Minding Our Elders®

The New Year is a good time for a caregiver attitude adjustment

This is a new year, which makes it a good time psychologically for an attitude adjustment on your part. Changing your attitude toward your caregiving responsibilities doesn't mean that you don't love the person you are caring for as much as ever. Changing your attitude may even be evidence, once you think about it, of the depth of your love.

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In-home agencies need cell phone regulations for staff

Cell phones have become as much a part of our culture as cars. While cell phones are a wonderful convenience and occasionally a life saver, they can also be a toy and a distraction. Excessive cell phone usage has become a frequent complaint by families who hire in-home agencies to care for their elders. Every in-home agency should have a strictly enforced policy for cell phone use by their employees.

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Getting outside help with eldercare isn't failing

Taking care of your loved ones means giving them the best care you can provide. Often, during the early years, that typically means your own loving, hands-on care. However, as their needs grow, the best care sometimes means you need to hire help to come into the home or arrange adult day care while you work. Perhaps it means they need to move to assisted living or even a nursing home.

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Tips to help elders and caregivers enjoy the holidays

The care needs of aging parents continually shifts. Often, that includes the type of housing they require. Many are able to stay in their original home with some help from adult children and in-home care agencies. Eventually, many of these folks need the security and companionship offered by assisted living. From there, some of our loved ones may move to a nursing home.

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The toughest part of writing a living will is getting started: where to begin?

Many people are given a living will form when they see their doctors. Clinics and hospitals are beginning to recognize the importance of people writing down their feelings about the kind of care they would want should be rendered incapable of making those decisions themselves. Making your wishes known is the purpose of a living will. However, many people don't know where to start.

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Adult day care can fill a gap

Early on, when we see our aging parents needing help that we can't offer, we often encourage home maintenance help, and eventually in-home care for health issues. The next step is often one of finding stimulating company for an elder, freeing a well spouse of the elder to go to work, or have time with friends, and providing another resource for backup care. Adult day care can be very good at filling this gap.

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Book on aging and ageism in our health system a gem

Dear Readers:  The book “Treat Me, Not My Age,” by Mark Lachs, M.D. is now out in paperback under the title “What Your Doctor Won’t Tell You About Growing Older: An Insider’s Survival Manual For Outsmarting the Heath-Care System.” Regardless of the title change – personally I preferred the original title – this book is a gem.

Lachs is the director of Cornell’s Center for Aging Research and Clinical Care, director of geriatrics for the New York-Presbyterian Healthcare System, chief of the Division of Geriatrics and Gerontology at Weill Medical College, and the Irene F. and I. Roy Psaty Distinguished Professor of Clinical Medicine.

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In-home care a flexible option

Prior to my need to find care for my elderly neighbor, Joe, after he dislocated his shoulder, the closest thing I'd seen to "in-home care" was the public health nurse who used to come to our home to give my grandmother her vitamin B-12 shot. That was decades before I became Joe's caregiver. I simply hadn't had a need to keep up with care trends.

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Coping with outsiders who criticize your caregiving choices

One of the saddest letters I've gotten from readers was from a woman who had cared for her Parkinson's stricken husband for over a decade. Her whole life revolved around his needs. Eventually, it became too much for her. He froze up when she tried to physically move him. His memory was affected. His sheer size became too much for her. She couldn't handle it, and his needs became too complicated even for in-home help. She had to resign herself to putting him in a nursing home.

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On Oct. 25, PBS will air Bill Moyers’ exploration of end-of –life issues “On Our Own Terms”

Emmy and Peabody Award-winning journalist Bill Moyers interviewed dozens of terminally ill patients to create a four-part exploration of end-of-life issues that span thoughts about everything from health care to cultural attitudes.

A press release that I received from PBS notes quotes of high praise:

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Moving on with your life after caregiving ends

Whatever happens, we remain caregivers. Many of us continue to see our care receiver daily. Most of us continue to be involved as advocates and support throughout the time of need. When our loving attention and care is no longer needed, we can, indeed, feel lost.

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Looking back on your early caregiving: what would you tell yourself?

Much like an adult who realizes that he or she has a "wounded child" living inside – a child who suffers from unearned self-blame or low self-esteem because of life events – many adult caregivers carry the guilt from their "infant" caregiving years to their grave. They spend precious time thinking about how they should have understood someone's needs better, could have been more patient, would have done any number of things better, if only they knew then what they know now.

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Person Centered Care in Nursing Homes Enhanced by Consistent Assignment

Increasingly, nursing homes administrators are realizing that person centered care means happier residents, which in turn makes residents easier to care for. The old days of "managing" residents with drugs aren't gone, but they are fading. The best nursing homes have grabbed onto the fact that when elders are treated as individuals, and given individualized care, they respond. About time, right?

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Social workers needed in increasing numbers to help navigate elder care options

While caring for multiple elders, I was aided by social workers on several levels. One social worker helped our family make the decision to hire in-home care for a few hours a day to care for my uncle, as none of the family could be with him as much as was needed. He was able to afford the care help, and grew very attached to his in-home caregivers.

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The National Family Caregiver Support Program offers help for stressed caregivers

Every so often I write in my newspaper column about The National Family Caregiver Support Program (NFCSP) and the support it offers. I specifically mention respite care for caregivers and then I give a phone number for the agency that administers this program for my area. I'm told by the agency that their phone rings non-stop, with many callers sobbing into the phone, "I didn't know this existed!"

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‘Life with father’ more evidence that men are stepping up to the caregiving plate

Let's put an end to the whining about men not taking on the caregiver role. While it's true that the majority of our elders' caregivers are women, the percentage of men who take on caregiving is increasing. No, I don't have a "trend report." I'll leave that to massive studies that are published every few years. However, when I first became an elder caregiver, I found that my own search for caregivers to interview brought me to a 4 (women) to 1 (man) ratio, that was backed up by a several national studies. This was a bit over a decade ago. Since that time, I've seen varying statistics placing female/male caregiver ratios closer to 3 to 1.

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“Alzheimer’s Daily News” Great Source for Studies and More

AgelessDesign.org is one of several organizations, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Alzheimer’s Association TrialMatch, which I covered in Alzheimer’s Association Drug “TrialMatch” Is an Exceptional Service, that help me uncover news about studies.

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If you are a caregiver and think you may have dementia, what’s next?

Caregivers can get dementia, too. Sometimes it's because the caregiver is a spouse, thus age is a factor, along with stress and other health issues. Sometimes it's because of genetic links. Also, stress, alone, has been shown to be one potential driver for developing AD, and few people are more stressed than Alzheimer's caregivers.

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Spousal caregivers find support but need more attention

As a newspaper columnist and forum moderator dedicated to caregiver support and aging issues, I often hear complaints from well spouses caring for their mate. These folks want to know why most of the online support, and many of the in-person support groups, are dominated by the adult children caregivers. These complaints are well-founded.

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Am I losing it? Caregivers can question their own capabilities

Please don’t suggest to me that I get an evaluation because I messed up the checkbook – again. I never could keep a checkbook straight, so there’s nothing new here. However, if you are an accountant and the numbers no longer make sense when you try to balance your checkbook, then it’s time to consider a checkup.

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