continue to safely provide services for our client and our caregiver. We disassembled one of the Hoyer lifts we use in our training facility and drove over to the house. We did what we always do, which is respectfully position the client into the lift. As the day progressed, it became evident that the client had fun with it. Our client services manager, who was on-site to help, was able to take a picture of a smiling, happy mother in a Hoyer lift, which he sent via text message to the daughter. The daughter was so pleasantly surprised, that she now has no issues relying on our recommendations for ADL care for her mom. Moving forward, we were able to help the family secure a Hoyer lift from a local DME/HME company that we partner with for such opportunities. According to the CDC National Health and 
Nutrition Examination Survey, 2007-2010:

• More than one-third of older adults aged 65 and over was obese in 2007-2010.
• Obesity prevalence was higher among those aged 65-74 compared with those aged 75 and over in both men and women.
• By 2050, the number of U.S. older adults, 
defined as persons aged 65 and over, is expected to more than double, rising from 
40.2 million to 88.5 million¹. Both aging 
and obesity contribute to increased health care service use^{2, 3}. Consequently, an increase 
in the proportion of older adults who are 
obese may compound health care spending.

This is where the DME/HME industry can begin to leverage its knowledge and expertise to help offer assistive devices for today’s elderly, who are increasingly more overweight and obese. Being more attuned to the sensitive nature inherent in overweight or obese issues, partnering with non-medical home care companies to be a resource for their client base, and ramping up your customer service folks to effectively and respectfully deal with the realities of implementing the correlated assistive devices will certainly help create new revenue opportunities.

References

1. Vincent GK, Velkoff VA. The next four decades, the older population in the United States: 2010 to 2050. Current Population Reports P25–1138. Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau. 2010.
2. Decaria JE, Sharp C, Petrella RJ. Scoping review report: Obesity in older adults. Int J Obes (Lond) 36(9): 1141–50. 2012.
3. Lakdawalla DN, Goldman DP, Shang B. The health and cost consequences of obesity among the future elderly. Health Aff (Millwood) 24 Suppl 2:W5R30–41. 2005.