Press Releases

Contact:

Vicki Ritterband
The Kenneth B. Schwartz Center
617-795-0180
vritterband@rcn.com

Emily Parker
Massachusetts General Hospital
(617) 724-6425
eparker2@partners.org

BARBARA MOSCOWITZ, LICSW, NAMED SCHWARTZ CENTER COMPASSIONATE CAREGIVER OF THE YEAR

EMBARGOED UNTIL NOV. 1, 2007

Cambridge resident Barbara Moscowitz, a geriatric social worker at Massachusetts General Hospital, has won the prestigious Compassionate Caregiver of the Year Award, given by Boston’s Kenneth B. Schwartz Center. Moscowitz works mostly with Alzheimer’s patients and their families.

The award, now in its ninth year, recognizes the caregiver in Massachusetts who best personifies the mission of the Schwartz Center to “advance compassionate health care in which caregivers, patients and their families relate to one another in a way that provides hope to the patient, support to caregivers and sustenance to the healing process.”

Moscowitz’s award will be announced at the Schwartz Center’s annual dinner on November 1 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. This year 115 healthcare workers, ranging from direct-care professionals to social workers to physicians, were nominated for the award.

“Barbara saves lives not through her skill with a scalpel, but through her ability to guide and support families who are dealing with Alzheimer’s disease,” said Julie Rosen, executive director of the Kenneth B. Schwartz Center.  “Five million people in the U.S. have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. As baby boomers age and the number of affected grows, more and more people will recognize the importance of the work of social workers like Barbara.”

Families who work with Moscowitz describe her as warm, gentle and astute - able to quickly grasp the dynamics of families who are often in bad shape by the time she arrives on the scene.

“She gave [my mother] such peace and helped our family find joy and connection during such a difficult time in our lives,” said Kasey Kaufman, whose family worked with Moscowitz after her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

Moscowitz intended to get a PhD in child development, but somewhere along the way fell in love with geriatrics. She says she is deeply moved by one of the central themes of Alzheimer’s. “Imagine loving someone for a lifetime, and that person is still there physically, but disappearing in so many other ways,” said Moscowitz. “It is so powerful and so wrenching.  My job is to help families find meaning and make connections with their loved one.  And to help them give dignity to that person who still has a bit of awareness of themselves, but is gettinglost.”

Besides her work with Alzheimer’s patients and their families, Moscowitz also directs MGH Senior HealthWISE, a community benefit program that reaches out in various ways to low-income and frail elderly in MGH’s neighborhoods. She conceived and produced Family Matters: Coming Together for Alzheimer’s, a powerful and poignant DVD and resource guide and is in the beginning stages of creating the MGH Family Caregiver Support Center.

AstraZeneca, a leading pharmaceutical company, has sponsored the award for the
past four years.

About the Schwartz Center

The Schwartz Center, established in 1995, is an autonomous, not-for-profit organization, which supports compassionate health care and seeks to strengthen the relationship between patients and caregivers.  The Center achieves its goals through public education, training and support.  A statewide review committee composed of physicians, nurses, social workers, community health workers, and patient advocates reviewed the nominations for the award.