The Positive Impact of Owning a Wheelchair Van

Dealing with a disability can be tough for anyone of any age. When someone loses the ability to walk due to their disability, that person may feel like they have lost a great deal of their independence and freedom. Many disabled individuals have to regularly rely on the care of others, especially for transportation. Getting to doctor appointments and running errands becomes a day long task that often leaves the disabled individual exhausted, especially if the vehicle being used for transportation purposes is not designed for those who are in wheelchairs. One way that disabled individuals can regain some of the precious freedom they feel they have lost is through the use of a wheelchair van.

Owning a wheelchair van is a life changing event. These vans make travelling much easier and enjoyable, while also enabling the disabled individual to load themselves into the vehicle without the help of another. This alone can boost the spirits of the individual and make them feel like a normal person again. These handicap vans are fitted with special technology such as wheelchair lifts or ramps that allow a person in a wheelchair to get into the vehicle. The handicap accessible vans are modified so that there is additional headspace for the safety of the person in the wheelchair. There is also safety equipment installed on the inside of the vehicle to keep the individual in place during travel.

If you are looking to help restore a sense of independence to your life or in the life of someone you love who has a disability, then you need to look into getting awheelchair accessible van today. Ability Center has a wide selection of mobility products and handicap vans to meet the individual needs of you and your family. Aside from having a wide selection of vans, they also have wheelchairs and scooters that you can purchase as well.

To learn more, visit us at www.AbiltiyCenter.com 

Senior Emergency Kit

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• Making Home Safer for Seniors

The Home Instead Senior Care® network's Senior Emergency Kit^SM can help ensure that family caregivers like you have fast and easy access to important information about loved ones in case of an emergency call.

This resource is designed to help family caregivers gather details about a senior's doctors, pharmacy and insurance company, medications and dosages, as well as allergies, power of attorney and other important information.

This toolkit will provide you with all the important information you need in a centrally located file so you are ready for a crisis, day or night.

3 Tips For Helping A Parent Who May Not Want Help

 

Many adult children tread lightly when it comes to the health of an aging loved one, especially when it could threaten independence. And, sadly, it often takes an incident of some sort before families feel that “enough is enough” and have the confidence to face a health issue head-on. So what can families do for a loved one when it becomes apparent that their health is declining and/or their safety is at risk? With the help of AARP, we have a few strategies that families can try to approach these sensitive situations as delicately as possible. According to the AARP, here are several strategies children can use that can ensure a parent’s safety but also appeal to his or her pride:

1. Empowerment. It is crucial for an adult child to show his or her parent that they are allies, not adversaries, and that the child fully supports the parent’s desire to live independently as long as possible. But the child should suggest that accepting help would allow the parent to do what he or she wants and maintain self-sufficiency. If the parent would receive help mowing the lawn, then it could conserve energy for trimming hedges, whacking weeds or pursuing another interest. With the boost of helping hands, we all achieve more and go further. We become more, not less.
2. Enablers of Growth. Emphasize the giving that is inherent in receiving: Many adult children who take care of their parents mature personally and spiritually from the experience. When aging parents allow their kids to be their caregivers, they are intentionally giving them that opportunity to learn and grow. In contrast, aging parents who protest that they don’t want to inconvenience their kids and refuse to allow them to be helpful actually deprive their children of this growth experience. The child can make this point by explaining how much it would mean to him or her if the parent would receive help. The kid could further stress how mom or dad took care of their parents and how it gave them pride to do the right thing.
3. Role Model Reminder. Receiving care graciously is equivalent to getting old gracefully: As youngters, adult children learned from observing their parents about how to prepare for and handle life’s challenges. As middle-aged people, those same children learn from watching their parents about handling the losses at the end of life. Children must make it clear they are watching their parents and care. If parents can accept this care, it would provide children with a model of graciousness despite obvious physical and mental issues. If the parent persists in refusing help, it only teached the chid to fight old age rather than embracing it. A parent’s acceptance of help would help his or her child in the future.

