Seniors ETC - In-home senior, parent, companion care, hospice support in Colorado

According to the Alzheimer’s Association, 50 percent of caregivers die before the person they are caring for.

Caregiving is a stressful job. As stress  builds, it manifests into a variety of health concerns. People that face long term stress are more likely to suffer a stroke, are at a greater risk for heart attack, are more likely to develop cancer, and are at a greater risk for auto-immune diseases such as diabetes, headaches and depression. 

The only way to move out of this trend is to allow some individual time, away from the caregiving role. Many caregivers use the excuse they don’t have time or have no one else to rely on. Instead of using this as excuses, find ways to ensure your own individual time.

Rely on other relatives, friends, or neighbors to do small tasks. Maybe a friend can take your loved one out for dinner and a movie. Or if they aren’t mobile, they can bring dinner in and watch a movie on television. 

Hire professional caregivers for weekly supplemental tasks. Maybe they can come in two mornings a week while you attend a yoga class and lunch with friends. 

Don’t do your loved one’s household chores. This will double up on your own tasks - monitoring two households - and will double up on your stress levels. Hire the gardener to mow the lawn. Hire a maid for light housekeeping. Hire a handyman for fix up projects.

Also watch this site and sign up for our blog posts or newsletter. We’ll provide you with tips and strategies to ensure you stay healthy, and are there for your loved one for as long as they need you.

Photo Source zweettooth

When you first start noticing your loved one needs help, you may be willing to jump in and do it yourself. Maybe it’s an occasional day of cleaning. Or spending the day running errands, such as to the doctor’s office, the hair salon, and to pick up groceries.

But eventually they start needing more care than you can provide. There’s just not enough hours in the day to work full time, take care of your own family, AND take care of your aging parent or loved one.

So what do you do?

You can start by hiring out the little things. Hire someone for lawn care and snow removal. Hire someone to help clean the house. Hire someone to help your loved one manage day to day activities.

Your loved one will love being able to stay in their own home as long as possible.

But sometimes remaining in the home becomes too much. In those cases, it may be time to consider assisted living or nursing care.

I found a great resource to help you locate assisted living facilities in the Colorado area. For when you need it.

According to the Federal Reserve Board’s 2004 Survey of Consumer Finances, as much as 75 percent of the average senior’s annual income is used to pay debt payments. That’s a pretty scary number, especially when more of their income ends up going to health care related issues.

A recent article, What To Do When Your Parent Is In Debt can help you decide exactly how to help your parent facing this ever-growing crises.

One of the most important things to remember is your parent’s debt is not your debt. Unless your name is on the credit card, loan or mortgage, you are not legally responsible for it. Likewise, if your name isn’t listed, you can’t have contact with the debt companies - your parent will have to contact them him or herself.

What have been your experiences?

1. Choose 10 to 20 or your loved one’s favorite songs. Take out one word from the title, and have your loved one fill in the blanks.

2. Buy an easy Sodoku puzzle book and have your loved one do one puzzle per day.

3. Choose a crossword puzzle and work it together.

4. Word searches are a great way to keep the mind and her eyesight going.

5. Buy puzzles and work them without looking at the picture. Choose a puzzle with enough pieces to challenge but not frustrate.

6. How about a game of cards? Head to the toy section at your local discount store. Even a game of old maid can be fun.

7. How about a game of trivia? There are many games of trivia both in the stores and online. Or make up your own trivia questions based on your loved one’s history.

8. Read a good book together. Then have a book discussion. You may even ask a few of your loved one’s friends over to make it a party.

9. How about scrapbooking? It’s a great way to organize the stacks of photos and clippings and create something meaningful together.

10. Matching games can also help with memory. It’s easy to make a matching game with pictures of your loved one’s favorite things, and attach them to index cards.

When Jenny’s mom first went into the hospital, she started doing a few things around her home. She started getting it into order for the day she recovered and came back to resume her normal life.

After weeks of recovery, Jenny’s mom did come home - but not in the same state as before she went into the hospital. It was the little things that Jenny first started to notice. Her mom had trouble bathing herself. She couldn’t keep the house as clean as she once did. She wasn’t getting health meals on a regular basis.

While many of us need a helping hand to get back on our feet after surgery, there are some cases when a full recovery just isn’t possible. Long term care focuses on helping people cope  with carrying on life with a reduced level of functioning over a long period of time - possibly even for life. There isn’t the possibility of recovery from a medical condition, instead the focus is on accepting and living with the current conditions. 

Long term care isn’t synonymous with nursing home or assisted living. In many cases a person can continue to live in their home with some help from family, friends or in-home care.

For the most part, long term care is not covered by insurance or Medicaid. Because the person is not in recovery, it’s not seen as a medical issue. Instead, the costs will be absorbed by the individual or her family. Or with long term care insurance.

