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goals | Danny van Leeuwen Health Hats - Part 2

Sep 24 2017
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Favorite vest

Adjusting Your Personal Health Plan? Right…

By | Caregiver, ePatient | No Comments

My mother bought me a beautiful handmade brocade vest when I lost 45 pounds.  It’s my favorite. I can’t button it now. Not even close. I haven’t worn it in several years. My personal health goal: Lose weight and keep it off.  It may be the most common American health goal. American’s spent about $60 billion on weight loss in 2013. Every year, 45 million Americans go on a diet. So, I’ve learned that I can lose weight, but not keep it off.  To attain my goal I need to adjust my health plan.

What is adjusting? Set a goal, try something, be dissatisfied with the result (learn), then adjust. Adjusting means changing a habit. In my experience as a student of individual and organization health, changing a habit is hard, very hard. I think of changing habits like watching water flow – water flows in the path of least resistance, makes a channel, and gets deeper.  We mostly like and value those channels. They’re comfortable until they flood or become polluted. Read More

Sep 10 2017
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Learning What Works

Learning What Works

By | Caregiver, ePatient, Researcher | One Comment

One of my passions in life is Learning What Works for people on their health journey. As we travel, we make choices – endless choices.  Should I do A rather than B? Eat the brownie or don’t eat the brownie? Take a walk or don’t? Go to the doctor or wait until I feel worse? Fill the prescription the doctor wrote or don’t? Have surgery or wait and see? Stay home with my dad with dementia or arrange for home care? Or we make no decision at all (a decision in itself). Sometimes people search for help in making these choices. Help from professionals on their care team, from their care partner, from Dr. Google, from their mates or social network.

Learning what works is an experiment.

A person tries something – it worked or it didn’t – for them. To know it worked means that the person has an idea of what they are trying to accomplish (See my post on personal health goals). And that they think there’s a relationship between what they tried and what they accomplished (or didn’t). I have a fever, took an aspirin, and the fever dropped. I have heartburn, stopped eating chocolate, and now less heartburn. My MS symptoms are getting worse. I reduce manageable stress. My symptoms subside. What’s important in all this is that I know what I want, I try something, and I feel better or accomplish what I wanted (or didn’t). Some people, like me, have a written care plan and keep track with lists and spreadsheets. (See my post on planning personal care)  Most don’t. Read More

Aug 13 2017
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The Personal Health Journey

By | Advocate, Caregiver, ePatient | No Comments

The metaphor, Personal Health Journey, works for me. We’re heading somewhere for health whether on purpose or not. We’re never actually there. It’s continual – until it isn’t. Sometimes we have a map, sometimes we don’t. Map or not, we’re still heading somewhere:  work, the grocery store, our in-laws, the beach. There’s always decisions to make on a journey: stop for gas, rest, sight see, go left, go right? Same with the health journey.

The journey is different if we’re well, acutely ill, chronically ill or dying. Our aspirations are different.  When we’re well we either don’t think about our health or we want to stay well. When we’re acutely ill (now we’re a patient), we want to get over it. When we’re chronically ill we want to live the best life possible. When we’re dying we want to live as long as possible or live as best as possible OR both. The journey is different, too. For the well it’s Inertia or Select Personal Health Goals-> Act and Track->Deal with symptoms when they arise. For the acutely ill it’s Symptom->Diagnosis->Treatment->Recovery->Back to Well or on to Chronically Ill (thanks to John Mitchell at Applied Marketing Science).  For the chronically ill it’s Disbelief->Grief->Get help (care and treatment)->Recalibrate->Maintain->Give back->Relapse (and back again). Read More

Aug 06 2017
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Personal Health Goals Revisited

By | Caregiver, Consumer, ePatient | One Comment

I’m celebrating that I’ve finally learned an effective stretch for my hamstrings. Thigh and calf Charley horses and foot cramps have disrupted my days. My low back’s been hurting for several months caused by this tightening and cramping of my quads, hamstrings, calves, and feet. It’s become hard to sit for more than 15 minutes. I bought a standing desk, next to my sitting desk. I’m paying attention to ergonomics, learning to type (I’ve always been a hunt and peck kind of guy). My chiropractor and massage therapist attribute these muscle cramps to changes in my walking caused by the MS and wearing an ankle/foot orthotic. The Charley horses are the worst. I’m learning that there’s nothing straightforward about stretching. I’ve been stretching for months with very short-term relief. All of a sudden on a road trip this week, stopping at every rest stop to stretch, it kicked in! It’s not about stretching, it’s about relaxing. Standing tall, pelvic tilt, bending at the waist, relaxing. A meditation. I can feel the hamstrings and calves responding. Exciting!  Read More

Jul 16 2017
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What Keeps You Up at Night?

