Adeste In-Home Care - Colorado
In-Home Care in Colorado
And the statistics rise as we age. [Read more…]
Imagine your elderly mom or dad is in the hospital several days after surgery. The doctors and nurses visit several times during the day, offering advice and asking questions about further care. Your loved one answers but can’t recall the details of the conversation once you arrive.
This is how many health-related situations go from bad to worse. Your loved one has difficulty expressing themselves. You don’t have the option of being with them twenty-four hours of the day. You have a family too.
That’s where a senior need advocate can help. They can be there when you can’t. They can do many different things.
A senior need advocate is there to ensure that both the medical staff and the patient understands the problem and the treatment. They can educate both sides to help stay on top of the latest medical advice and ensure both sides make informed decisions. Your loved one often has many doctors, nurses, therapists, and other staff adding to the level of care. A senior need advocate can ensure their messages aren’t mixed, offering countering levels of advice. A senior need advocate will also ensure that your loved one understands the process they will be going through, and relay that information to you as well. [Read more…]
One of the most difficult things you can hear in the hospital is that your loved one will need long term care. And they usually make the announcement hours before they release her.
What do you do?
Where can you loved one go?
How will they survive?
How will YOU survive?
It’s not just their lives that are turned completely upside down; yours too.
For many, the only thing that comes to mind is a facility. Assisted living, nursing care, it’s the only option that makes sense. Because when you’re in the throes of chaos, your mind flips to the things being talked about in the news. And both assisted living and nursing care receive a lot of press.
While both may work in some situations, let’s look at a few things you’ll have to navigate.
First is finding an open facility. It’s no secret the population is aging. Senior centers are being built as rapidly as possible. Yet when you need a facility in days or even a matter of hours, you’re left with taking what’s available. And for the most part, that means accepting whatever skill set they have on hand, whether it matches your needs or not. You don’t have time to ask questions like: [Read more…]
As a caregiver, there is a lot involved in ensuring your loved one receives the very best care. It depends on many things, including finding the right health professionals, advocating for the best possible care and services, arranging payment, and following up on everything that occurs in the process. It can be a full time job in some cases.
It’s also easy to get overwhelmed.
In most cases, the job falls to the primary caregiver. But sometimes he or she needs a little support. That’s where things can get lost in the shuffle. Managing care in the most efficient way requires:
Depending on the health of your loved one, you may have a broad range of treatments and therapies in place. That means regular outings to a variety of different facilities, all with different strategies and treatments in place. The easiest way to control it all is by listing one person in the family as point of contact for all providers. That way there is never a mix up for who is notified for what. Everything goes to one person who can track services and ensure everything is in place.
Medical visits and treatments can be stressful even in the best of times. For the person you are caring for, they can be an extreme source of anxiety. And because you may be attending appointments on a regular basis, that means the stressors in your life can become insurmountable. Whenever possible, use routine to your advantage. Can you schedule appointments all at a certain point during the day? Can you meet certain professionals at the same time every week? Establishing as much routine and consistency as you can reduce the stress of everyone involved, which results in a higher level of care.
With most chronic illnesses, life becomes a never-ending process of diagnosing a problem and finding a treatment that can increase quality of life. And just when you think you have it figured out, the nature of the illness changes. When working with a professional, be sure you ask about all phases of the condition. If you’re still undergoing tests, what can you do to make life better now? Remember, change is inevitable. The best thing you can do is address today.
The more medical professionals you see, the more convoluted the process can seem. Sometimes telling a physician about a previous issue isn’t enough, and it can be difficult to get the right paperwork to bring it into the process. Instead, keep everything together in one place. Ask for copies. Keep records of what forms you fill out and where you send things. Get access to everything you can and keep it safe together for easy access.
What else have you found helps to coordinate your care?
Most people who need care rely on family and friends to provide at least part of their assistance. Around 30 percent will also rely on paid providers to supplement their needs.
When you look at who is providing the care, it may come as no surprise to discover that women are the backbone of the support system. Women provide the majority of care for spouses, parents, friends, and neighbors.
The average caregiver is a 49 year old woman providing care for a mother who does not live with her. She is married and employed.
Women spend as much as 50 percent more time providing care than male caregivers.
Two out of three caregivers are women.
