Creating a Plan: Caregiving for Loved Ones During COVID-19
If you’re a caregiver that’s creating a backup plan, take a look at these key points.
Gourmand
Although many things have changed about my father in the last few years, his willfulness is not one of them. Having spent his career as a sailboat captain, he’s used to being master of his domain, the boat being the tiny universe in which he reigned. When he gave...
5 Red Flags to Look Out for When Choosing a Care Facility
If you need a little help with the decision-making process, be sure to steer clear of facilities that demonstrate any of these red flags.
What I Wish the CNAs Knew About My Mom
When my mom moving into a nursing home last year, I was terrified. I was leaving her in the hands of people I didn’t know, who she didn’t know, and who didn’t know her. Scary stuff. Sure, the team wanted to know what she likes and what kind of care she needed, but...
Assisted Living: Is It the Right Choice?
“As with families, some assisted living facilities are dysfunctional, but that doesn’t mean we should ditch them altogether. We need better options for where and how to live as we age. The author labels assisted living’s attempts to balance support with...
Many Americans Will Need Long-Term Care. Most Won’t be Able to Afford It.
They’re a better educated and more diverse group of older adults than in the past, less likely to experience poverty. Still, most will be unable to afford assisted living, the authors found. A decade hence, 80 percent of middle-income seniors will have less than...
How to Know if Your Loved One Needs Assistive Aids
One skill you’ll acquire as you grow as a caregiver is learning to recognize when your loved one needs help but doesn’t know how to ask for it. A frequent example of this is the need for assistive aids.
Evaluating Senior Living Options – 14 Questions to Ask
There may come a time when your aging parents may not be able to live on their own. If living at home or living with you is not an alternative, then your parents may need to move to a retirement community, assisted living facility, or nursing home. The best scenario...
In Eldercare (and Life), Don’t Be Surprised by Suffering
Like many of my friends, I’m at that point in life where things keep happening. Parents are sick. Kids are struggling to become adults. Jobs are lost and sought. Hormones shift and we vacillate between moods. Our outrage against social injustice rises and falls with...
When Seniors Move to Assisted Living, Caregivers Benefit Too
It’s no secret unpaid family caregivers are suffering. In fact, research shows the burden of care negatively impacts the social and physical well-being of caregivers. As people age, most of them will likely pass the weighty mantle of caregiving to a family member....
Patients With Dementia Present Communication Challenges In Hospice Care
Dementia took over Pauline Finster’s 91-year-old mind long ago and she may die without having another real conversation with her daughter. After Finster broke her hip in July 2015, Jackie Mantua noticed her mother’s speech ebbing until she only said “hi,” or that she...
I Moved Back Home to Take Care Of My Mom When She Developed Dementia
Mom was diagnosed with FTD dementia 6 months earlier and my siblings and I thought it’d be best for me to end my 10-year hiatus in San Diego and move in with her until we could figure out what to do. Within a couple months I was able to land my dream job – Senior...
Is it time to consider assisted living?
Caring for an elderly client or loved one is a rewarding yet challenging situation. Knowing when it is time to move an individual from her present home environment to a living environment that offers them more assistance is an emotional decision. You worry about...
5 assisted living myths
How many of you have promised that you’d never abandon your parents to die in a home? You can imagine the sadness…and the smell, right? But that’s not what I experienced when I visited my grandmother. I’d say hello to the folks at the front...
Taking another look at professional care options
Last week my wife and I were staying with friends in Seattle. My wife spotted a great coffee shop she’d seen nearby, next to an old time movie theatre. It was a memory care center. While the world is full of nursing home horror stories (and I’ve hit...
Caregiver Profiles: Marge S.
My husband, Orville, and I have been married 48 years. He was a widower with 4 sons, ages 5, 7, 10, and 12 when I married him. A year after our wedding we went to Misawa Air Base Japan for 5 years. Upon Orville’s retirement, we settled in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. In...
When your life-long companion requires nursing home care
When a life-long companions health requires for them to be placed in a nursing home, professionally known as a skilled nursing care center, there may be much stress and fear of the unknown associated with the decision for both of you. Sometimes there be anger and...
A Life Worth Ending
I didn’t need to be schooled in the realities of long-term care: The costs for my mother, who is 86 and who, for the past eighteen months, has not been able to walk, talk, or to address her most minimal needs and, to boot, is absent a short-term memory, come in at...The Transition from Home Care to Assisted Living
You’re at home with your loved one, curled up on the couch and watching TV. A commercial for an assisted living facility plays. Your loved one turns to you and half-jokingly says, “Never put me in a home, okay?”
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