Category: Seek On Blog (Consumer)

I called my primary care for an appointment because I couldn’t move my shoulder, the pain was pretty brutal. Her office staff responded with: “we don’t have any availability, go to the emergency room (ER).” So off I went where I was greeted by a quick triage check-in and a front seat to the ER […]

Read time: 2 minutes Back in 2021, while Bonnie was at the hospital visiting her husband, Bill, she noticed a Lifespark brochure on his nightstand. “I took one look at it and thought, ‘I’ve been a registered nurse for almost 70 years and my daughter, who lives with us, is also a nurse, so why […]

Read time: 2 minutes “We can have the best intake process, the best clinical assessment, the best office operations, the best staffing, but without top-notch caregivers, we will fail our clients every time,” said Tanya Castillo, RN, Director, Community Home Care at Lifespark. “Our caregivers are the eyes and ears of our clinical teams—the bedrock […]

When it comes to practicing good sleep habits, our nation is not doing a very good job, said Dr. Bill Thomas, nationally renowned geriatrician, author, and Lifespark Independence Officer. “It doesn’t matter what part of the country you live in or how old you are, Americans aren’t getting enough healthy, restful sleep,” he said. Lack […]

The COVID pandemic was a brutal lesson on the importance of having an advance care directive in the event of a sudden health crisis. But advance care planning goes beyond whether or not an individual wants to be put on a breathing tube, said Kristin Stevens, RN, NP, Lifespark APP Supervisor. “Identifying end-of-life wishes is […]

I don’t know many people who want to think about their own death. Planning for death, or the period right before death, is a tough subject. Personally, I’d rather think about taxes. But I’d also rather have all those plans made before they’re necessary. The last thing my loved ones should have to worry about […]

“People sometimes assume palliative care is hospice care,” said Matt McGraw, DNP, APRN, Lifespark Nurse Practitioner, who specializes in primary palliative care. It’s an understandable mistake, he said, given that hospice is a part of palliative care and that they share the goal of bringing comfort and improving quality of life for clients and their […]

If you’ve ever been on a roller coaster—the Cyclone on Coney Island, Valley Fair’s Wild Thing, the Matterhorn at Disneyland—you’ve probably experienced that heady mix of exhilaration and terror, followed by relief when the ride is finally over. You might even want to go again, knowing that you’ll end up back where you started. Not […]

Pop artist Andy Warhol was famously quoted as saying, “In the future, everyone in the world will get a chance to be famous for 15 minutes.” Maybe he was predicting the future of health care, where everyone would get 15 minutes with their primary care physician. Because that’s the reality of our health care system […]

Katie Uphus, Lifespark Hospice Volunteer Manager, is a passionate advocate for hospice volunteering. Before joining Lifespark, she volunteered with several hospice providers and trained as an end-of-life doula, experiences that fueled her desire to help people see end of life as an opportunity for transformation, joy, and connection. Jenny Johnson and Anne Herman are two […]