Posts Tagged ‘eldercare’

Alzheimer’s Care Giving While Maintaining Your Own Health

Friday, July 23rd, 2010

By: Deborah Uetz

Published: August 31, 2007

Just for a moment I want you to imagine that you are coming out of a very deep sleep. If you have ever had surgery try to remember the way you felt as you were trying to make sense of things as you awoke. As you imagine or remember this sensation do you find yourself wondering if it is morning or night? Are you trying to remember where you are? Do you have a startle reaction and think for a moment that you are late for work or forgot to pick up your children at school? I have had that upsetting feeling if I wake up in the middle of the night or even after a nap. Now imagine that same fog every moment of your life…

So many care givers find themselves frustrated with an Alzheimer’s sufferer. They may say things like “He just doesn’t seem to care if I am with him or not” or “He doesn’t enjoy doing anything any more.” I know that it is so hard to accept the changes in your loved one and know that this is going to be your reality. If you can remind yourself that the behaviors are organic it will help. The plaque is building up and spreading over the surface of the brain just as a grassfire moves across a dry field. As it covers more areas your loved falls deeper into that fog. Alzheimer’s disease doesn’t show up like a broken one or a surgical scar but the effects are just as real.

When the things they say or do cause you to feel angry or sad do you best to remember that it is the disease…not your loved one. That’s when it is time for some care giver TLC.

Care giver burnout is a very real occurrence. If you are caring for someone you must include your own needs each day. Your health may decline at a faster rate than the person you are caring for if your dietary, emotional and physical needs are not met. Skipping your checkups with Dr.s is not an option.

You may be asking “How am I supposed to do all of this all by myself?” The answer is simple. You can’t do it all alone. The first step to healthy care giving is accepting the fact that you have limitations. Every human being does. You can only stay awake, maintain your health and keep up with the demands for a limited amount of time. When you reach your limit you may find yourself suffering from care giver burnout. You may have trouble concentrating, experience nervous tension, and you may find it difficult to fight off resentment toward your loved one or others in your family that you feel should be assisting you.

Reach out. Call upon your family, friends, church and community organizations. Your local hospitals will have information regarding community resources. This information can usually be found by contacting the Social Services Department. Another good resource is the Alzheimer’s Association. By taking care of your health you will, in turn be a better care giver.

Deborah Uetz

Author of Into the Mist, When Someone You Love Has Alzheimer’s Disease

Deborah Uetz
Author of Into the Mist, When Someone You Love Has Alzheimer’s Disease website http://www.intothemist.us

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Alzheimer's | No Comments »

Paying For Elder Care Just Got Easier

Friday, July 23rd, 2010

By: Chuck Bongiovanni

Published: June 22, 2007

It’s not a surprise that thousands of families across the nation are facing the challlenges of an aging population. The “sandwich” generation, those who are caring for their children as well as their parents, have been feeling the financial pinch of caring for loved ones. Paying the high cost of Elder Care can cost a family thousands of dollars a month. Too many families are unaware of how utilizing a loved one’s life insurance policy can not only pay for Assisted Living and Nursing Home care, but can maintain the standards of living for the remaining spouse.

Not too many financial specialist inform their clients who have purchased life insurance policies with a death benefit over $250,000 that they can utilize a somewhat unknown option on their life insurance to pay for the high cost of Elder Care. It is called a Life Settlement and it can fully take the financial burden off of families who struggle to keep their loved one in a quality facility.

A policy owner has the right to sell his or her life insurance policy to an institution for signifantly more than the cash value of the policy. For example, a life insurance policy with a $500,000 death benefit and a $75,000 cash value can be purchased for $250,000 and up. This money can be used now to pay for assisted living, nursing homes as well as in home services also. The procedure is relatively quick with minimal paperwork. It is senseless to struggle financially to pay for the needs of elderly loved ones when they can utilize their life insurance policy to pay for care. Many, many times life insurance policies lapse when a loved one goes into assisted living or a nursing home just out of financial neccessity as well as through medicaid planning.

Instead of letting a policy lapse or into surrendership, smart families are looking into life settlements as a funding source for the high expense of Elder Care.

