Weather The Storm

Life throws us many curveballs, and suddenly becoming the ” parent ” to your parents is a major one for both parties involved. When you believe a family member or other loved one is in need of senior care, then what is the best way to start a discussion? Several factors often compound this sudden reversal of roles: the feeling of meddling in our parents’ lives, the reluctance to accept that our parents are in fact aging; guilt or anxiety about who will care for them, and the potential for your heartfelt intentions coming off as insulting.  The first thing in getting necessary care is to get past the reluctance to talk about this issue. Gilbert Guide has assembled some suggestions to help make this process as painless as possible:

Listen, listen, listen. Show your genuine interest, concern and sensitivity.

Be supportive and remember not to be judgemental.

Ask your loved one open-ended questions to find out his/her personal circumstances and opinions.

Share your own thoughts about your own aging and what you plan to do.

Reassure your loved one that they are not alone in their concerns.

Be prepared to accept your parents’ opinions or decisions, even if you do not agree.

Determine how important it is to your parent to remain as independent as possible.

Who can always help with Long-term Care Decisions? Solicit the help of non-family members in evaluating the type of long-term care your loved one may need. People of authority who are not related to you can offer a neutral opinion. Consider the following figures:

Your doctor or your loved one’s personal doctor.

Friends and neighbors whose opinions you trust, and who may have already faced a similar situation.

A clergy member who might be able to refer you to senior care groups or agencies.

County care service agencies.

Area agencies on aging or other senior information and referral services.

Related Reading:

J.K. Lasser's Choosing the Right Long-term Care Insurance

The Guide to Pressure Ulcers in Long-term Care

Adult Day Care: A Practical Guide

Standards and Guidelines for Adult Day Care

Long-Term Care Medicine (Current Clinical Practice)

Hospice services are available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. There is always a nurse on call at night and on weekends. The nurse will remember to visit the patient as long and as often as necessary to ensure quality senior care. Due to this wonderful service, a lot of people are under the impression that hospice care is expensive, and believe they cannot afford such treatment. However Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance companies cover hospice care and services. This would include, but is not limited to, medications, medical supplies, nursing care, home health aides and social services. Back at 1983, the Congress have established the Medicare Hospice Benefit, covered under Medicare Part A, to ensure that all beneficiaries could receive high-quality end-of-life care. In order to receive the Medicare Hospice Benefit, the patient must meet three key criteria.

First of all, the doctor must approve, with the use of his or her best clinical judgement, that the patient is ill with a terminal disease and life expectancy is only within six months or less. If the patient lives longer than six months, he or she can continue to receive hospice care as long as the doctor re-certifies that the patient is terminal and with declining health. The next criteria would be that the patient is willing to recieve comfort care instead of curative treatments for their disease. For example, a patient could not be getting chemotherapy to cure their illness and be getting hospice care simultaneously. Hospice is intended be used once curative treatment is no longer an option. Finally, the patient needs to enroll in a Medicare-approved hospice program. This should be one of the first questions you should ask in determining which hospice agency to use. More than 90% of hospices in the United States are certified by Medicare.

CCRCs are living communities for seniors. Most have three levels of residence: independent living, assisted living and skilled nursing. Each level of residence is tied to the level of care that the resident requires. The primary concept behind a CCRC is that it offers a wider spectrum of care, so that once a senior moves into the community, he or she will be able to receive the appropriate care as his or her needs change.

Related Reading:

Health Care Financial Management for Nurse Managers: Applications in Hospitals, Long-Term Care, Home Care and Ambulatory Care

Sharing the Burden: Strategies for Public and Private Long-term Care Insurance

Long-term care insurance standards: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Commerce, Consumer Protection, and Competitiveness of the Committee on Energy and ... One Hundred Second Congress, first session

Adult Day Care CB (Johns Hopkins Series in Contemporary Medicine and Public Health)

The Guide to Pressure Ulcers in Long-term Care

From an evolutionary standpoint, our bodies are made for short bursts of stress, like running away from dangerous situations, such as a forest fire. But today’s world is one of constant low-level stress. For caregivers, high stress levels are continual. And frankly, the human body isn’t made to withstand such constant wear and tear. As a whole, many family caregivers cannot put aside strong feelings associated with caregiving, which can run the gamut from devotion to guilt, to see the importance of avoiding the problem of caregiver burnout.

