More types of Personal Alarms

I just thought since we were talking about personal safety alarms yesterday that I would include in the discussion a couple of other types of alarms that are well worth their weight in gold. If your senior loved one is at risk of falls and they have a caregiver with them at all times, there is a personal monitor that you can put on the bed or chair and it will sound an alarm if the patient gets up. This will allow the caregiver to immediately go to the patient and check on them to make sure they are safe. This is a great way to reduce falling or wandering if the loved one has dementia or Alzheimer's.
There is also another great kind of monitor that tells you when the bedding is soiled. This is great in preventing bed sores. You know immediately when the linens are soiled so you can clean the patient and the bed. I found both of these types of alarms extremely useful for the residents in my care home as they work wonders in preventing unwanted accidents. The state agencies get very concerned when they see doctors and hospital reports of falls and bedsores. I know I tried all I could do to prevent the accidents, wandering and bedsores and protect my patients safety and health and these products were definitely responsible for less stress in my life.
To see and read about these types of products, I have inserted some links in the right hand column.
If you would like to see and compare more alarms and other medical equipment
click here & use Promo code 7a95a to get the low listed prices on equipment and supplies from their catalog. Its a great company with low prices and wonderful customer service.
Let me know if you have any questions or concerns about any products or services you have or are contemplating purchasing for your loved. I have used many products and services throughout my career and would love to hear any comments you have about either of these products and if they have been useful to you. All the info we can gather for our caregivers is always useful. Have a great day!

Personal Alarm Systems for Seniors

Is your loved one living alone? Are there some days you just can't make it over there to check up on them? This used to make me feel so guilty and I was always scared when I did arrive at my loved ones home that I might find that they have been on the floor hurt for hours or any other list of fears I had. I found a lifesaver, the personal alarm. If your loved one doesn't ambulate so well, or is weak or history of falls, a personal alarm could be a stress saver. There are many different kinds that have different functions. Some allow the user to push a button that links to any number you preset. Some directly link to emergency services with only one number preset. Some caregivers like to have the preset to call their personal phone so they are alerted immediately. Most of the time these companies that sell the alarms have service contracts but for the relief you get by having an alarm with your loved one....priceless! Other caregivers that may not live close to their loved one might prefer that the alarm calls directly to emergency services. A really nice alarm system is one that when button is pushed, it connects you to the call center that can then talk through a speaker in the home. I have researched the personal alarms on the market and will put links to the different companies that offer them here. If you have used one of these services let us know what you think about the brand and service you received.
Take a big deep breath and smile! Smiling has been proven to help ease stress.
ALARM COMPANIES:
Senior Safety
Alert 1
Medical Guardian

I hope this will be helpful

Cooking for special dietary needs

I have been scouring the internet for cookbooks that cater to the special dietary needs of our elderly and/or ill loved ones. I have found some great books that I have listed on the right side of this blog page. There is one that caters to the special dietary needs while living with cancer. Another great one is the Healing Gourmet. The books touch on many different dietary needs for optimal health. A big shift in our culture is the Raw food diet that concentrates on the overall health of the body. If you are interested just click on the link on the right and see if any of these are helpful. If you have any input to for good recipes or cookbooks, please drop us a note and let us know. We would love to pass the information along. Have a great day all!!

Dementia or normal memory loss

Many seniors suffer with dementia and go undiagnosed until their condition has gotten so bad that it has led to other medical problems that are physically apparent. If you don't see your senior for a period of time and notice when you do see them that they have lost a significant amount of weight, it could be a form of dementia. They actually forget to eat. If there are are also memory deficits that you notice at this time, you may be experiencing a dementia related condition. There are many forms and causes of dementia such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson related, brain injury or drug induced, pic's disease and many others. It is not normal to lose our memories as we age. If you notice your loved one forgetting where they are, not remembering how to get home, what day it is,who you are, things of that nature, it is time to have them evaluated for a memory condition. Many Family Physicians do not have very extensive training in Dementia so they will most likely refer your loved one to a specialist in that area, maybe a neuro. It is very important to get diagnosed as early as possible as there might be underlying conditions that can cause dementia such as depression, illness, urinary tract infection. Any one of these conditions can create havoc on the elderly persons body and brain. In fact UTI's can even lead to delusions and hallucinations in the elderly. For more information on Alzheimer's
and other dementias, there are great resources I will link you to here. If you have any questions or comments please let us know. Just leave a note for us. Thanks all and a big pat on the back to you caregivers! Great Dementia info Click Here
Alzheimers Info Click Here