These situations are not easy for anyone involved, but a plan is always good to have. Consider your loved one’s values and wishes and, whenever possible, have open conversations about these things. In that way, once a situation arises, you are all better informed and feel more confident in finding a solution that honors your loved one.

Visit us online for more information at www.BrightStarCare.com 

Community Resources for Elder Care

COMMUNITY RESOURCES FOR ELDER CARE

Posted on September 25th, 2014 

For older adults who are looking to maintain independence, there are a growing number of private and public organizations that offer home and community-based services. Many of these services can help solve long-term care issues and ease the stress of the caregiver. According to AARP, these services, which include occasional household help to 24/7 in-home care, are provided by nurses, trained aides and volunteers. Here is some information to get you started, thanks to AARP:

Elder Care Locator
Get help finding local services in your loved one’s community.The locator provides area-specific recommendations for stuff like home care, meal plans, transportation options and more. Use their helpful website.

Companionship Services
Local agencies on aging often provide affordable services where older adults are matched with a companion who checks in on a regular basis – both in person and over the phone – to provide home supervision, reassurance and friendly, social interaction. This can relieve guilt from caregivers who would like to help more often. Contact your state’s agency on aging for more information.

General Housekeeping and Upkeep
For those unable to handle laundry, cooking, errands and shopping, homemakers and home-care aides can come in handy. They can also assist with bathing and dressing. These providers, including ones that help with home repair services, usually charge an hourly rate. Check your state’s agency on aging or local senior center to find these services.

Meal Programs
Making meals daily can become a huge stress on older adults. A meal delivery service may be needed, or some facilities can offer group meals. Call your local senior center for more information.

Senior Centers
These offer older adults the opportunity to gather with their peers in a casual setting and participate in a variety of activities and programs. These centers provide an engaging environment for our older loved ones to age successfully and with fulfillment. Exercise classes, day trips, excursions and even continuing education classes are some of the centers’ features. Visit the National Council on Aging’s website.

Transportation
There will come a time for older adults when alternative transportation options are necessary. There are numerous options in most communities, such as taxis, hired car services, volunteer drivers, Dial-a-Ride, ride sharing, public transportation and more.

For more information on senior resources in your community, contact a local BrightStar Care.

How To Cope With 3 Common Caregiving Frustrations

How to Cope with 3 Common Caregiver Frustrations

Caring for your parents or another loved one can offer rewards beyond what you can imagine. But that doesn’t mean your caregiving life remains free from frustrations that range from large to small. You may at times find yourself feeling irritated with your loved one or resentful of family members who refuse to help you. If you have these feelings, you’re not alone. The following quotes are from real family caregivers in the Alzheimer’s community. Hear what they have to say about their caregiving frustrations, and try some of the suggested solutions.

UNHELPFUL FAMILY MEMBERS

“I have 2 siblings who live in the area and two out of state. My mother has lived with me going on 3 years. Not once has either local sibling offered to take mom out, take her to supper, or take her for the weekend. They begrudgingly take her when I ask months in advance.”

“I have three other siblings that do not care to help with her care. I work full time and have a daughter graduating high school this year. I try to show my daughter patience and care in taking care of mom but it isn't easy.”

Solutions to try:

·         Tips to help you deal with family conflict caused by Alzheimer’s

·          Checklist for sibling family caregivers

·          Get free resources from the 50/50 Rule®: Solving Family Conflict program

FREQUENT CRYING AND MOOD CHANGES

“My mom has been at my house for 3 weeks now and at times has forgotten who I was and she cries most of the day. How do I cope with the daily changing of her personality without losing my mind?”

“Mom also has been crying a lot at night lately. She says she misses her mother and a baby she lost (at 3 months old) back in the 60's. I don't know how to handle her when this happens. Mom cried for 40 minutes the other night.”

Solutions to try:

·         Tips to help calm someone with Alzheimer’s when they’re crying

·          Pointers for caregivers noticing mood changes

HOW DO I GET MOM TO SHOWER?