I cannot stress this enough: as a senior care caregiver, you are only as good as the care you can provide. There are times that this based on factors outside your control. You will get tired. You will get frustrated. You will need help. But of course, you are allowed to have these thoughts and feelings. So how do you know when passing frustration has fizzled into a burnout situation? Well, early signs are similar to depression in that assisted care caregivers can vacillate between anger, anxiety, sadness and irritability. Feelings of exhaustion, both physically and emotionally, along with changes in weight are also hallmarks. Keep in mind that a depressed mind can make for a depressed immune system; getting sick often could be another warning sign. (Additionally, perhaps the greatest irony of caregiving is that the caregiver;s health concerns are often not looked into, because the caregiver isn;t the one who is ;sick;  or ;needs help.;

Many family caregivers are reluctant to “take up time” for their own doctor visits.) If any of these symptoms grow in frequency or intensity, then it is time to seek help.  Again and again I urge caregivers to make certain they are taking care of themselves, because even though it is good to place someone else’s needs above yours, it is not always feasible or right. In parent-child relationships, the adult children will often feel that they must look after the parent, to return the favor of having been raised by them, even they are unqualified or ill-equipped to do so. These are all honorable ideas, but the reality is that caregiving situations;just like raising a child;requires a village. If you want to provide good long-term care then you need to get hooked in with family, friends and outside resources. You can be the primary caregiver and still not be there every minute of the day. Spread out responsibilities.

If you check on the Gilber Guide website alone, we offer dozens of solutions and ideas to help family caregivers, including coping strategies, online resources, and information on topics such as Alzheimer’s and dementia care, and how to effectively advocate as a caregiver. There are also support groups that provide family caregivers a place where they can discuss their feelings openly, can help monitor the effectiveness of coping strategies, and let caregivers know they are not alone. But one of the simplest solutions to avoiding caregiver burnout is this;keep your sense of humor and look for the small joys that can come your way throughout the day.

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Start Your Own Senior Services Business: Adult Day Care, Relocation Services, Homecare, Transportation Service, Concierge, Travel Service and More

Health Insurance: History of insurance, Moral hazard, Health care in Australia, Health care in Canada, Health in France, Healthcare in the Netherlands, Long term care insurance, Disability insurance

Adult Day Care: Community Work With the Elderly

Midwife for Souls: Spiritual Care for the Dying: A Pastoral Guide for Hospice Care Workers and All Who Live with the Terminally Ill

Long-term care insurance standards: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Commerce, Consumer Protection, and Competitiveness of the Committee on Energy and ... One Hundred Second Congress, first session

Forty-one years after the 1964 murders of three civil rights workers in Mississippi, former preacher and Klan Kleagle Edgar Ray Killen was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to three twenty-year prison terms. Finally, the victims and their families received a measure of long-overdue justice. Killen should have been convicted at the original trial in 1967. But that begs the question: while vindication and punishment are vital, who is really bearing the brunt of keeping the now 82-year-old Killen, frail, evil, balding and with little to no use of his right hand, in prison? The answer, dear readers: we are. In the year 2002, America’s prison population has reached around 2 million, according to a report from the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Researchers at the San Francisco VA Medical center have predicted that over one-third of the U.S prison population will be geriatric (people over 65) by 2030. Part of the jump is the result of aging baby boomers. The rapidly increasing numbers of elderly prisoners, coupled with the mounting costs of housing this population incurs is a nationwide problem;for several reasons. The average cost of housing just one elderly inmate is approximately $65,000 every year, costing taxpayers three times as much as it does to incarcerate someone in the general prison population. Senior prisoners do not receive Social Security, nor do they have access to Medicare or Medicaid, which would help the government;and taxpayer’s augment long term care costs. Old prisoners suffer from three chronic health problems. According to the Florida Corrections Commission, these problems often include kidney failure, heart disease, diabetes, emphysema and stroke.

As senior inmates have a higher incidence of disease and disability, and increased difficulty performing activities of daily living than the general population, it is no longer surprising that the cost of their senior care is higher. “It’s a hidden problem in the system that’s going to grow into a dinosaur soon. The cost and numbers are getting out of hand, ” said Herb Hoetler, CEO and co-founder of the National Institute on Institutions and Alternatives. I personally think that it is a mistake, not to mention fiscally unwise to continue paying for old prisoners unlimited access to medical care, while ailing seniors who have never committed a crime can barely afford the soaring costs of health care. There are some who cannot afford it at all.  On the flip side, and there’s always a flip side, my friends, do the elderly even belong in prison? Prison life is a very harsh one, and while critics will often argue that the elderly are just as brutal, the statistics say otherwise. Elderly inmates have the lowest recidivism rates: 45 percent of offenders aged 18 to 29 commit a new crime after release from prison, whereas only 3.2 percent of those over age 55 commit a new offense upon release, according to a recent study. “To keep some of these folks in prison for the length of time we do is purely punitive and serves no purpose to society,”  says William DiMascio, executive director of the Pennsylvania Prison Society.

Aging has always have a big impact on inmates. The idea of  ” warehousing ” elderly inmates with minimal programming appropriate for this population just adds to seniors’ general decline. So round and round we go.  As a society, we need to take a good look at the aging prison population and decide what’s going to happen to them. Are we to make early response programs targeting elderly prisoners who no longer have a threat to society? Or do we build more geriatric prisons;which are essentially skilled nursing facilities with barbed wire to provide the long-term care these inmates require? Or…do we lock them up and throw away the key?

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Developing Holistic Care for Long-term Conditions

The Guide to Pressure Ulcers in Long-term Care

There's Someplace Like Home: Developing an Adult Day-Care Center in Your Church (Older Adult Issues Series)

Lippincott's Textbook for Long-term Care Nursing Assistants: A Humanistic Approach to Caregiving

Adult Day Care

All of us have that relative who always has a checklist of what needs to be done in case of an accident or crisis. And although we might mock them, many are happy to know what needs to be done and how they can pitch in. In my previous articles, I have talked about how important it is for both the family and professional caregivers to make sure they are taking care of themselves. Also, a new product, which is Lotsa Helping Hands website, is streamlining the process for family caregivers by allowing 1 person to organize a circle of up to 100 loved ones who can look at a list of tasks and volunteer to do them. Many baby boomers are facing the prospect of how to do senior care for aging parents.

For adult children whose parents require assistance with activities of daily living (e.g., buying groceries, preparing meals or maintaining the household) this website can be very useful in helping establish a network where everyone can volunteer for “assignments”  so that, for example, the groceries are not bought two times in a day or so everyone doesn’t visit Granny on Sunday, leaving her alone the rest of the week. Family members of seniors might also find this helpful in arranging for someone to stop by and “check in” on their loved one. Has the senior dressed properly for the day? Does he or she need breakfast to be made for them? Scheduling tasks is also made easier with Lotsa Helping Hands, another person can pick up the dinner shift and help with bathing. This type of coordination can augment the service provided by homecare agencies, particularly if the aides are only on duty for a few hours every day.

Perhaps best of all, the website is fairly intuitive and the service is absolutely free. The process takes less time than a phone call on the volunteer side, but the administrator (e.g., you) needs to be on-task with what needs to be done. A calendar shows whether help is needed or if all needs are met on a particular day. You can even scroll down and look at the specific services. I think this is a brilliant concept; I mean, how many times have you wanted to help someone, but just were unsure of what to do? Also, some families have members with more free time than the others.

We often don’t phone relatives for help as we figure they are probably “just too busy”  and that someone else will take care of it. However, giving everyone a chance to know what is needed and what they can do is not just democratic, it is downright helpful, and as senior care caregivers isn’t that the point? As always I look forward to your comments and would love to know more if anyone has used the service and found other glowing points or even something that could be better in regard to this fantastic new resource

Related Reading:

Adult Day Care

Senior Care Tips

The Dark Night of the Soul: A Metaphor for Understanding the Ethics and Spirituality of Hospice Care

Stages of Senior Care: Your Step-by-Step Guide to Making the Best Decisions

Adult Day Care Program Supervisor (Career Examination Series)