30 Reasons Your Loved One May Need a Caregiver
By Rebecca Colmer

There are approximately 37 million people over the age of 65 and 5.3 million people over the age of 85. Each year millions of older people start requiring some sort of assistance to carry out their routine daily activities. Family members (family caregivers) provide most of the help.

It is not always easy to know when to intervene. It may seem like your loved one is in a gray area somewhere between competency and incompetence.

Your loved one can have a behavior that is not life threatening but still very serious. Making an assessment is the very step.

Here are some clues that your loved one may need some extra help:
1. Disheveled clothes
2. Stained or dirty clothes The same outfit worn everyday
3. Unkempt hair
4. Poor hygiene
5. Bad breath
6. Body odor
7. Having trouble walking
8. Having trouble sleeping
9. Dangerous driving
10. Extreme clutter in the home
11. Can’t do light housekeeping
12. Items not returned to drawers or cupboards
13. Clothes strewn about or left on floor
14. Medication bottles left open
15. Medications taken out of original containers and mixed up
16. Not much food in house
17. Spoiled or rotten food
18. Unpaid bills
19. Penalties for overdue bills
20. Unopened mail
21. Put on or lost a lot of weight that is unexplained
22. Signs of confusion
23. Signs of forgetfulness
24. Signs of isolation
25. Signs of depression
26. Drastic mood swings
27. Extreme sadness or loneliness
28. Loss of interest in favorite hobby
29. Stopped doing things they used to enjoy like gardening, reading, going to church, seeing friends
30. Can’t cope with everyday stress

If you do not live near your aging parents, ask a neighbor or friend to keep an eye on your parents and notify you if they notice any changes in their behavior.

Even if you determine that your loved one needs some assistance, keep in mind that they may be resistant to your help. Be gentle and compassionate when asking them to accept help.

It may take several tries before they start to accept your help. There is a big difference in offering help and completely taking away all of their independence.

However, if your parent’s life is in danger and you can’t find a way to intervene, call Adult Protective Services, which is a part of the Department of Social Services. They will send a nurse or social worker to your parent’s home to determine the risks and find ways to protect your parent.

The caregiver role is complex and differs for everyone depending on the needs of the care-receiver. Many times, in the beginning, there may only be a few needs, such as providing transportation or helping with shopping or cooking. Over time, needs increase, requiring additional services, until the care-receiver is fully dependent on the caregiver.

Rebecca Colmer is an Eldercare Advocate, Author, Speaker, Publisher, and Caregiver Expert. You can find more caregiving tools and resources at her website: Caregiving Tools

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Aging adults have many important decisions to make. One of the most essential is where to live when failing health and other problems with aging make living alone or living with another senior with similar concerns difficult. For seniors in this situation there are a few different options for health care.

Assisted Living
An assisted living facility is a place for seniors who need assistance with daily living but would like to remain as independent as possible. Most assisted living centers have independent apartments where residents can live but still receive care like eating, bathing, dressing, laundry, or housekeeping from facility health care workers when needed. The assisted living facility may also have an on site medical center.

Nursing Home
A nursing home or rest home is a facility that focuses on hands-on 24 hours-a-day care for seniors. Nursing homes are most often the best option for seniors who have significant health needs and require monitoring and assistance around the clock. A nursing home will most often provide rooms as well as meals, medication, exercise, and constant care for residents.

Independent Living
Independent living is for seniors who choose to live at home. For many seniors this is the most comfortable and most desired option. Home health care providers offer medical and health care staff that can provide assistance to seniors in their own homes. This can be around-the-clock assistance or designated periods of assistance, depending on the needs of the senior. For many aging adults, this is the best option for senior care.

Visit us at www.agingavenues.com if you need help caring for your aging loved one.

Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home. Our home is our castle – a shelter from the storm. These old sayings and many more indicate how most of us emotionally view our home.

For most of us, the feeling is less about how large or how fancy a home is than about it being a place where we belong. Many of us, after getting out of the house we were so anxious to leave as young adults, still find ourselves lovingly attached to the humble dwelling of our childhood.

Now, place yourself in the shoes of your aging mother who has lived in that home since you were a child. It’s a modest place, and your parents could have afforded better, but they stayed because they liked the neighborhood. Now, Dad’s gone and Mom can’t handle the house. She needs something that is easier for her to move around in. She could use more company. One day she’ll likely need nursing care for her diabetes.