By | Advocate, Caregiver, ePatient | One Comment

I’m not a complainer or worrier-at least not often or for long. Comparatively, I have little to complain or worry about. Yet, this week I struggle with pneumonia, try to regain strength, not hurt myself coughing and not being a jerk or a burden. I’m also turning 65 and enrolling in Medicare. I keep dwelling on the amount of effort it takes to be or support someone who is sick. What is that effort? I’ve come up with six questions anyone who is worrying asks themselves. You’ll see in the pie chart below that I’ve arbitrarily assigned a percentage to how much I think most people worry about each question. (No science here, no evidence, just my thoughts)

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May 21 2017
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Cinderblocks4 – Medical Advocacy at its Best

By | Advocate, Caregiver, ePatient, Informaticist, Leader, Musician, Researcher | No Comments

 

Pound for pound, the best health conference! A rare combination of small, local, action-oriented, inspiring networking, and relaxing. 40-50 attendees met in Grantsville, Garrett County, MD, population 766, for three days. Regina Holliday of Walking Gallery fame organizes and breathes life into Cinderblocks. The older I get, the more I seek people who collaborate to solve local problems that matter to them.   50% of the 30 presentations were literally local – from Garrett County and immediate vicinity. The rest came from as far as France and LA, Oklahoma, Texas, Boston, and DC to learn what works for each other. A sample: Read More

Apr 23 2017
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Precision Prism

By | Advocate, Caregiver, ePatient, Informaticist, Researcher | 2 Comments

I’m the son, Custodian, and Healthcare Proxy of my 89-year-old mother, Alice. I live in a different state. My mother has diabetes and is depressed. Her care team, besides herself and me, includes medical providers in various health settings, community support agencies, and a full-time caregiver that helps her schedule and get to health-related services. My problem is to understand what my mother wants for herself and to track who says they’re doing something for her (including my mother and me), what they’re doing, and when they’re doing it. I want to know what it takes to do it (Can she afford it? Can she get there? Does it agree with her? Who will be with her? etc.). I want to know if the actions have the effects we thought they would. I want to know what her risks are and how we plan to prevent or respond to them. I want to able to keep track of all this and keep it current. I want to share it or have it shared from day-to-day and from setting to setting even if I’m not present. Read More

Apr 02 2017
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Service Agreements for Me and My Health Team

By | Advocate, Caregiver, Consumer, ePatient | 2 Comments

I wrote a blog post a couple of weeks ago for the Society of Participatory Medicine about Service Agreements Among Friends and Colleagues. My point was that service agreements set boundaries, which can be especially important for someone who’s managing a chronic condition. I shared my post with my colleagues at Involution Studios while we discussed the future of Precision Medicine.  What if we had service agreements with members of our health team? Professionals and non-professionals. And ourselves. Could we think of care plans as service agreements? Person-centered care planning focuses on the goals of the person on the health journey. Who’s going to do what to get there? When? How will these goals and activities be tracked and shared across time and settings? The service agreement is the who’s doing what to get there and when are they going to do it? If my goal is to progress as slowly as possible with my Multiple Sclerosis, then my part of the service agreement is that I will: Read More

Mar 19 2017
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Coalition for Compassionate Care of California

By | Advocate, Caregiver, Clinician, ePatient, Leader, Researcher | One Comment


I attended the Coalition for Compassionate Care of California Conference (#CCCC17) in Sacramento this week as an ePatient Scholar. Exhilarating, informative, warm, curious, inspiring, and tiring. I hoped to leave with one novel (for me) insight into palliative care; hear patient, caregiver, and clinician stories about their experiences; to hear how clinicians receive education about end-of-life conversations; to add to my network of patient/caregiver experts; and leave with a sharper focus for my #careplanning work. Amazing! I accomplished all five. I hoped to accomplish three of five (I habitually set myself up to exceed expectations). Read More