LTSS Newsletter—August 2025

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) sent this bulletin at 08/14/2025 09:00 AM EDT

Stay tuned for the September 2025 LTSS webinar
American Indian/Alaska Native Long-Term Services and Supports

Technical assistance for tribal health care
August 2025
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Visit the online LTSS TA Center for videos, best practices, toolkits, a resource library, and a step-by-step planning roadmap.
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Toolkit to address wandering

The International Association for Indigenous Aging now offers a toolkit, Creating a Tribal Elder Safety Net to Address Wandering Persons, to help decrease the number of American Indian and Alaska Native elders with dementia who become lost or go missing.

The toolkit shares tips for conducting safe searches, a practice exercise, and information on what to do following a search.

Two main features of the toolkit are the Community Response Plan Workbook and the Quick Reference Guide. When people complete the workbook on a computer, the guide is filled in automatically with at-a-glance information on:
  • Search coordinators and contacts
  • Search areas and potential hazards
  • Available communication options
  • A missing person flyer
  • Elder details
  • Family preferences

 

 
     
   

Videos about dementia

  
       
   

Visit the LTSS TA Center and watch a series of seven videos on Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, available on the LTSS and Dementia page, under the heading Resources.

 

The series features work by the International Association for Indigenous Aging to:

 

  • Address the need for culturally appropriate dementia resources
  • Help people recognize the early signs of dementia
  • Highlight the challenges of providing care for loved ones with dementia
  • Support the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe's Wandering Project
  • Educate communities about dementia and healthy cognitive aging
  • Spur creation of tribal laws and policies related to dementia

 

  

Transportation resources

Safe, accessible transportation helps elders and people with disabilities stay connected to health care and other essential services.

 

However, understanding the range of transportation options available in one’s community and knowing what questions to ask can be challenging. To address these challenges, the National Aging and Disability Transportation Center website offers two resources:

 

 

Helping couples grow old apart

An elder's move to long-term care can be a difficult transition for aging couples who assumed they would live together for the rest of their lives.

 

To help support people and their partners through this transition, an article in Caring for the Ages recommends that care facility staff:

 

  • Ask the resident for suggestions on how to support them and their partner emotionally
  • Help the visiting partner feel like they are part of the resident's new community
  • Encourage the couple to spend time together recalling funny and sweet stories from their past
  • Remember each couple's relationship is unique

 

Hot weather safety for elders

Staying Safe in Hot Weather, an infographic on the National Institute on Aging (NIA) website, highlights signs of hyperthermia—the medical term for an abnormally high body temperature—and offers tips to prevent hot-weather illness.

 

Signs of hyperthermia include dizziness, muscle cramps, swelling in one’s ankles and feet, nausea and weakness, and rapid pulse. To help prevent hot-weather illness, NIA recommends drinking non-caffeinated and nonalcoholic liquids, wearing light-colored and loose clothing, and exercising indoors when it's too hot outside.

 

Visit NIA’s website to learn more about hot weather safety for elders.

 

Tips to recognize signs of hyperthermia and prevent illness due to heat.

 
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Join the conversation on LinkedIn

Want to learn more about or discuss LTSS in Indian Country? Looking to connect with others working in the same field?

Join the Tribal Affairs Group on LinkedIn.
Upcoming webinar

Stay tuned for the September LTSS webinar

There will be no LTSS webinar in August. Check back soon for more information about the September webinar.

 

In the meantime, visit the LTSS TA Center to view archived LTSS webinars, such as:

 

 
Caregiver's corner

Long-distance caregiving

In an animated video, Six Tips for Long-Distance Caregiving, the National Institute on Aging (NIA) shares how friends and relatives can serve as caregivers for people who live far away. The tips include:

 

  • Learning about the care recipient's health and treatments and what caregiver resources are available in their area
  • Helping organize the care recipient's important paperwork so it's easy to find and update
  • Securing legal permission to receive the care recipient's medical and financial information
  • Planning ahead for in-person visits that allow time for simple, relaxing activities
  • Scheduling calls with the health care team to discuss the care recipient's well-being
  • Considering caregiver training and seeing whether CMS will cover the costs

 

Review NIA's worksheets for more information to help caregivers support care recipients’ activities of daily living.

 

 
Funding opportunities

Heathy Alaska Natives Foundation grants

Applications accepted on an ongoing basis
View the Healthy Alaska Natives Foundation funding opportunity

 

The Healthy Alaska Natives Foundation—the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium’s charitable arm—offers grants for projects that directly impact Alaska Native people, programs, or places. Preference is given to projects focused on:

 

  • Improved access to care
  • Rural health care

 
Upcoming events

NADRC webinar

August 25 at 3 p.m. Eastern
Register for the NADRC webinar

 

Join the National Alzheimer’s and Dementia Resource Center (NADRC) for a webinar on how to adapt the Respite for All (RFA) faith-based model for community-based environments. RFA is an innovative model for dementia care that takes a person-centered, strength-based approach to foster engagement, creativity, resilience, and belonging.

 

American Indian Elders Conference

September 29–October 3
Durant, Oklahoma
Register for the American Indian Elders Conference

 

The National Indian Council on Aging, Inc., holds the American Indian Elders Conference every 2 years as a forum to discuss aging services across Indian Country. The conference is an opportunity for attendees to raise concerns and make policy recommendations that help elders age in place.

 

 

Send us your news

Do you have news to share about LTSS in Indian Country? Send it to LTSSinfo@kauffmaninc.com for possible inclusion in an upcoming newsletter. Contact us with other comments or feedback, too.

 

About the newsletter

American Indian/Alaska Native Long-Term Services and Supports Solutions is published monthly by the CMS Division of Tribal Affairs to share information, funding opportunities, and resources with LTSS planners, tribal leaders, and supporters.
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