You know that a “wise” decision would be for her to move to assisted living. There’s a nice one not too far away, and they are associated with a good nursing home. However, how do you approach Mom? You are attached to the house, too, so you know on one level how hard this will be for her. But you also care about her health and safety. You go back and forth in your head. You talk it over with your husband and check with friends who have gone through the same thing.

You decide that it’s best to bring up the subject to Mom on a day when living in the house is not going so well. Perhaps a day when there are plumbing problems or when she has to pay a hefty bill for lawn care. That’s smart. It gives you an opening where you can say, “Mom, I know it’s hard to think of moving, but we both know that this isn’t a safe place for you. Even with modifications, you won’t be able to stay here long. How about us taking some afternoons to explore housing options?”

Mom balks at first, of course, but you are pretty sure that her biggest dread is how to get from point A (this house) to point B (the new place). Moving is daunting to many of us because we have to, well, move. We have to move everything we’ve hung onto for years. We have to figure out what to do with that huge china closet from Uncle George that fits perfectly under the stairwell.. We have to figure out what to do with Dad’s miniature train collection. We have to figure out what to do with the symbols that represent a life lived. What to keep? What to get rid of? And how do we carry out the process?

There are professional movers who specialize in elder moves. They can help take some of the emotional pain out of the practical part of packing up and moving. But first you have to decide where Mom should live.

I took my mother to several assisted living facilities. We explored and discussed where she would put the things she would have room to keep. I tried to keep her thoughts on the future more than the past. This is not an easy task, especially when we ourselves have some emotions to overcome. But talking a great deal about creating a new, comfortable living space that accommodates her needs, while it incorporating as many of her old favorites as possible, generally helps. If your Mom likes new things, this is the time to talk about a new couch that will fit into a special nook in the new place. The whole thing is about the present and the future, while respecting the past.

I’m not saying that it’s easy. A move from a home one has lived in for decades is often as hard as a funeral. It’s a bit easier for someone who has done it in steps as my parents did. I didn’t have to talk Mom into a move from an actual home that meant a great deal, because she and Dad had downsized earlier, but many people do have this challenge. However, even with Mom there were many items that had been in the family for decades, or even generations, that would never fit in even the nicest assisted living apartment.

The decision factor finally proved too much. She strung it out and then cancelled, at the last possible moment, the place she had chosen. Mom stayed where she was, with me running the route several times a day and during night emergencies, until she had no choice but a nursing home. And truthfully, that may have been the best answer in her case, as the time for a nursing home came sooner than we’d expected and Dad was already there.

To complicate all of this “what is best for Mom” business is the nagging feeling many of us adult children have that we should see if Mom would be better off living with us. While actually making that happen is a highly individual decision that should be carefully considered, taking in the needs of all affected parties, it is one that occurs to many of us as maybe the “right” option, leading to a certain amount of guilt over even thinking about the option of assisted living or a nursing home.

Where to go? What is the best decision for Mom? What is the best decision for the long term? How do you bring moving up at all? How do you overcome the fact that she always said she never wanted to “end up in a nursing home?”

These questions are all there staring you in the face when Mom’s home is no longer, for her, a safe shelter from the storms of life. There’s no way around the fact that making a move to any type of senior housing is an open declaration that our parent is aging. They must accept it and so must we. The move is physical proof, and that hurts.

But what must be done eventually gets done. We bring up the possibility of a move when Mom is having a tough day where she lives. We address the amount of help we will be able to give. We stress that we are still there for her, but there will be more people in the new place who can help. We take her to as many places as possible and let her have as much say in the move as we can. We adjust. She (generally) adjusts. Many people are happier after they have settled in. But the process is hard.

There’s just no way to slide around this process. This is where another old saying applies. The only way out is through. Moving from a person’s own home to a care facility of any kind is emotional. Concentrating on the new place, while accepting that making such a move involves mourning the past, helps some. Acknowledge her pain as well as your own. If you and your elder are struggling too much, get third party help. Often a close friend, a pastor, priest or Rabbi – or even a paid counselor – can help you both through this minefield by offering support and fresh ideas to help you both look to the future as you mourn the past.

Over the span of two decades author, columnist and speaker Carol Bradley Bursack cared for a neighbor and six elderly family members. Because of this experience, Carol created a portable support group – the book “Minding Our Elders: Caregivers Share Their Personal Stories.” Her sites, www.mindingourelders.com and www.mindingoureldersblogs.com include helpful resources. Carol’s newspaper column runs weekly in print and online, she speaks at workshops and conferences and has been interviewed by national radio, newspapers and magazines.

