I had the honor of interviewing Dr. G. Allen Power, MD on “The Aging Boomers” Radio Show. Dr. Power is Eden Mentor at St. John’s Home in Rochester, NY, and Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Rochester. He is a board certified internist and geriatrician, and is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians / American Society for Internal Medicine. Dr. Power’s book, Dementia beyond Drugs: Changing the Culture of Care, won a 2010 Book of the Year Award from the American Journal of Nursing, and a Merit Award from the 2011 National Mature Media Awards.
Archive for Concord
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Categories : Alzheimer's, assisted living, Assisted Living Sonoma California (CA), Baby boomers, board and care homes, Caregivers, Concord, Contra Costa County, Dementia, Drugs for the Elderly, Elder Care, Elder Care Manager, Fairfield, Family Caregivers, Geriatric Care, Geriatric Care Manager, Housing, in home care, inhome care, Napa, Napa County, Novato, Nursing Homes, residential care, residential care homes, senior care, Senior Care Authority Sonoma California (CA), senior health, Senior Placement, Senior Placement Services Sonoma California (CA), Sonoma, Sonoma County, The Aging Boomers
Teepa Snow discusses dementia, Alzheimer’s and what you need to know. Learn more…
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Categories : Alzheimer's, assisted living, Baby boomers, board and care homes, Caregivers, Concord, Contra Costa County, Dementia, Elder Care Sonoma California (CA), Fairfield, Home Care Sonoma California (CA), Long term care insurance, Marin County, Napa County, residential care homes, San Rafael, Santa Rosa, Senior Care Authority Sonoma California (CA), Senior Placement, Sonoma County, The Aging Boomers
My interview with Harry Lorraine is a must listen. Harry is touted by Time Magazine as the “The Yoda of Memory Training.” He talks about untrained vs. trained memory, “senior moments,” help for those with forms of dementia and much more…a must listen! Click here.
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Categories : assisted living, Assisted Living Sonoma California (CA), Concord, Contra Costa County, Elder Care Sonoma California (CA), Fairfield, Home Care Sonoma California (CA), Marin County, Napa, Napa County, Novato, Nursing Homes, Nursing Homes Sonoma California (CA), Petaluma, San Rafael, Santa Rosa, Senior Care Authority Sonoma California (CA), Senior Living Sonoma California (CA), Senior Placement Services Sonoma California (CA), Sonoma, Sonoma County, Uncategorized, Vacaville, Vallejo, Walnut Creek
Be Careful What You Promise To Your Spouse, Partner or Parents
by Frank Samson, Certified Senior Advisor · Comments (0)
10
Jan
On January 1, 2011, baby boomers began turning 65-years-old. In fact, a baby boomer will turn 65 every eight seconds, and by 2030, there will be twice as many people over the age of 65 as there currently exist today.
As baby boomers begin to reach retirement age, more and more discussion is taking place about the aging process. One topic being discussed among families, aging in place, is the idea that it is normal for the majority of people to want to live at home as they age. The MetLife Report on Aging in Place 2.0, Rethinking Solutions to the Home Care Challenge” (September 2010) states “although a large majority of older Americans say they want to Age in Place, it is often more easily said than done. Today’s care infrastructure, technologies, existing housing, funding sources,
and the businesses and services available for Aging in Place are not being fully
realized in order to achieve the promise most hope for as America ages.”
Though staying at home is certainly the choice of the elderly, it may not be the safest or least costly choice. Below are a couple examples of comments I’ve heard from clients which are all too common:
“I promised my wife I would never put her in a convalescent home,” said a caring husband about his wife with Alzheimer’s who is also a fall and wander risk. NOTE: The home is not safe for someone in her condition. The husband is in poor health and all three children live out of state and have jobs and their own children to take of.
“I gave my word to my father that he would not go to a nursing home, and if needed, I would make sure he gets the proper care at his home. He has lived in this home for the last 50 years.” NOTE: Because of the father’s condition, he cannot be left alone, so in order to live at home, he needs 24-hour assistance, 7 days per week. Due to the significant cost for this, the father’s money will be depleted in less than one year.