“I have the challenge of getting my mom to shower. She is wheelchair bound but can transfer to a chair we have in the shower. She wants only sponge baths, and it is the topic of disagreement often. She has some minor dementia. Help!”

“What do I find most frustrating? So many situations to choose from...let's see. I think it is the showering/bathing. She gives us lip service EVERY TIME!!! She says, ‘I’m not dirty,’ ‘I just did this today,’ or ‘I know what u r up to?’ And she wants to wear her depends and slippers in. It is such a struggle.”

Solutions to try:

·         5 tips to get more cooperation during bath time

·          Advice for caregivers on what to do when your loved one refuses to bathe

Visit us online to give your best tips and tricks for helping to overcome these common caregiving issues? Please share your solutions in the comments section at

http://www.caregiverstress.com/dementia-alzheimers-disease/common-caregiver-frustrations/

Living a Healthy Life Can Postpone Your Care Needs

Every day we make choices to how we live – which foods we eat, how much food to eat, how often to exercise and how much exercise to do. The fact is that someday, many of us are going to need the help of someone else just to make it through the day. We see it at Caring Senior Service each and every day. The good news is that with a few small changes we can extend the timeline so our care needs are put off as long as possible. For those that have current needs, regular exercise and good nutrition can help get you back on your feet and reduce the amount of care you need.

Three small changes you can make include getting more exercise, eating fresh food and eating the right amount of calories for your body type (this may mean eating less food if you’re overweight). While these three changes are good, don’t ignore other obvious things such as limiting alcohol, stopping smoking and regular well check ups with your doctor. Eating healthy and getting exercise can have many effects: reduce high blood pressure, help prevent diabetes, ward off depression, reduce risk of stroke and cancers and help you win marathons. Ok the last one may require an extensive regime of good eating and exercise, but I’ve not met many marathon runners who don’t live healthy, have you?

In the end, living healthy is less costly than needing help from someone else. The longer we live the more important it is we live healthy. Make some simple changes today and start seeing effects tomorrow. If you need some help getting started, call any one of our offices and our staff will put you in touch with a personal trainer or a local nutritionist that can help get you on the right track.

Visit us online @ http://blog.caringseniorservice.com/?p=271

Reducing Stress ~ Tips for Healthcare Professionals and Caregivers

Reducing Stress: Tips for Health Care Professionals and Caregivers

Posted by BAYADA Home Health Care

1

I’m so stressed out! How many times have you heard someone say that…or, perhaps, have said it yourself? Stress is very personal; situations and events that are distressing for you might not bother someone else in the least. Nevertheless, stress – including workplace stress – can affect every aspect of your life and can even alter your physical well-being.

Stress is a tension you feel and a reaction you have to a situation or event. Some stress can be “healthy stress” – the kind that challenges you and energizes you psychologically and physically – while many times it is “unhealthy,” leaving you feeling overwhelmed and anxious, i.e., “stressed out.”

According to the American Institute of Stress, numerous studies show that job stress is the major source of stress for Americans. Health care workers in particular, due to the nature of their work, often suffer from workplace stress. In fact, ComPsych, the world's largest provider of employee assistance programs, reports that health care workers are responsible for the largest number of stress and anxiety-related calls to their helpline.

Can you control your stress…Or is stress controlling you?

Many people experience unhealthy workplace stress – the perception of having little control but lots of demands. Let’s look at some of the many ways unhealthy stress can manifest itself:

Signs and Symptoms:

• Anxiety and irritability
• Apathy, loss of interest in work
• Sleep problems
• Fatigue
• Trouble concentrating
• Muscle tension or headaches
• Social withdrawal
• Coping with alcohol or drugs
• Digestive problems

Compassion Fatigue: When caring too much is making you ill

Health care workers and caregivers can experience a special kind of stress called Compassion Fatigue. Over time, the ability to feel and care for others becomes eroded through overuse of their skills of compassion. Because they care so deeply about their patients or loved ones, health care professionals and caregivers who listen to stories of fear, pain, and suffering can find themselves empathetically experiencing similar emotions.