Please visit us at www.agingavenues.com for more information on caring for your loved one.

Many family members take loans, skip vacations and often ignore their own health. Government must start providing tax deductions and tax credits to family caregivers.

The expenditures incurred for elderly health care is increasing rapidly and reaching astronomical heights. Elders have many special needs when it comes to health care. One is often left frustrated when there are gaps in insurance coverage. Medicare programs offer only minimal assistance for serious health disorders.

There are some programs that cover senior citizens. It covers hospital expenses and doctor visits, even if you continue to work. All one needs to do is pay a premium every month. These programs are popular among a vast number of senior citizens.

One needs to apply for these programs before one reaches the age of 65. In case you don’t then one has to pay a high premium. One also has the option of enrolling for these programs after retirement.

The premium that one pays depends on your income and which company you will be purchasing coverage from. Senior citizens with low income are also eligible for the entire coverage under Medicare.

Prescription drugs which are used to treat a wide variety of diseases and illness are fully covered if one has a private insurance coverage. If you do not have private insurance, this could be matter of serious concern. Sometimes drug prices are simply not affordable, forcing the senior citizens to forgo other needs to pay for drugs.

Recent Medicare legislation has been a big disappointment for senior citizens, as drug coverage continues to be limited and fails to reduce the rising cost of drugs. Many seniors are forced to manage their medical plan on their own.

At times, the drug industry provides free drugs to the needy who are not covered under private insurance or any government program. Retail stores in the vicinity provide drugs at discounted rates. There are various medicine manufacturing companies that offer assistance to lower income senior citizens. One can seek out these discount programs if they have a financial need.

Katie Appleby is an accomplished niche website developer and author.
To learn more about the cost of elderly health care, please visit Senior Health Today for current articles and discussions.

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Visit us at www.agingavenues.com if you have any questions, or need help with an aging loved one in the area.

I found a great article that talks about the many positive aspects regarding the use of In-Home Care for an aging loved one.  If you have any questions at all about Home Care in the Indianapolis area, please visit www.agingavenues.com.

“In-Home Care is rapidly becoming the most commonly asked for service among today’s aging population. In-Home Care involves a network of service providers who deliver personal care and maintenance right to the home. These service providers handle routine tasks including light housekeeping, meal preparation, errand running, mail sorting and a whole lot more. If desired, they can also provide assistance with personal care. “

Continue Reading HERE.

Global Alzheimer’s cases expected to rise sharply

“The number of people with Alzheimer’s disease isn’t creeping up, it’s briskly rising, according to a new report.”

Continue reading HERE.

This type of planning has become very popular in recent years. A survey conducted by the AARP in 1999, found that two out of five people over age 50 had been approached to pre-purchase funerals and burial goods and services. An AARP survey in 1998 indicates that 32% of all Americans over age 50, roughly 21 million people, have prepaid some or all of their funeral and or burial expenses (but not necessarily through a formal preneed plan). Breaking that down; about 25% of the over age 50 population have prepaid for their burials (cemetery plot, mausoleum or niche), 18% have prepaid for headstones, urns, caskets , grave liners or vaults, opening and closing of graves and so on and 13% have prepaid for goods or services from a funeral home or funeral director. The same survey indicates that over $25 billion is being held in preneed trust funds. Roughly another $25 billion is waiting to be paid out in life insurance benefits. Prepaid or preneed funerals and burials are big business.

Funerals and burials funded privately by the family, or paid from an individual life insurance policy and arranged informally through a funeral home or funeral director are generally not subject to state regulation. Any formal arrangement through a second party or involving a contract is subject to regulation in all states. Each state has adopted different rules as to who can sell these plans, what the plans can provide, what contract provisions must be, how the plan is to be funded and what recourse purchasers might have in the event of fraud or default. All states call these regulated plans “preneed” funeral and burial arrangements.

Here are some advantages as to why one would want to buy a preneed plan for funeral and burial services and goods.

• It provides peace of mind knowing these arrangements have been made in advance.
• It avoids the burden on family members to make decisions when they are most vulnerable to manipulation.
• It allows one to virtually control from the grave by determining in advance the funeral products, funeral services, burial products and burial services that one would prefer having for final arrangements.
• It helps the family to avoid taking loans, arranging finance plans, raiding savings or selling assets to pay for a funeral and burial.
• It guarantees (for many contracts) that if products and services currently purchased are not available in the future, equivalent substitutes will be provided at no additional cost.
• It locks in guaranteed prices (available with some contracts) forever.
• It allows for inflation in future costs (for those contracts that do not guarantee prices) by investing money in an interest-bearing account or buying life insurance that increases in value over time.
• Depending on the contract, it may allow for transfer to another funeral home or for partial or full refund.