There are two misconceptions that many have regarding long-term care:
1. “If I don’t stay home, I’ll need to go to a Nursing Home”
There was a time when nursing homes were the main type of facility for long-term care. Many of us remember going to visit loves ones at these locations with horrible smells and less than adequate care. Today, nursing homes are mainly set up for short-term stays after being hospitalized for recovery and strengthening. Those who need to be in nursing homes for long-term care are either on Medicaid (Medi-Cal in California) or need medical care (i.e. – IV’s, feeding tubes, wound care, coma care, quadriplegics). Most people still believe that if they are not taken care of at their own home, they will have to go to a Nursing or Convalescent Home. That is simply not true.
2. “Assisted Living is another name for a Nursing Home”
There are approximately 1,300 Nursing Homes and just under 8,000 Assisted Living locations in the State of California. Therefore, far more people who need assistance reside in assisted living versus skilled nursing. Assisted Living options range from small, family Residential Care Homes to larger, full-service communities with hundreds of residents. The smaller locations are similar to living in someone’s home with live-in caregivers who provide assistance. The larger locations (communities) are more like Senior Apartments with caregivers providing 24/7 assistance.
More and more seniors are becoming residents of small, large and specialized Assisted Living facilities including dementia care. Generally speaking, Assisted Living is for people that need help with the activities of daily living (ADL’s). ADL’s are considered the routine activities that people tend do everyday without needing assistance. There are six basic ADL’s, including eating, bathing, dressing, toileting, transferring (walking) and continence.
Be careful of the promises you make to loved ones regarding long-term care. You may be promising something that could be less safe at a far higher cost.
Frank M. Samson is Founder of Senior Care Authority based in Sonoma and also hosts “The Aging Boomers” on KSVY 91.3 or can be listened to live at www.ksvy.com, every Monday at 2pm PT. The company provides free assistance to families in helping them find the best Independent, Assisted Living and Residential Care Homes for their loved ones. He can be reached at 707.939.8744 or e-mailed at frank@seniorcareauthority.com. The company website is www.seniorcareauthority.com.
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Categories : assisted living, Assisted Living Sonoma California (CA), Baby boomers, Concord, Contra Costa County, Elder Care Sonoma California (CA), Fairfield, Home Care Sonoma California (CA), Marin County, Napa, Napa County, Novato, Nursing Homes, Nursing Homes Sonoma California (CA), Petaluma, San Rafael, Santa Rosa, senior care, Senior Care Authority Sonoma California (CA), Senior Living Sonoma California (CA), Senior Placement Services Sonoma California (CA), Sonoma, Sonoma County, Vacaville, Vallejo, Walnut Creek
The Aging Boomers
Katherine Forsythe, MSW is a counselor, coach and educator. I was able to interview her about many of the areas we face during the holidays. If you’re older, younger, single, married, have a partner or just want to learn while being entertained at the same time, you must listen to this!
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Categories : assisted living, Assisted Living Sonoma California (CA), Concord, Contra Costa County, Elder Care Sonoma California (CA), Fairfield, Home Care Sonoma California (CA), inhome care, intamacy, Marin County, Napa, Napa County, Novato, Nursing Homes Sonoma California (CA), Petaluma, San Rafael, Santa Rosa, senior care, Senior Care Authority Sonoma California (CA), Senior Living Sonoma California (CA), Senior Placement Services Sonoma California (CA), Sonoma, Sonoma County, Vacaville, Vallejo, Walnut Creek
Long Life Goes Hand in Hand With a Firm Grip in Santa Rosa CA
by Frank Samson, Certified Senior Advisor · Comments (0)
14
Sep
Long Life Goes Hand in Hand With a Firm Grip
By: Frederik Joelving
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Seniors who can still give a firm handshake and walk at a brisk pace are likely to live longer than those who can’t, according to British researchers.
They found simple measures of physical capability were related to life span among graying heads in the community, even after accounting for age, sex and body size.
The study is the first to provide a comprehensive view of the existing research by pooling all the relevant data. It analyzed grip strength, walking speed, time to get up from a chair and ability to balance on one leg, mostly in people 70 years and older, and looked at mortality from all causes.
"These measures have been used in population-based research for quite a long time," said Rachel Cooper of the Medical Research Council, a publicly funded research organization in London. "They may be useful indicators for subsequent health."
Cooper, whose findings appear in the British Medical Journal, said more studies are needed to clarify whether the measures would be helpful to doctors as a screening tool.