Nutrition and the elderly

Good Day Everybody. We all know how important diet and nutrition is to our seniors. So many seniors deal with diet issues such as salt intake and high blood pressure, diabetes, high fiber and so many other issues. I have found a great site that has wonderful tools to help you serve appropriate meals to your loved one. The site is linked here Nutrition data & tools.
The site feaures many easy to use calculators for BMI, Recipe Analyzers, Daily calorie intake calculators and more. They also have great articles for special diet information along with links to several different associations dealing with special diet concerns. This site is an A+ in my book. Go take a look. I think it will be very useful in your daily diet concerns. THere is also a link in the right hand column of this blog. Let me know if you find this tool helpful in your caregiving endeavors.
Take care all and don't forget to give big hugs to the one you are caring for. Hugs always make us feel better and relieve stress for us as well as your loved one.

Pharmacies that home deliver

Hi all, I have done some research and found a reputable company that delivers prescriptions to your front door. The company's name is Express Scripts. I will place a link further down the page so you can check out their services and see if home delivery is something that would benefit you. Express scripts lets you manage your account online which is very helpful when you need to find any information about the prescriptions you have been ordering for yourself or your loved one. I found this resource so helpful when I would take my loved one to the Doctor. The Dr.'s office always asks for medication updates every time you visit. This way you can print out all information on the prescriptions including, prescription names, doses and initial start and end dates for each one. It is also helpful when your loved one gets ill and has to go to the hospital. Just take a copy along with you and the triage nurse at the hospital will love you. It helps them in their job. I would always keep updated printouts on hand in case there was an emergency and an ambulance had to respond to your loved ones home. This helps the emergency technicians immensely. It is always so stressful when you have EMT's and firemen running through your house, rapidly asking you questions. Having a printout of the prescriptions ensures you don't leave out any important prescription information in all the chaos. Another great idea is to have a printout of the patients medical conditions. You can write this up on your computer in WORD or EXCEL or any other program you have. Keep it updated and print a few copies out to always have on hand with the prescription printout. Having these two printouts always ready sure makes for less stressful caregiving. It just enables you to be prepared.
Here is a link to the Express Scripts if you would like to learn more about home delivery of Rx's

If any caregivers know of any more Home Delivery Pharmacies, please drop us a quick note
Have a great day and take care of yourself too!

Home Delivery of Prescriptions

Many caregivers are unaware that pharmacies deliver. It is a great way to make sure your loved one is receiving the medications they need. I suggest calling the pharmacy you use at this time and ask them if they deliver. It usually does not cost extra for the delivery if you are within the delivery area of that pharmacy. There is a pharmacy in Lynnwood Washington "Hadfields Pharmacy" that has great customer service and all arrangements can be done over the phone and fax. Just call the pharmacy you currently use and speak to the pharmacist or manager and also ask about other services that might be helpful to you as a caregiver. Another great service many people don't know about are the daily dose prescription bubble packs. It is a small cardboard dispenser about 6"x9" and has each dose in single plastic bubble that can be punched out the back of the board as the dose is needed. The board generally comes with a 30-31 day supply. When you only have about a weeks dose left, you just call the pharmacy (some have special phone systems that handle orders from touchtone phones) and place your next months order. Another great reason for using a pharmacy with this type of system is that if you get a new written prescription from the doctor, it can be faxed right to the pharmacy and will be delivered that same evening or the next day. I am going to research some pharmacies that do deliveries and will post links on this page to help any of you caregivers out there that may not already have a pharmacy in place for your loved one. If you know of any pharmacies in your area with these or other great services, please let us know. Thanks!