Chuck Bongiovanni, M.S.W. has been helping seniors and their fanmilies for over 20 years in the assisted living industry. Chuck can help your family investigate your options for paying for Elder Care through a Life Settlement. You can go to his website at http://www.LifeTransitionsOnline.com or call him directly at 480-703-7005.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in financial help for seniors, how to pay for eldercare, how to pay for senior care, paying for eldercare | No Comments »

Caring For a Senior Family Member at Home

Monday, May 31st, 2010

Taking care of a loved one at home after a major illness or surgery can be an overwhelming task both physically and mentally. The responsibilities are challenging for both the one being cared for and those taking the lead for the primary care. In some cases the recovering family member may have some reservations and an unwillingness to ask their son or daughter to give up a job to care for them. In these cases, having professional home care Chapel Hill, NC can help in easing the patients concerns and allow both family members and the one being cared for with more quality time together.

In almost all cases, there are going to be reasons that your loved one may not want to consider the option of in-home health care. Therefore, it is important before relying on home care Durham NC to provide part or full responsibilities for the patients care to listen to your loved one’s concerns. Take time to note what they may be worried about and go over these during interviews while searching for just the right care service.

One of the first arguments you may hear is that your loved one doesn’t believe they need help. So, in these cases while discussing senior care Chapel Hill NC that you let your loved one know having outside help is more for your peace of mind- which in almost all situations is the reason for seeking care. Taking care of our loved ones isn’t about physically being there 24/7 but knowing that when we can’t be there someone competent and committed to their wellbeing will be but without taking away their feelings of independence.

Home care not only provides in-home medical care but can also take on some of the errands outside of the home, if the recovering loved one is a bit apprehensive about a new person in the house. As the care worker becomes more familiar to the loved one, trust and friendship is gained and can facilitate a working relationship that benefits both the patient and the family.

While recovering at home, most physicians strongly suggest that the family employ outside assistance. Therefore, if there may be other reasons that the patient balks at this kind of service, the family can simply counter that argument with the physician’s release orders from the hospital. Usually this will end the resistance and facilitate the transition from hospital to home care, in Durham, Clayton, or Chapel Hill NC.

At one time or another, most families will face taking care of a loved one, whether that be during recovery or for end of life care. And there are no easy answers or ways to ease all the burdens placed on those family members. These people are trained in medical or physical care as well as dealing with the inevitable emotional strains. The one saving grace is that there are people trained and ready to take some of the responsibilities from the family and allow everyone to be more at ease with the situation. Today, with these advances in care, many families are able to care for loved ones at home, where both the patient and the family are most at ease.

Written by Jenny Heart. Quality home care Durham NC: Receive senior care Chapel Hill NC, alzheimer’s and elder care through home care Chapel Hill NC, Clayton, Raleigh, Cary, Wake Forest.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jenny_Heart

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Assisted living, aging parents, caring for your parents, eldercare, homecare, keeping seniors home, senior care | No Comments »

Home Care Through the Years in Indianapolis, Indiana

Sunday, August 9th, 2009

The Evolution of Home Care
In the first century of our country’s history there was no such thing as nursing homes or assisted living. Society was mostly rural and people lived in their own homes. Families cared for their loved ones at home till death took them. In the latter part of the 1800’s because of an increasingly urban society, many urban families were often unable to care for loved ones because of lack of space or because all family members including children were employed six days a week for 12 hours a day. During this period many unfortunate people needing care were housed in County poor houses or in facilities for the mentally ill. Conditions were deplorable. In the early 1900’s home visiting nurses started reversing this trend of institutionalizing and allowed many care recipients to remain in their homes. Nursing homes or so-called rest homes were also being built with public donations or government funds. With the advent of Social Security in 1936, a nursing home per diem stipend was included in the Social Security retirement income and this government subsidy spurred the construction of nursing homes all across the country.