It’s important to understand that these feelings are normal and that the symptoms of and treatment for Compassion Fatigue are similar to that of most kinds of stress. Here are some practical ways to prevent stress from overtaking your life at work and at home.

10 Tips for Reducing Stress:

1. Don’t Pull the Trigger on Stress. The very first step in taking control of your stress is to recognize your personal triggers, helping you to avoid a stress response altogether.
2. Manage your work-life balance. Make time for interests you enjoy outside of your job.  Whether they are active, like playing a sport, or quiet, like reading, it’s important to engage in activities you find enjoyable, relaxing, or fulfilling.
3. Take care of you. Don’t underestimate how much your physical condition affects how well you handle stress. Develop healthy habits like regular exercise, good nutrition, adequate sleep, and minimal or no alcohol and tobacco use.
4. Manage your time. There are few things that add more stress than running late. Plan ahead. Leave earlier. Do whatever it takes so you’re not always feeling like you’re playing “Beat the Clock.”
5. Get and stay organized. Do you often find yourself searching for something you misplaced, forgetting appointments, or accomplishing less than you intended? Organization will help you overcome these issues, allowing you to be more efficient and productive – and less stressed.
6. Resist perfectionism. Life isn’t perfect, so don’t try to be. If you feel you can do things better, then work on improvement, not perfection.
7. Adopt a positive attitude. Experts at the Mayo Clinic say that positive self-talk will improve your outlook, and when your state of mind is generally optimistic, you're able to handle everyday stress in a more constructive way.
8. Talk it over with a trusted listener. Talking over a problem with someone who is both supportive and empathetic can be a great way to let off steam and relieve stress. But keep it productive – don’t get caught up with just complaining and gossiping.
9. Ask for help. Talk to your supervisor and let him know what’s bothering you and work together to develop a plan to relieve some of your stressors.
10. Take a time-out. Sometimes all you need is a few minutes to disconnect from your environment to prevent your stress level from topping out. If possible, step away and do some deep breathing exercises or take a short walk.  And don’t forget that a little humor does wonders to diffuse a stressful situation.

Mother Teresa Understood Compassion Fatigue

One of the greatest, best-known caregivers, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, wrote in her plan to her superiors that it was mandatory for her nuns to take time off from their duties to allow them to heal from the stressful effects of their caregiving work.

Visit us online at http://blog.bayada.com/cares/bid/359499/reducing-stress-tips-for-health-care-professionals-and-caregivers

ALTCS Enforces Travel Limitations

Q: My husband and I live in Arizona, but most of our family lives out-of-state.  Like many other couples of our age, we like to spend our summers in cooler climates, so we typically stay with our son, who lives in another state, for about four months of the year.  If I apply for the ALTCS program, will ALTCS have any problems with me maintaining this type of a travel schedule?

I should preface this response by reminding you that ALTCS imposes a very strict medical requirement on its members.  As such, if you are healthy enough to maintain a rigorous travel schedule, even spending summers out of state, it could be that you are also too healthy to qualify for the ALTCS benefit.  Of course, being too healthy for ALTCS implies that you do not need long-term care, and will thus not have the associated expenses.  All in all, then, being too healthy for ALTCS should not be too distressing.

As to the question on hand, ALTCS does have a limit on the number of days for which its members can leave the state without losing eligibility, and this limit is 60 days.  The rationale here is certainly not to prevent interstate travel; so much as it is to ensure that ALTCS members are receiving the care that they presumably require.  Again, ALTCS provides long-term care coverage only to those individuals who actually require long-term care.  At least to all outward appearances, an individual who is well enough to forego care for months on end while out-of-state is presumably without a genuine need for long-term care.  At a certain point in time, then, for coverage reasons as well as for general well-being reasons, it will make sense for you and your husband to settle upon one state of residence.

Aging and the Law is authored by the attorneys at JacksonWhite and addresses legal issues that arise for the elderly and their families.  Questions can be sent to firm@jacksonwhitelaw.com.

Click to view all of our Aging and the Law columns.