What does the new health care bill mean to Seniors

Just a few facts as to how the new health care plan will affect those on Medicare. The number one issue is the $500 billion that will be taken from Medicare and applied to pay for this new bill. Then there will be 10's of millions of new patients added to Medicare since they will be lowering the age requirements. A medical journal that polled Doctors asked what will happen if the new bill passes. The poll showed that nearly half of all doctors practicing now, will leave the profession. There is also the issue of rationing care. The Obama administration says that this bill will guarantee high quality care for everyone. But if I understand what is happening such as, a large amount of funds directly taken from Medicare, fewer doctors and several millions of new patients can only result in a nightmare for care. Even those on private insurance will see a difference in appointment wait times, the ability to get testing and treatments. The whole system will be backed up. The biggest problem is that we will be forced to pay for Government approved health care plans. If you don't buy a plan that the govnmt approves you will be fined and possibly jailed. The big whammy in this whole bill is: the IRS office will be the overseer and enforcer of the mandated insurance. The administration will be hiring 16,500 new IRS employees just to oversee and enforce this mandate. Just imagine the government in our health care business. The government will have access to your medical records. You will no longer have doctor patient confidentiality. I have worked so many years with seniors and am appalled at what the government has done to them. In this bill there will be penalties for doctors who send too many patients for testing and surgeries. The doctor will be fined if they send (what the government deems TOO MANY)people in for required treatments. Don't get me wrong. I fully believe in reform, but not at the cost of our freedoms and lives of our citizens. This bill will bankrupt this country.The only reason the administration says this bill will bring down the deficit is because we will be charged 10 years of taxes to get only six years of benefits because we will start being taxed immediately but the benefits of this health care bill will not take effect until 2014. The administration says they will be working over the next few years to rewrite all the rules and legislation for this new bill. I am terribly frightened for all of our seniors that will be cast aside. I am unaware of when the new language of the bill will be applied to Medicare, but please refer to the link in the last blog to the Medicare Dept for any further updates and changes. I will keep you updated also with any new info I get. Please leave any comments or questions you may have and I will do my best to help in any way I can.

Medicare Facts

I have been researching the Medicare plan that is in place at this time. I found that the Official US Medicare web page has very simple breakdowns on all categories and subjects. They actually have great explanations and examples to help better understand subjects such as "Whats covered", "Rx plans with comparisons", "Medical Suppliers" in your area searched by zip code, "Doctors" and many other informative subjects. Here is the address to that website http:/www.medicare.gov/
If the new Health Care Reform Bill passes there are going to be several changes to the health care plans that are in place now. Bookmark the Medicare page when you get there. It will be a time saver.

Health Care Reform Bill

I am sure all of us would like to know that our elderly loved ones have a good health insurance plan. Especially because our elderly loved ones are likely to have more medical issues as they age. I was going to spend some time explaining the seniors prescription plan for Medicare but I thought that might be in vain since a new health care plan may come into fruition here on Sunday March 21st, 2010 if Pelosi has the votes. So, instead of wasting your time explaining the Rx plan today, I will wait to see if the Health Care Bill passes. Either way, pass or not, I will try to put together an explanation for the Rx plan that happens to be in effect next week. I look forward to sharing that info with you. I know the Medicare plan that is in effect right now can be very daunting and confusing. The more people that understand the Rx plan, the more seniors that we can assist and ensure they receive their medications. Please feel free to post any info or thoughts on the Medicare Rx plan.

Welcome

I would like to introduce myself. My name is Sherise Braillard and I have worked in the medical field with the elderly and disabled since 1983. I have a passion for caring for the elderly and helping others to be the best caregivers they can be. Caring for a loved one can become stressful especially without help and support. I am starting this blog so I can share with you the knowledge and experience I have gained throughout my career. I have been blessed to have many contacts in the care industry that are invaluable resources in the overall care and life quality of your loved one. I would love to help with any questions you have and any resources or suggestions you may have please feel free to forward them to this blog. I always love to gain more knowledge in this subject. I look forward to communicating with all caregivers and God Bless you all in the daily work you do in caring for your loved one. You are all special people.