"I wouldn’t suggest that we roll them out into clinical practice tomorrow, but it is possible that they could be used in the future," she told Reuters Health.
The researchers examined 33 earlier datasets comprising tens of thousands of people, and included only those living "in the community" rather than in a nursing home. While lumping data from various studies together might make the results less solid, most findings pointed in the same direction.
Source: reuters
If you would like information about how Senior Care Authority can help you care for a loved one, visit www.seniorcareauthority.com.
On the Road In Concord CA With, or Without, Elderly Parents
by Frank Samson, Certified Senior Advisor · Comments (2)
24
Aug
On the Road With, or Without, Elderly Parents
By: DALE RUSSAKOFF
It’s August, time for a vacation from everything stressful — work, commuting, heat, congestion. But what about care giving? Do adult children of elderly parents deserve a break from them, too?
Plenty of New Old Age readers no doubt identify with a woman who, describing herself and her husband as “empty-nesters in our 50s,” recently raised this question in Slate’s provocative advice column, “Dear Prudence.”
Bringing her husband’s 80-plus-year-old-parents along on vacations, the woman wrote, “is more stressful than going to work.”
The older couple “cannot travel as they used to,” making it difficult for the 50-somethings to relax together, which their punishing jobs rarely allow them to do. Yet her mother-in-law calls almost nightly, she wrote, “begging us to take them.” Her question: “Are we selfish to want to be alone on our
vacations?”
Emily Yoffe, the “Dear Prudence” columnist, responded that it is not selfish “to balk at attending to very demanding old people when you are trying to grab some precious free time.” If the in-laws don’t want to travel on their own, she wrote, they should consider “the myriad group travel possibilities for older people.”
Indeed, older people have a growing number of vacation options, with or without an adult child to help them get around. With the recession cutting deeply into vacation budgets, the travel industry has begun reshaping itself to accommodate older and frailer travelers, who often have more money to spend than working-age people. Cruise lines, always popular among retirees, now cater to even more senior voyagers. One Web site touts “staff members to help disabled or physically impaired guests move around more easily,” as well as personnel “trained to work with elderly people in order to make their
stay more comfortable.”
Tom Fitzgerald, an AARP travel expert, said many older travelers choose riverboat rather than ocean liner cruises. “On a river cruise, you can enjoy looking at the town from the ship. On a big ocean liner, they’re sailing the ocean and they dock in a port. You usually need to take a bus or a taxi into town.” He said he urges travelers to call cruise directors to verify what “hotels and cruise lines are doing to retrofit for an older population that may need elevators or wheelchairs.”
Elderhostel, an educational travel organization that attracts people in their 60s and 70s, has discovered that many of its clients want to keep traveling well into their 80s and even 90s. The organization has added more travel aboard ships and, for land-based trips, makes wheelchairs and taxis available to those who find walking too taxing. “We can make any program, within reason, accessible,” said James Moses, president of Elderhostel, whose programs now go under the name Road Scholar.
Even nursing home residents are hitting the road. In what it called the Chutzpah Mission, the Hebrew Home at Riverdale, in the Bronx, flew eight nursing home residents, ages 77 to 93, to Israel for two weeks in 2004. The home brought along medications in blister packs and advance directives for everyone. The entourage included a nurse, a doctor, the home’s director of social services, a nurse’s aide and orderlies — enough staff for all but two residents to room with a professional caregiver.
“I thought there was a statement to be made about elderly people traveling,” said Daniel Reingold, chief executive of the Hebrew Home, who had the idea for the trip. “There was something very fulfilling and affirming about planning a trip most people would say, ‘You’ve got to be out of your mind to do this.’ ”
Each time the travelers got off their tour bus and into wheelchairs or behind walkers to view another historic site, they were surrounded by Israeli children snapping photographs, according to Mr. Reingold. “They were celebrities,” he said.
Since then, he said, he has shared travel tips with two other Jewish nursing homes that replicated the trip, as well as a Lutheran home in Michigan that took war veterans to Washington for a tour that emphasized military history.
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For information about how Senior Care Authority can help you and your family care for an aging loved one, visit www.seniorcareauthority.com.