In many cases your loved one may still be available for long term care insurance, depending on her medical condition. The best way to find out if this is an option for you is to contact a financial planner or insurance agent with specialization in long term care.

Photo source valike

Caregiving is a hard job with little recognition and lots of stress. How are you handling it?

AARP has an interactive Caregiver Stress Quiz that will allow you to answer a few questions, and it will make recommendations based on your answers. It’s a great way of finding out if you’re going through normal amounts of stress - or if you should find ways of relieving your stress.

The best way to relieve stress is to ask for a helping hand once in awhile. Your parents or loved one may rely on you for a lot of things. But in order to keep yourself healthy, it’s important to ask for help when you need it.

When you’re finished taking the Caregiver Stress Quiz, make sure you read the Managing The Stress: Tips For The Caregiver article . It will offer you additional ways to help you get through your busy, ever changing days.

Your mom wants to head back to her 50th class reunion - you want to take the family to the beach. Yet you only have time for a one week vacation - what do you do?

Rather than giving in and helping your mom back to her home state, and being with her while she visits old friends, why not have the best of both worlds?

Caregiving doesn’t have to take place just inside the home. Why not hire a travel companion? Someone who is specialized in caregiving, and can help with all her needs - large to small.

Studies increasingly show that the more mobile, the more social we can be as we age, the better we’ll be and the longer we’ll live. Even if your mom is having some trouble living on her own, allowing her to socialize with old friends may pick up her spirits, and improve her mind.

And with a week to yourself with your own family, what could be better?

Alzheimer’s is hard enough for us to understand. In many cases, it seems to go from diagnosis to complete caregiving incredibly fast. How do you cope with it all?

But what about your children? It’s very difficult for a child or teen to understand what has happened to grandma or grandpa. Will they get it to? Is it contagious?

Michael Plontz posted a great article on helping children understand more about Alzheimer’s, and how you can explain it to your child.

A great read for anyone facing Alzheimer’s.

It’s summer time - time to spend a week with your family. Head to the mountains for a much needed break. Or maybe head to the beach for a week of play in the sand with the kids.

Does that sound impossible?

For many caregivers of aging parents, the idea of a true vacation seems like an impossible goal. How can you leave your mom or dad? Who will make sure she gets to her doctor’s appointments? Who will cook for her? Who will make sure she’s taking her medicine?

If you’re working full time, your job gives you a few weeks of vacation per year. They understand the importance of giving you a break - a time to do something completely out of the ordinary, relax, and get into a new frame of mind. But with caregiving, there’s no one to take your place if you leave. Yet leaving and giving yourself a break is just what you need to do.

There are ways to give yourself that much needed break.

1. Have a brother or sister, aunt or cousin living in another state? Ask them to come out and sit with your mom for a week. They can be your mom’s "right hand" for a week - and give you your much needed break.

2. Depending on how well your loved one is doing, you may consider sending them to a family member or friend in another location. A week out of their own home and daily lifestyle may be a positive move for them as well.

3. Hire an in-home care giver to provide you with support. They are available for one or two hours a day, or can provide 24 hour care - whatever you need.  Because they’re fully trained, you’ll be able to rely on their services, and put your mind at ease while resting on the beach.

Can anything be worse than an unexpected car repair? The timing usually stinks. Being without a car, while it is repaired, is a nightmare; and the cost of working on today’s vehicles is expensive. However, I trust those life issues aren’t enough to get you to move on a surge of adrenaline and act without clear thought when a postcard or phone call comes claiming that your car warranty has expired.

Car warranty messages are of two varieties. First, let’s discuss calls which are clearly fraudulent. These calls will suggest that you provide a bank account number or credit card number and your car warranty will be immediately reinstated. Then crooks on the other end of the line take your financial information and defraud you.

The second type of call involves scam artists. Perhaps you’ve received a postcard that said, “Urgent Message!” or “Your Car Warranty Has Expired!” and the postcard directs the recipient to call a number. In most cases, a price is quoted and the consumer must give an immediate down-payment, by credit card, and the transaction must be finished in one phone call or the deal can never be completed. In other words, you must pay for the warranty without reading information describing coverage. When callers ask about coverage, the answers range from “Just like your old warranty,” “Just like the warranty when the car was new,” or “This warranty covers everything you’ll ever need.” Typically the cost is way out-of-line and the coverage is much less than expected.

Here are some helpful reminders:

• * Never give out personal financial information where a call has not    been initiated by you;
• * Check out any car warranty company by calling your local car dealership or the Better Business Bureau;
• * Always get information in writing, and consult someone else about the provisions, before making a deal or signing paperwork;
• * Slow down! Don’t be hurried by the word, “Urgent!”
• * Seniors, especially, are being targeted by this scam. Let’s ‘Watch out!’  for one another.

Source: District Attorney Scott Storey, Office of Jefferson/Gilpin Counties, Colorado