Melanie Henry

Gathering Place and AARP Oklahoma announced today the launch of the official Park app. The app, sponsored by AARP Oklahoma, is now available for free download on iPhone and Android. The app will enhance the guest experience using beacon technology to provide additional information about the Park including announcements, way finding technology and more. It also includes a comprehensive calendar with Park events, concerts and festivals.

AARP empowers people to choose how to live as they age. We champion positive social change and deliver value through advocacy, information and service.

AARP is now accepting applications for the 2019 Community Challenge grant program to fund “quick-action” projects that spark change in local communities. The grant program, which is now in its third year, is part of AARP’s nationwide Livable Communities initiative, which aims to make communities great places to live for everyone.

Oklahoma ranks among the worst in the nation on several measures of quality of care in nursing homes. This must stop! AARP Oklahoma has created the Nursing Home CARE Plan which is a series of bills that begin to correct the ways in which our state’s most frail and vulnerable are cared for:

Join AARP Oklahoma for a telephone town hall on the role advance practice nurses play in solving Oklahoma’s health care crisis.

Our state is experiencing a health care crisis and there is no sign of that letting up. While physicians play an important role, it is a variety of professional nurses who provide care for us at all levels. SB 839 would allow our Nurse Practitioners to practice to their full education and training while SB 801 would remove an antiquated requirement for Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists that is threatening rural hospitals from being able to provide surgeries.

Oklahoma ranks first in the nation in the use of antipsychotic drugs without a psychiatric diagnosis in nursing home residents. Oklahoma nursing home records show one in five residents are inappropriately prescribed antipsychotics despite the medications' serious side effects. Instead of treating our nursing home residents with respect and dignity, and providing proper care, our nursing home owners simply sedate them with drugs that carry dangerous and deadly side effects. Chemical restraint of our seniors must be stopped.

In recent years, gift cards have taken off in popularity. Unfortunately, scammers have a keen interest in gift cards, too – only for them, they are being used to pry money from you as a form of payment in their latest con.

Beginning February 1 and continuing through April 15, 2019, AARP Foundation is providing free tax assistance and preparation through its Tax-Aide program. Since its inception more than 50 years ago, Tax-Aide has served more than 50 million taxpayers and is the nation’s largest free tax assistance and preparation service.

Year after year, Oklahoma nursing home care ranks among the worst in the nation. Now, a News on 6 investigation, Oklahoma Nursing Homes Rank Among Worst in Nation, underscores the severity of the problem. Watch the special report HERE.