Women make up the majority of caregivers in our country, but they also have the most long term care needs. Women tend to live longer than men, outlive their spouses, and have less access to savings and pensions. [Read more…]
FTD – frontotemporal degeneration – is a disease that results from progressive damage to the temporal and/or frontal lobes of the brain. It can also be referred to as frontotemporal dementia, frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD), or Picks disease.
FTD is separated from other types of dementia in two important ways:
With FTD, you’ll notice a gradual, progressive decline in behavior and/or language, yet memory usually stays relatively intact. As the disease progresses, you’ll find it difficult for the person to plan and organize, behave appropriately in social settings, interact with others, even personal care can be difficult.
FTD usually impacts at a younger age, with 60 percent of all cases affecting 45 to 64 year olds. FTD can impact both work and family in ways that other forms of dementias do not.
Like other forms of dementia, there are currently no treatments available to slow or stop the progression of the disease.
When first diagnosed, it’s important to start building your team for long term management of the issues you’ll be facing in the coming years. [Read more…]
Caregiving isn’t just a family thing, it’s something that impacts each and every one of us.
According to the National Alliance for Caregiving, more than 15 percent of the US workforce plays a caregiving role. Yet most are reluctant to tell their employees about their situation for fear of the impact on their jobs and future promotions.
According to a MetLife study, many caregivers leave positions when the conflict between responsibilities gets to be too much. It ends up costing as much as $304,000 in benefits and wages over the average employee’s lifetime.
66 percent of all caregivers have reported to work late, left early, or have been forced to take time off during the day to deal with caregiving issues.
20 percent of all caregivers are forced to take a leave of absence somewhere during the process.
10 percent of all caregivers quit or take early retirement before they are ready due to caregiving needs.
5 percent of all caregivers say no to a promotion because they worry about how it will impact their caregiving duties.
Some of it is due to fear. Corporate structure is of such that we worry about job potential if we reveal weakness. We prefer to deal with it in our own way rather than asking for help from those around us.
It’s not that employers aren’t willing to work with a person; in most cases, it’s that they are simply unaware.
But it’s this communication breakdown between employers and employees that are contributing to the lack of support. The only way to change it is to reach out and talk about it and find out what your options are.
Some employers offer resources and services that can help a family caregiver. When employees don’t take advantage of the services, human resource analyzes and refocuses their needs in other directions.
Start by asking what is available to you. Don’t be afraid to open up about your situation and ask what can be done to support your needs. Even if they don’t have a program in place, it can open up the opportunity to learn. And even from the very first conversation, it may be enough to help you solve some of your needs and discover how you can continue doing what you do.
Osteoporosis is a bone disease characterized by a decrease in bone mass, with a decrease in bone density and an increase of bone spaces. It is associated with porosity and fragility in the bone, which makes bones especially susceptible to fractures.
Every person has an individual peak bone mass that is dependent on your lifestyle and genetic factors. People reach their peak bone mass sometime in their early thirties and from that time forward, a loss of bone mass can occur. The more rapidly you lose bone mass, the higher your risk of fracture, with hips, wrists and the spine being at greatest risk.
There are many factors associated with being at a higher risk for developing osteoporosis, with the most common being:
Bone loss associated with osteoporosis is a preventable condition. While it’s never too late to alter the course of the disease, the sooner you start, the better.
Men and women; yes, we’re alike in many ways. But sometimes it is the differences that matter most.
When it comes to heart disease, the differences can be staggering.
Women age 45 and younger are more likely than men to die within a year of their first heart attack
Men are 2 to 3 times more likely than women to receive an implantable defibrillator for the prevention of sudden cardiac death
Only 65 percent of women surveyed said they would think of calling 911 if they thought they were experiencing a heart attack – substantially lower than men. [Read more…]
What’s the key to good health? The answer may lie in mobility.
Being able to walk and move allows us to keep our independence. Mobility is essential for getting through the day. Whether you need to get out of bed and walk across the room to the bathroom, walk to the kitchen and stand to make yourself something to eat, or walk through a grocery store picking up supplies, you can’t do that if you have mobility issues.
Loss of mobility is common the older we get. The more we lose our mobility, the greater the psychological and physical consequences. Gradual decline takes its toll rapidly. If you have trouble walking and moving, you say no to more things. That means you stop going to the grocery store and instead rely on others. You turn down requests from friends to go to lunch or the movies. You become a recluse, you stay home, and you get depressed.
With immobilization comes incontinence. If you can’t make it to the bathroom, you begin developing things like urinary infections. You become self-conscious, and you further turn people away. [Read more…]