5 SAFETY TIPS FOR ELDERLY DRIVERS

5 SAFETY TIPS FOR ELDERLY DRIVERS

Posted on August 20th, 2014 

The natural process of aging can affect your vision, hearing, reaction time and mental fitness. As a senior driver, that means it also can affect your driving abilities and even increase risk of a traffic crash. Since these changes can occur very slowly, you’ll want to evaluate then early and often – before putting yourself and others at risk. You can still be active, however. Dealing with these mind and body changes and adhering to a few simple guidelines can make you a wiser senior driver.

Here are some key safety tips, according to AAA:

1. Vision. A driver’s eyesight is critical in preventing car crashes, because nearly all the sensory input you need to drive a car comes from visual cues. If your eyesight is diminished, so is your ability to drive safely. This is especially important to senior drivers.
2. Hearing. According to the National Institutes of Health, hearing loss is one of the most common conditions affecting older adults. Hearing loss can be dangerous, especially when in or near traffic. For example, the inability to hear high-pitched tones, such as sirens from emergency response vehicles, especially among background noise like horns or railroad warnings, can put you and other drivers at risk.
3. Reaction time. Even if you have excellent judgment while driving, it may be challenging at times to integrate information from several sources at once. This can slow driver reaction time and inhibit safe driving in dangerous situations. It’s also possible that pain or stiffness in muscles or joints could make it difficult to react quickly during emergencies.
4. Medical conditions and medications. If not managed properly, medical conditions can increase your crash risk. Some of the most common conditions known to affect safe driving are impaired vision, physical limitations, dementia, diabetes, seizures and sleep disorders. Even if you have one or more of these medical conditions, if you work closely with your doctor, you often can continue safe driving.
5. Mind and cognition. As you get older, your brain needs more time to process information, making it more difficult to ignore distractions. The good news is that mature judgment, years of driving experience and good driving habits often can help senior drivers compensate for some diminished cognitive abilities. Cognition is the ability to remember information like locations or destinations and recognize and respond to things such as traffic signs and pavement markings. When driving, it involves being able to focus and make sound decisions in a hurry to avoid a crash.

For more great information and resources, visit seniordriving.aaa.com.

TIME TO START TALKING ~ Making Parents Part of the Aging Process Now

Time To Start Talking ~ Making Parents Part of the Aging Process Now

Local senior care experts encourage families to connect and provide tips on tackling tough conversations about aging

Discussing aging issues, such as living arrangements, finances, dating, end-of-life decisions and driving, early and often can save families years of heartache, tension and even legal battles. Yet, research indicates that about two-thirds of American families put off these conversations, either because they are uncomfortable with the topics or they just don't know where to start. ¹

Statistics show that 34 percent of adults surveyed are conversation avoiders. ² That is, they haven't talked about any important end-of-life issues with their parents or children, or they have talked about just one issue.

To help, the local Home Instead Senior Care office is sponsoring the "40-70 Rule®" program, which includes an Action Plan for Successful Aging^SM and other resources to help ease these conversations between adult children and their parents.

The idea behind the "40-70 Rule" is that by the time adult children are age 40 and their parents are age 70, they should have these critical conversations that will impact the parents' future.

"Unfortunately, it is often not until a crisis happens that families consider these important discussions," says Mahnaz Pourian, owner of the Home Instead Senior Care office serving Southeast Valley. "Although the prospect of addressing sensitive topics can often be intimidating, it's critical for these conversations to happen before it's too late."

According to recently conducted research, 70 percent of family conversations about aging issues don't occur until they are prompted by a health crisis or other emergency. ¹ This can increase the likelihood of family disputes.

Pourian says that she hopes this program can change that for area families.

"Quite often, when it comes to certain topics, there is a noticeable gap between the wishes of the senior parents and their children," she says. "We want to help families establish plans in advance so that a parent's expressed wishes are met."

For more information about the "40-70 Rule" program or to obtain a copy of the Successful Aging Action Plan, please visit 4070Talk.com or call 480-827-4343. 

Visit our website @ http://www.homeinstead.com/195/News/Local/Pages/Article.aspx?aId=19