By the end of the 1950s it was apparent that Social Security beneficiaries were living longer and that the nursing home subsidy could eventually bankrupt Social Security. But in order to protect the thousands and thousands of existing nursing homes Congress had to find a way to provide a subsidy but remove it as an entitlement under Social Security. In 1965 Medicare and Medicaid were created through an amendment to the Social Security Act. Under Medicare, nursing homes were only reimbursed on behalf of Social Security beneficiaries for short-term rehabilitation. Under Medicaid, nursing homes were reimbursed for impoverished disabled Americans and impoverished aged Americans over the age of 65. It has never been the intent of Congress to pay for nursing home care for all Americans. The nursing home entitlement for all aged Americans was now gone.

(more…)

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in eldercare, senior care | No Comments »

Indianapolis, Indiana Families Plan for Eldercare

Wednesday, July 15th, 2009

Family Reunion–a Good Time for Family Planning

Summertime brings a lot of family time. With family reunions, picnics, weddings and other events, long distant family members travel to gather together. It is also the perfect time to do some planning for the future. With parents aging and their health and lifestyles changing, children need to discuss some changes and decisions that will be needed in the near future. Parents should take the time to tell their children where important documents are kept and what their wishes are in the event of needing health care directives or experiencing long term care needs.

For those children who live away, the change they see in their parent’s health and mental capacity may be alarming — whereas siblings that have daily contact are working with these issues constantly. Here is the chance to compare notes and work together as a complete family in the long term care planning process.

For you parents who are well and active, this is a good time to hold a family meeting and share with your children your plan for long term care. Tell them where financial and legal documents are located. Review health care directives, living wills and long term care alternatives.

(more…)

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in aging parents, caring for your parents, eldercare, senior care | No Comments »

Opportunity for Eldercare Professionals and Family Caregivers to Participate in Alzheimer’s Research Clinical Trial

Sunday, July 12th, 2009

Elder Life Planning recently signed a contract to provide ongoing consultant services to a major Alzheimer’s research firm. Our client has successfully completed the first 2 phases of research trials, known as the ICARA study, on a breakthrough drug to treat Alzheimer’s.(If you watched the HBO Alzheimer’s Special recently, the drug, Bapineuzumab, along with the ELAN research team, was prominently featured.)

They have now received approval from the FDA to move into Stage III of the drug trials which allows them to expand the scope of the research nationwide and in Canada.

Our role in the project is to identify potential participants in the Stage III trial and assure their ongoing commitment and compliance with the clinical protocols. Participants will include elders who are showing signs of mild to moderate dementia and a designated caregiver. (Residents of dementia units would not be suitable as they are likely to be at a more advanced stage than the research criteria requires.)

We can recruit and screen subjects using home care agencies, assisted living residents, adult day health programs, and geriatric care managers.

There is an opportunity for geriatric care managers, assisted living facilities and home care agencies to play an active role in this project as well as other clinical trials in the near future. This could include helping us to follow subjects and family caregivers who are either living at home, or in assisted living facilities for 18 months.

There are some significant advantages for elder care professionals to participate in this study as it will be receiving widespread media coverage as the trial progresses.

This is the first time that the scientific community involved with cutting edge research on illnesses that primarily affect elders has worked with a nationwide network of eldercare professionals. We at Informed Eldercare Decisions believe that the time has come for professionals who interface with those most likely to benefit from this research to play an active role in these studies. This new partnership between the provider community and the research community also opens up new revenue opportunities for both non-profit and for profit eldercare agencies.

Rather than try to describe the project in any more detail in this newsletter, I encourage you to review an excerpt from the HBO Alzheimer’s Special that specifically describes the breakthrough research we are now involved with.
If you think you or your agency or eldercare professional practice would be interested in exploring participation in these studies further please review the following excerpt from the HBO broadcast.

“Inflammation, the Immune System, and Alzheimer’s”
(Approx. 29:23 min) Featuring: Joseph Rogers, PhD-Banner Sun Health Research Institute; Dale Schenk, PhD- and his research team at Elan Pharmaceuticals.

You can view the video by placing either of the following links into your URL locator.

http://www.hbo/alzheimers/supplementary-inflammation-the-immune-system-and-alzheimers.html

Tags: , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »