‘News & Discoveries’ Posts
Sunday, June 27th, 2010
Some of the baby boomers who also are “adult children” taking care of an aging parent face many challenges when taking care of this task. bringing awareness to our parents can be a challenging situation full of old and new family dynamics.
In an article for Forbes magazine, Living Well Assisted Living at Home mediator, Carolyn Rosenblat, Esq. calle it a new burden for boomers and states “…Denial is a very common reaction to the early warning signs of an older driver who is becoming dangerous. This denial can occur both among the elderly, who may get frantic at the idea of this privilege being taken from them, and among their adult children, who don’t want to have to deal with the consequences of Mom or Dad becoming a burden when it comes to transportation.
So make sure you start the driving conversation with your parent before he or she is 85–and preferably, when the parent is still safe to drive. My own mother-in-law is 87 and still drives…” Read the article
Tags: Aging well, Baby Boomers, Dementia Care, Living Well best practices to age in place, senior wellness
Posted in Aging, Aging at Home, Alzheimer's & Dementia, Health & Wellness, News & Discoveries | Comments Off
Sunday, June 20th, 2010
In a paper presented at the 2010 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, held this week at Concordia. University in Montreal, Jacques Légaré and other researchers at the Université de Montréal, stated that Baby Boomers will need to be creative when it comes to find new alternatives to senior care.
“…Who are tomorrow’s seniors going to call when the going gets rough? Today’s young adult may not have a child to help out when they become older? Today’s adult is having less children. Because of this when they are elderly they may need to have non-traditional support networks or pay for the care that past generations relied on their own children for. That’s the findings of Jacques Légaré, professor at the Université de Montréal. Légaré studies
Baby Boomers Aging
aging baby-boomers. Baby Boomers are a generation that had fewer children and were less likely to have a stable marriage. Légaré stated that until 2030 the family circle involving senior citizens will be evolving. For about 70 percent of today’s frail seniors the family circle provides care. Generally that care comes from the children or their spouse. They are the last population before the baby boom after World War II. Today’s Baby Boomer generation is rapidly hitting the golden years but not with the same family security that their parents had. With divorce, blended families and common-law unions the family scheme is vastly different than in their parents’ day. Adding in medical advancements that have increased life span brings an unclear picture of who is going to care for those unable to care for themselves. “Tomorrow’s elderly – today’s boomers – had far fewer children. Who will take care of them?” Légaré asked, “They risk finding themselves in difficult circumstances and might have to turn to the public system or pay their way.”
Read Legare’s Paper
Tags: age in place, Aging, Aging in Place, Assisted Living at Home, Baby Boomers, Living Well best practices to age in place
Posted in Aging, Aging at Home, Announcements, Caregiver and family support, Health & Wellness, News & Discoveries, Uncategorized | Comments Off
Sunday, June 20th, 2010
Living Well Supports Diversity on Aging
The Administration on Aging just released A Toolkit for Serving Diverse Communities.
This Toolkit provides the Aging Network and its partners with a replicable and easy-to-use method for providing respectful, inclusive, and sensitive services for any diverse community. The Toolkit consists of a four-step process and a questionnaire that assists professionals, volunteers and grassroots advocates with every stage of program planning, implementation and service delivery for older adult communities, their families and caregivers.
The core principles of the toolkit include respect, inclusion and sensitivity as the hallmarks of quality service. This Toolkit is an invitation to make a cultural shift in service provision, to learn, to grow and fully appreciate the diverse community of older adults that agencies and their partners serve.
Download the AoA Diversity Tool Kit
Tags: Diversity on Aging, LGBT, Living Well best practices to age in place, Senior Diversity, senior wellness
Posted in Aging, Aging in Place, Announcements, Health & Wellness, Home Care, LGBT Aging Issues, News & Discoveries, Uncategorized | Comments Off
Sunday, June 20th, 2010
Liivng Well one-stop-shop
The New York Times published on June 18, 2010, an article by Lesley Alderman that stresses the need of a coordinated and comprehensive discharge plan. The article states that “…According to a study published last year in The New England Journal of Medicine, one in five Medicare patients returns to the hospital within 30 days of being discharged. The problem is an expensive one: in 2004, these readmissions cost Medicare $17.4 billion dollars, the researchers also found.
Hospital stays certainly are shorter now: the average stay was 4.6 days in 2007, down from about 5.7 days in 1993. But the readmissions problem is not simply the result of compressed care, experts say…” Read More
Tags: age in place, Aging in Place, Assisted Living at Home, discharge planners, Leaving hospital, Living Well Assisted Living at Home, Living Well best practices to age in place, Physical health for seniors, rehab at home
Posted in Aging at Home, Aging in Place, Health & Wellness, News & Discoveries | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, June 15th, 2010
Caring for a loved one can change your life and although the process can be rewarding, at the end, sometimes it creates, for all involved (family and friends), tension and new challenges. John Boden, founder of ElderIssues, and a nationally recognized expert in elder care issues and geriatric care management explains when a family meeting is to take place and what to expect. He says: “…Family meetings are a meaningful way to gather information, discuss options and plan for the future. Most of us do not want to face the eventuality of the physical or mental decline that may come with old age the signaling the need to rely on others for help with daily activities. It is best, of course, to be discussing ideas and planning for them ahead of these events so that elders are full participants. However, when a family member does begin to experience physical or mental changes that cause concern, it is important for the family to gather. Early involvement can ensure that this time is a positive, meaningful exchange that revolves around the expressed or known interests of the loved one…” Read it all.
Tags: Aging, Aging in Place, Assisted Living at Home, Living Well Assisted Living at Home, Living Well best practices to age in place
Posted in Aging, Aging at Home, Aging in Place, Announcements, Caregiver and family support, Health & Wellness, News & Discoveries | Comments Off
Tuesday, June 15th, 2010
Helpguide.org on its senior driving guide stresses the point of statistics showing that”… the elderly are more likely than other drivers to receive traffic citations for failing to yield, turning improperly, and running red lights and stop signs—all indications of decreased driving ability. It is a fact that older adults are at higher risk for road accidents than other age groups. Older drivers are more likely to get into multiple-vehicle accidents than younger people do, and the accidents are more dangerous for them than for younger drivers. A person 65 or older who is involved in a car accident is more likely to be seriously hurt, more likely to require hospitalization, and more likely to die than younger people involved in the same crash. Truth is, fatal crash rates rise sharply after a driver has reached the age of 70…”
Linda Fodrini-Johnson of Eldercare Services gives us few practical tips on how to tell Dad, to stop driving!
Read the tips!
Tags: driving and aging
Posted in Aging, Home Care, News & Discoveries, Products & Services, Uncategorized | Comments Off
Tuesday, May 18th, 2010
Living Well
In a recent article published on the Wall Street Jurnal online, by Shirley Wang (April 28, 2010), we learn that after a panel discussion led by specialists at the National Institute of Health (NIH), there are not clinical or other interventions that had proven effective in the prevention of Alzheimer’s disease. They concluded “…There’s not enough evidence to suggest that medicines or dietary supplements prevent Alzheimer’s disease or cognitive decline, an independent committee of experts convened by the National Institutes of Health concluded today.
The three-day meeting of 15 experts took a critical look at the state of science surrounding the memory-robbing disease, which is now the sixth-leading cause of death in the U.S. The main conclusion: there’s not enough good research out there to show that any intervention prevents the disease. Read the panel’s draft statement here.
Some factors that appear to be related to decreased risk of Alzheimer’s include “cognitive engagement” like training people in reasoning and memory, walking and a Mediterranean diet. But there’s no consistent evidence that multivitamins, gingko biloba or other supplements can do anything to stave off the disease.
The experts didn’t find evidence that Alzheimer’s drugs like Pfizer and Esai’s Aricept and Forest’s Namenda, approved to treat memory loss and other symptoms of the disease, are also effective in slowing or preventing dementia. Read More
Tags: age in place, Alzheimer's, Dementia Care, living well with dementia, livng well with Alzheimer's
Posted in Aging, Aging at Home, Alzheimer's & Dementia, Announcements, News & Discoveries | Comments Off
Some of the baby boomers who also are “adult children” taking care of an aging parent face many challenges when taking care of this task. bringing awareness to our parents can be a challenging situation full of old and new family dynamics.