Unfortunately, there are also problems with prepaid, preplanned final arrangements.

• With some trust fund and insurance funding options there may be no refund if someone wants to cancel the plan in the future.
• If a purchaser moves to another state there may be no transfer options or there may be different rules governing the funding option.
• In some contracts, interest earnings on investments resulting in excess money not needed for the plan may be retained by the funeral home or funeral director.
• On installment plans interest may be charged but not credited to the account.
• In certain insurance funded contracts, the ownership or death benefit may be irrevocably assigned to the contract holder (funeral home), preventing the purchaser from enjoying ownership rights in the policy.
• In certain insurance funded contracts, a growth in the death benefit over time that exceeds the cost of the preneed plan services and goods may be pocketed by the contract holder (funeral home) instead of being refunded.
• If the contract provider goes out of business or fails to secure 100% of the funds for future payment, there may be no recourse to get all of the money back that was put in.
• If certain services or goods that were purchased initially are not available in the future, but more expensive versions might be, the family may be forced to pay extra for those items.
• In certain insurance funded plans, if the insured dies too soon, there may have been a waiting period in which few or no benefits are paid at death, thus forcing the family to pay out of pocket for the funeral.
• Certain unscrupulous providers may have failed to provide an itemized list of services and goods or failed to identify properly, specific services and goods, thus allowing the provider in the future to substitute less expensive items or to leave out services and goods that were originally anticipated in the agreement.

What Services and Goods Can Be Prepaid? All states allow for prepaid plans for funeral services and merchandise. This would include such things as picking up the body, embalming and restoration, rooms or chapel for viewing and funeral services, casket, vault or grave liner, transportation, permits, death certificates, obituaries and so forth. Almost all states allow for prepaid burial services and merchandise as well. Only about six states do not allow it. Burial services and merchandise might include opening and closing the grave, grave markers, vaults or grave liners, mausoleums or niches. Cemetery plots are excluded from prepaid plans in all states.

The AARP has excellent information for consumers on planning for funerals. Quoting from the AARP:

“Most states have a licensing board that regulates the funeral industry. You may contact the board in your state for information or help. If you want additional information about making funeral arrangements and the options available, you may want to contact interested business, professional and consumer groups.”

To find a planner in your area you may also contact the National Care Planning Council at inquiry@longtermcarelink.net or call 800-989-8137

Visit us at www.agingavenues.com if you need assistance for a senior loved one in the Indianapolis, IN area.

By Senior Daily Living

If you feel like you need to get out more, you’re not alone.  Senior citizens and non-seniors alike are in need of consistent physical exercise.  Sporty activities are an enjoyable way to get your body moving, but not all forms are best for senior citizens.  Seek out those sports that you enjoy and that exert your body to a comfortable degree.  Here are some of the top ranked sports for the active senior:  Continue reading HERE.  Visit us at www.agingavenues.com for senior resources available in the Indianapolis, IN area.

Caring for Parents Versus Caring for Children: 10 Ways They Differ

by Marlo Sollitto

Nearly 10 million boomers are now raising kids while at the same time, caring for at least one aging parent, according to the Pew Research Center reports. The term “Sandwich Generation” is used to describe this demographic – and lots has been written on it.

But what is not as frequently discussed, is that the strategies and techniques that are effective when caring for parents are very different from those that work well with children.

Here are 10 ways that caring for parents differs from caring for children:

Continue reading HERE.

“Seniors can make easy targets for fraud, whether it’s for unbelievable investment returns or fraudulent sweepstakes prizes. Fraud on seniors can happen by phone, mail, in person, or, less commonly, the Internet (because seniors are online in smaller numbers). It can happen to wealthy seniors, and those of limited means. According to the Federal Trade Commission, studies show con artists are more likely to target senior citizens than other age groups because they believe seniors are more susceptible to such scams. The FTC reports that fraudulent telemarketers direct from 56 to 80 percent of their calls at seniors. The need for senior fraud prevention has become greater than ever.”

Follow the link below to read the rest of this very informative article.  If you have any questions or need help in the Indianapolis IN area, visit www.agingavenues.com.

Continue reading HERE.