2016 OPTIMA Award: The complete coverage

The 2016 OPTIMA Award winner, the Texas Land Board State Veterans Homes (TLBVH), has spent more than two years studying the behavioral triggers of a growing nursing home demographic: Veterans with dementia. Long-Term Living's Pamela Tabar spent two days visiting the program’s pilot site and learning how traditional skilled nursing approaches need to be adjusted to provide the quality care veteran residents deserve.

This page contains the complete coverage of Long-Term Living's 2016 OPTIMA Award winner—including the main article, companion articles, photos and a blog—gathered here for your convenience. Each editorial piece contains links to all the other components.

An honored memory

What happens when dementia and post-traumatic stress intersect in the nursing home environment? The winner of the 2016 Long-Term Living OPTIMA Award has spent nearly three years developing a program to train caregivers how to interact with veterans—and how to document their positive and negative behavioral interventions to increase everyone’s ability to provide better person-centered care.

Behavioral intervention for veterans: Words that work

The care teams at TLBVH have learned plenty about what works and what doesn't when it comes to behavioral interventions and the triggers that cause them. This list of verbal interventions can help redirect or comfort veterans who are agitated or upset.

Saluting service

Nursing homes can offer special events and activities to help veteran residents combat isolation, cope with memories of the military experience and foster their emotional well-being. especially for those with post-traumatic stress.

The lost generations [BLOG]

Honoring those who have served will soon take on a new meaning as a new generation of veterans enters the long-term care system. A new strategy is needed to care for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder and other war injuries who also may have dementia.

Pamela Tabar

Pamela Tabar was editor-in-chief of I Advance Senior Care from 2013-2018. She has worked as a writer and editor for healthcare business media since 1998, including as News Editor of Healthcare Informatics. She has a master’s degree in journalism from Kent State University and a master’s degree in English from the University of York, England.