Best Car Features For Caregivers

June 8, 2017 by admin Leave a Comment

As a caregiver, your days are pretty busy. And you probably spend a lot of time in the car. Driving to doctor’s appointments, visiting with specialists, testing, and more testing, picking up prescriptions from the pharmacy – it all can be a little overwhelming at times.

Any car will do. But when you’re responsible for someone else’s needs, finding the right car that supports your caregiving efforts will make your job easier. The person you are caring for now may be fairly mobile. What happens as that changes? Will your car function as well in the future as it does right now?

When looking at a car’s features, evaluate it based on two characteristics: access for people and access to your stuff. Both can change significantly over time.

Access For People

Different vehicles provide different accessibility. If you’ve ever climbed into a large pickup, or into the backseat of a two door sports car, you know this to be true. The more control you can give the person you are caring for during this process, the easier your life will be. [Read more…]

7 Important Steps To Being A Better Caregiver

March 17, 2017 by admin Leave a Comment

Caregiving often starts small and with things you’d rarely recognize as caregiving. A quick errand to the pharmacy. Dropping off dinner several nights a week. A phone call with a request “can you look at this?” and stopping everything to deal with “it.”

And before you know it, it’s a regular part of your weekly routine. You schedule time in your days to “help” out. Their lives become your life in ways you could never have imagined.

But as much as caregiving becomes physical activities, running here and doing this, it’s important to remember that caregiving is more of a mindset than actual activities. The best way to become a better caregiver is to make it easier to do what you do.

Remember The Person You’re Caring For

Your loved one is going through a lot of changes, both physically and mentally. What you see today is probably not how you remember them in the past. And to respond to those needs today means you have to do so with all the love and care you’ve had for the person since the beginning, while taking into account those limitations of today. Your loved one has changed; your relationship has not. They are still the same person on the inside, even if their attitudes and capabilities are different. Always keep that person in mind as you provide care. [Read more…]

Avoiding Undue Influence With Parents’ Estate Planning

October 26, 2016 by admin Leave a Comment

Human nature pushes us to procrastinate until we need something. Then we scramble to get it done.

In some areas, this has little impact. With estate planning, the results can be disastrous.

Imagine a spouse living with diminished mental capacity; her spouse has already passed. In this case, the surviving parent may enlist the help of her adult children to manage the finances and help update the estate. While adult children are an asset, they can also provide too much influence and unleash a variety of unwanted legal problems. It’s important to respect a person’s wishes without stepping over the line. Bitterness over a will can divide families and could even lead to legal charges of undue influence.

But how much is too much? [Read more…]

How Telemedicine Will Impact Seniors and Caregivers

March 29, 2016 by admin Leave a Comment

It seems you can’t go a day without reading about a new perspective on the healthcare system. There are varying opinions, with an equal amount of ideas on how to fix the system we already have in place. But no matter what side of the issue you’re on, change is the one thing we can all agree on.

Change in healthcare is coming fast. And for most of us, that means we’ll quickly dive into the world of telemedicine for some of our future care.

Telemedicine is sometimes also referred to as telehealth. It refers to the use of technology to deliver health care services and information. It is designed both to reduce the costs of healthcare, and also to improve access to ideas and treatments that might not be available any other way. It uses technologies such as phone calls, teleconferencing, video conferencing, remote monitoring through mobile technology, email and texting to improve care access outside of the normal face-to-face, brick-and-mortar atmosphere.

For today’s seniors, the benefits are many. [Read more…]

What Is Late Life Anxiety Disorder

February 16, 2016 by admin Leave a Comment

Anxiety is something we face throughout our lives. And it can be triggered by a variety of things.

Moving from high school to college, choosing our degrees
Selecting a job, vying for promotions
Family commitments and obligations
Financial responsibilities

With big change comes a rise in the levels of anxiety. And stress can impact us in many ways. But while some stress is considered a normal part of our lives in our younger years, very little consideration has been given to stress levels in our older years. Yet anxiety disorder diagnosed later in life can have a serious impact on quality of life.

General Anxiety Disorder is defined as excessive worrying over routine events and activities for an extended period of time, in general six months or longer. It is the most commonly diagnosed anxiety disorder, and also accounts for up to 90 percent of all late life anxiety disorders. It is more common in women than in men. And when it appears, you’ll most likely find a variety of these symptoms: [Read more…]

Top 3 Reasons Seniors Enter Assisted Living … And Why There Is A Better Way

September 1, 2015 by admin Leave a Comment

Every day, families across the world find themselves in an entirely new world. The reality that mom and dad can no longer live on their own is a bit terrifying. Now what?

Caregiving isn’t something we think about until it’s thrust upon us. And from that moment on, we scramble to make the right choices.

If mom or dad can no longer live on their own, the best choice is to move them out of their home and into someplace safe where they’ll be well taken care of, right? In reality, that thought process may be all wrong.

We usually find ourselves considering caregiving options for one of three reasons:

1. A sudden change in health – it may be recovery from a surgery or a diagnosis of a chronic illness

2. A decline in daily living – you usually start to notice it in little things. They may show weight-loss from losing interest in preparing daily meals. They may allow newspapers and mail to accumulate in a corner.