The Truth About Cataracts In Concord CA
by Frank Samson, Certified Senior Advisor · Comments (0)
11
Aug
August is Cataract Awareness Month and at Senior Care Authority we know how important vision is to our elderly loved ones. This article shares valuable information about cataracts and what to watch for as we age. If you or a loved one need care in the Concord CA area, visit www.seniorcareauthority.com
The Truth About Cataracts
Did you know that about 20.5 million Americans age 40 and older have cataracts?
More than half of all Americans develop cataracts by age 80.
Cataracts cloud the eye’s clear lens, similar to a window that is “fogged” with steam. When the lens becomes cloudy, light rays cannot pass through it easily and vision becomes blurry.
Cataracts are not a growth or a film over the eye. Cataracts start out mildly and have little effect on vision at first. But as the cataract becomes denser, so does the impact on vision. See your Eye M.D. if you experience:
• Painless blurring of vision;
• Sensitivity to light and glare;
• Double vision in one eye;
• Poor night vision;
• Fading or yellowing of colors;
• Frequent changes in glasses or contact lens prescriptions.
Although cataracts usually develop as part of the aging process, they can also result from:
• Eye injuries;
• Certain diseases, such as diabetes;
• Genetic inheritance;
• Certain medications;
• Frequent, unprotected exposure to UV-A and UV-B rays;
• Smoking.
Currently, there are no medications or exercises that will help cataracts to disappear. However, if cataracts don’t interfere with your life, you may choose not to do anything about them. When they do begin to interfere with daily activities, they can be treated surgically.
Cataract surgery is one of the safest and most frequently performed surgeries in the United Sates, with more than 1.6 million surgeries performed each year. After surgery, vision is improved in most patients. Laser treatment is sometimes used after cataract surgery to remove a film that can occasionally grow behind the lens implant.
Remember, cataracts are detected through a comprehensive eye exam. Early treatment may save your sight.
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Categories : Assisted Living Sonoma California (CA), Concord, Elder Care Sonoma California (CA), Home Care Sonoma California (CA), Nursing Homes Sonoma California (CA), Senior Care Authority Sonoma California (CA), Senior Living Sonoma California (CA), Senior Placement Services Sonoma California (CA), Sonoma County
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Legal Guidance Needed to Protect Alzheimers Patients in Novato CA
by Frank Samson, Certified Senior Advisor · Comments (0)
20
Jul
Legal Guidance Needed to Protect Alzheimer?s Patients in Novato CA Here is an article from agingcare.com that is helpful for families with loved ones suffering from Alzheimer?s. Visit us at www.seniorcareauthority.com if you need help for a senior loved one in the Navato CA area. Protecting Alzheimer patients’ legal, financial welfare Caregiving experts often advise that after an Alzheimer’s diagnosis, family members meet with an elder law attorney to begin the process of planning for down the road as the illness progresses. "I don’t think families are well-versed in this," said Barbara Vogel, program coordinator for the Neuwirth Memory Disorders Program at Hillside Geriatric Center in Glen Oaks. "I don’t think they’re seeking the legal assistance or financial guidance that they need to do this early on so when the time comes they are prepared." Instead of doing all of their planning with a lawyer, some caregivers turn to geriatric care managers or social workers who hire themselves out as guides to those attempting to navigate the system. Orlando Gonzalez, 66, and his daughter Kim Latkovich, 38, both of Manorville, paid a social worker $700 and found the experience both cheaper and faster than dealing with an attorney. Continue reading HERE.
How Do I Know if My Parent Has Alzheimer’s Disease in Sonoma CA?
by Frank Samson, Certified Senior Advisor · Comments (0)
09
Jul
How do I know if my parent has Alzheimer’s disease?
When an elderly parent starts having trouble with memory, the family automatically think its Alzheimer’s disease. The concerns are valid. Alzheimer’s usually begins after age 60 and nearly half of people age 85 and older may have Alzheimer’s, according to the National Institute on Aging. However, only a doctor can diagnose Alzheimer’s, and there are some other diseases or conditions that may cause Alzheimer’s-like symptoms.
If you suspect your parent has Alzheimer’s, here are some warning signs to look for:
If you need information about care and assistance for your loved one in the Sonoma CA area, visit www.seniorcareauthority.com.
Frank Samson’s Aging Boomers Blog
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Copyright © 2013 All Rights Reserved