This post was published at, and has been shared by the APHA Blog.
It is provided so you can find it in a search here at myAPHA.org, but you’ll need to link to the original post to read it in its entirety.
Link to the original full length post.
Less Becomes More: Where Subtraction Has Positive Results
I spent the weekend gardening. It’s spring, after all. Since my last assault on my garden last Fall, many plants got leggy, or died, or just needed rehab of some sort. Unlike many of my neighbors (and maybe you, too!) what I love most about gardening is finishing it. It feels so good when it stops! What was unique about my weekend gardening is an observation I made; a good metaphor to share with you, in hopes of providing some inspiration on a service you can provide to your clients. (Yes, this is what happens when I’m pulling weeds. I get thinking about other, more important things!) No – I don’t expect you to do your clients’ gardening! But follow along with me and it will make sense. Last Fall I prepped my plantings for winter. One shrub had just grown way too big for its space, so I hacked the heck out of it. I removed branches that reached too far or had leaves only on the tips, and reduced its size by almost half. (I wish I could tell you what kind of shrub it is – but I can’t remember the name. You can see it in the photo.) This spring, for the first time, I was rewarded with some beautiful blossoms on it! We’ve never had blossoms on this shrub! While it’s difficult to see in the photo, the blossoms are a pretty lavender color, about one inch in diameter. For the first time, it’s no longer just a gold-ish colored shrub. It’s a flowering shrub! I got thinking, as I pulled those weeds, that those blossoms were the result of SUBTRACTION. Had I not removed all those limbs, we would not have reaped the reward of flowers. Less became more. That’s the metaphor for a service every independent care advocate should offer to a client because for this particular service, SUBTRACTION can improve their quality of life. It addresses a problem that is so prevalent that it even has its own name: polypharmacy. Polypharmacy is the problem of taking so many different drugs and supplements…