3. A change in capabilities – they may get confused on what medications to take at what time of the day. They may lose their ability to drive.

Yet while each of these changes can open your eyes to the fact that mom or dad needs help, it’s the kind of help that will set the course for their future well-being. [Read more…]

Understanding The Side Effects Of Your Medication

August 25, 2015 by admin Leave a Comment

We live in a world where people take a wide range of medication every day. In many ways it has improved our lives tenfold. Yet in some ways, we can be more at risk than ever before.

Your heart doctor has your best interests in mind when he prescribes the medicine he has. But how does it interact with the medicine for your depression? Or the medicine you received from your eye doctor for a reoccurring eye infection? Or even with the over the counter medicine you pick up at the big box store?

Side effects vary from medication to medication. Some of the most common side effects include nausea, upset stomach, constipation or diarrhea. In some cases they may include things like sleep disturbances, rash or skin irritation. In rare cases, side effects can be severe, including serious allergic reactions, physical debilitation, and in some cases death.

And while each of these side effects alone can cause you to think twice before popping the pill into your mouth, what happens when you add two or three (or four) pills together at a time? Can the side effects and interactions quickly escalate from bad to worse?

A common medication for seniors is cholesterol lowering medication such as a statin. Side effects for cholesterol medication may include headache, muscle pain, weakness, dizziness, sleep difficulties, nausea, abdominal pain, diarrhea, constipation and skin irritation. There is also some research that shows a link between statins and type 2 diabetes, mental confusion, or memory loss.

If the senior in your life is already prone to or has type 2 diabetes, mental confusion or memory loss, taking statins may only exacerbate the problems they already have in place.

As a caregiver, there are important tips to keep in mind with regards to prescription drugs: [Read more…]

The Caregiving Role At End of Life

August 18, 2015 by admin Leave a Comment

Caregiving is one of the most difficult challenges we face with family members and loved ones. And while a lot is written about the caregiving role at the beginning of the process, less is written and understood about end of life caregiving.

If you are a caregiver for someone in the final stages of life, the grief can be overwhelming. Not only do you have to continue with the caregiving role 24/7, sometimes adding more tasks than ever before, you also have to face the devastating fact that the end is near.

You go into overwork mode, attempting to do as much as you can. “I can rest after this is over, but I want to do do everything I can while I can” becomes a caregivers motto. Caregivers experience isolation; fatigue. Yet taking the time to rest or even to take a few moments for a long, hot bath lets the guilt filter in.

In most cases it isn’t the tasks that overwhelm; it’s the fear of the unknown. The person you love depends on you like never before. They require nonstop action. You suddenly find yourself in charge of everything – from pain control, to injections, to daily hygiene, to making the toughest of decisions. Our culture keeps the concept of death hidden and out of sight. We know it’s there, yet we simply don’t want to deal with it until we have to.

Not only are we fearful about our own capacity to handle the final caregiving role, we’re also anticipating our greatest fear … the fear of life without your loved one. [Read more…]

The Biggest Fear Of Seniors Staying Home Alone

April 21, 2015 by admin Leave a Comment

Play up the concept of people finding their loved ones at home after falling, laying there 3 to 5 days before being noticed – they choose assisted living instead. Very expensive. Monitoring service could be better and allow you to stretch your money further

The scenario is all too common.

A parent or loved one becomes ill and no longer can do things in the manner they once did. They slow down. They miss things. They stop performing some of the basic needs. So you begin checking in on them to make sure everything is okay.

One day a week quickly escalates to two, and turns into three.

When you’re working 40 hours a week, have kids to transport from school, to dentist appointments, to soccer practices and piano lessons, and have other family, friend and personal obligations, life becomes harried.

They call it the sandwich generation for a reason.

You tell your dad you’ll stop by a couple times per week, just to check in on things. Yet Wednesday rolls by, the kids are sick, you have a meeting, your spouse is out of town. Wednesday turns into Thursday, and before you know it Saturday morning has rolled around once again.

What if your dad fell down on Monday and couldn’t get up? What if he couldn’t reach a phone? What if he was lying there in pain? [Read more…]

Addressing Hearing Loss In Seniors

October 21, 2014 by admin Leave a Comment

Hearing loss may be considered a normal part of aging, but it can be isolating for the person experiencing it, and even more frustrating for the person in a caregiving role.

Right now, 30 percent of all seniors between the ages of 65 and 74, and over 50 percent of seniors age 75 and above experience hearing loss. Hearing loss makes it difficult to understand and follow a doctor’s advice, hear doorbells and alarms, communicate effectively with those around you, and may even lead to increased falls. If left untreated, hearing loss can lead to depression and withdrawal from normal, every day activities.

Hearing loss comes in many forms. It may start out as a mild hearing loss, in which a person misses certain ranges or pitches of sound. And of course it can continue to build until a total loss of hearing is in play. It can be hereditary, or it can result from long term exposure to loud noises, disease, trauma, or even as a side effect to certain medications.

In general, there are two categories of hearing loss: [Read more…]