About Bill & Diane Mathis

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Visiting Our Aging Parents for the Holidays:

What to look out for Holiday visits with our aging parents have evolved. For boomers, our parents may be showing signs of aging in ways beyond their physical appearance. The time to simply visit, assuming that our parents are okay is over for some of us. The assumptions are replaced by the need for a vigilant look at how our aging parents are really doing.

The following changes may indicate the need to take action to ensure your aging parents’ safety and good health:

1. Weight Loss
One of the most obvious signs of ill health, either physical or mental, is weight loss. The cause could be as serious as cancer, dementia, heart failure or depression. Or it could be related to a lack of energy to cook for a loved one or just themselves.

2. Balance
Pay close attention to the way your parent moves, and in particular how they walk. Pain can be a sign of joint or muscle problems or more serious afflictions. And if unsteady on their feet, they may be at risk of falling, a serious problem that can cause severe injury or worse.

3. Emotional Well-Being
Beware, too, of obvious and subtle changes in your loved ones’ emotional well-being. You can’t always gauge someone’s spirits over the telephone. Take note for signs of depression, including withdrawal from activities with others, sleep patterns, lost of interest in hobbies, lack of basic home maintenance or personal hygiene. The latter can be an indicator not only of depression, but also of dementia or other physical ailments including dehydration.

4. Home Environment
Attention must also be paid to surroundings. If you discover excess or unsafe clutter and mail that has piled up, a problem may exist. Scorched cookware, for example, could be a sign that your parent forgets if the stove is on. An overflowing hamper could mean he or she doesn’t have the strength and/or desire to do laundry. Check prescription bottles for expiration dates; and make note of all prescriptions your family member takes and place that information in your personal files as well as the elder’s wallet in case of emergency.

There may be other areas of concern, specific to your family member. Should this year’s holiday visit open your eyes to current and potential problems or negative changes in your parent’s physical or emotional state, then its time to put a plan of action in place. To follow are some steps you can take over the holidays.

1. Initial Conversation
Have a heart-to-heart conversation with your elderly loved one about their present circumstances, concerns and the measures they’d like taken to make things better. Introduce the idea of a health assessment appointment with their primary care physician. Would they feel more at ease if a home health aide visited a couple times a week? Maybe they have legal questions and would greatly benefit from an appointment with an attorney. Or they may need help with housecleaning or bill paying.

2. Identify Resources
While you may want to keep things light during the holiday seasno, do take this opportunity to collect all necessary information now to avoid frustration and confusion in the event of a crisis down the road.

Try to find a directory of senior resources and services by checking with a library or senior center for lists of resources. This list should also include friends, neighbors, clergy, local professionals and all others who your family member has regular contact with. In fact, if you haven’t already, take the time to visit with those friends and neighbors and make sure you have their current contact information and they have yours.

3. Prepare a To-Do List
Now is the time to begin compiling a to-do list to be implemented over a period of future visits. Medical information should include your loved one’s health conditions, prescriptions and their doctor’s names and contact numbers. A financial list should contain property ownership and debts, income and expenses, and bank account and credit card information. You should also have access to all of your parent’s vital documents that could include their will,power of attorney, birth certificate, social security number, insurance policies, deed to their home, and driver’s license.
Always Best Care Seniors Services meets with our families, assesses each families needs, sets up tours and accompanies the families on the tours to find the right community for our seniors. An article recently helps explain the industry and the right way to help a family. http://ping.fm/j4OD8

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Understanding the Roles of Formal and Informal Caregivers

Formal caregivers are typically paid providers but they may also be volunteers from a government or nonprofit organization. Where care is being provided in the home there is often a mix of formal and informal care provided. And the trend is towards using more formal care since, unlike the past, more informal caregivers are employed. They choose to remain employed but must juggle limited time between caregiving and maintaining a household and a job.

These added responsibilities often make it necessary to hire non-medical home care aides to provide supervision and help when the primary caregiver cannot be present. Or as adult day services become more common, caregivers may pay for this form of formal caregiving to get rest or to allow for maintaining some employment.

When care is no longer possible in the home, then formal caregivers come into play on a full-time basis. This may be in the form of a congregate living arrangement, assisted living, a continuing care retirement community or a nursing home. It is at this point that long term care can have a significant impact on the finances of the care recipient and a healthy spouse living at home.

Care facilities are quite expensive and the cost for maintaining a spouse in such a living arrangement may rob a healthy spouse at home of an adequate standard of living. It's quite possible the healthy spouse may end up with food stamps and subsidized housing where, before the need for a care facility, this may not have been the case.

Or it is more often the case that the couple recognizes this dilemma of splitting living arrangements in two locations and an attempt will be made to keep the spouse needing care at home as long as possible. This may help with the finances but often results in destroying the physical and emotional health of the caregiver by creating a situation where the caregiver has difficulty coping with the responsibilities and physical demands.

Another reality of providing informal care services in the home is the increasing need for physical and emotional support that often goes unrecognized until too late. As care needs increase, both in the number of hours required and in the number or intensity of activities requiring help, there is a greater need for the services of formal caregivers.

Unfortunately, many informal caregivers become so focused on their task they don't realize they are getting in over their heads and they have reached the point where some or complete formal caregiving is necessary. Or the informal caregiver may recognize the need for paid, professional help but does not know where to get the money to pay for it.

Other members of the family should be aware of this burden and be prepared to step in and help their loved one who is providing care recognize the possibility of becoming overloaded. It is also the job of a care manager or a financial adviser or an attorney to recognize this need with the client caregiver and provide the necessary counsel to protect the caregiver from overload. The advisor can also likely find a source for paying for formal care that the caregiver may not be aware of.
An overloaded caregiver is likely to develop depression and/or physical ailments and could end up needing long term care as well. The consequences of not being able to cope with the burden of caregiving might even result in an early death for the caregiver.