A Home for Grandma- When To Know Your Parents Need Assisted Care

A Home for Grandma


 When you have a senior parent, the concern for their ability to maintain their lifestyle can be a significant worry. Almost without exception, senior citizens resist the idea of moving out of their house and into an assisted living facility or nursing home. You as a child of a senior citizen may see issues of safety if your aging parent continues to live independently. If their spouse has passed on, there may be issues of loneliness and depression. Hallways and doors of old homes are often not built to accommodate walkers or wheelchairs. And the vision of your children’s Grandma or Grandpa falling and being unable to reach you for help is frightening. And then there is the financial side of maintaining their home and paying the mortgage if it is still active. So the question is whether you should try to help your aging parent with moving on to an assisted care facility or if it can be worked out for them to stay in their home. There are some compelling reasons to help them stay in the house they have lived in for so long if there are ways to overcome the problems. Studies show conclusively that senior citizens that live in their own homes are happier and healthier. Your parents may have long lasting friendships in the neighborhood who provide tremendous emotional support and can look in on your parent from time to time to assure they are safe. And the ability to get out in the yard, feed the birds, keep a pet or tend a small garden has untold health benefits both mentally and physically for a senior citizen. Steps can be taken to provide for the unique needs of a senior citizen if you want to work with them to keep them in their home. The family and friends of the senior citizen can take on the chores of upkeep of the home, yard work and repairs so the home continues to remain safe and viable as a living space. This also reduces the expenses of home ownership. It is very likely that from a financial point of view, you can work with your senior citizen to reduce the costs of staying in their home. If they still have a mortgage, the outstanding balance may be quite low but the payment still high. By working with the mortgage company, you may be able to refinance the loan to drop the payment considerably and make it more affordable even than living in assisted care or a nursing home. You can also work with utilities companies and credit sources who may have programs to assist the elderly in owning their own home. By utilizing the resources already in place, you may be able to get your aging parents costs into a reasonable range and help them establish a budget that allow them to live comfortably on social security and whatever retirement funds they have. You can also find home nursing care and put good technology to use to make it possible for your parent to have quality care in the home and to have the resources to be able to reach out to you in the event of an emergency. Services like these do well at providing for the needs of senior citizens so they can virtually spend the entire remainder of their years living in their home where they are happy.

Planning A Senior Golf Vacation Many senior golf players enjoy getting away by planning a golfing vacation. Whether you play golf regularly or just once and awhile, a golf vacation is a great way to relax and enjoy the outdoors just like the pros. The senior golf pros play golf for many of the same reasons the amateurs do, they love the game and enjoy traveling to new golf courses. The more you play and learn, the better you become at playing. Understanding what clubs to use and when is also important. A travel agent or an online travel site will be a good place to start if you are planning a senior golf vacation. You want to find a course that offers a challenge as well as some great people to meet. You might even consider playing a game at some the courses where the pros give lessons or play a leisurely round of golf just like you. You can look through brochures or websites to see exactly where to plan your next golfing vacation. When you plan a golfing vacation, you usually find a package deal that includes hotel accommodations, golfing and other related rewards to your vacation. You might even enjoy a day of lessons from some pros. Senior golf is an enjoyable sport that sees no age limit as with other sports. This sport is for all ages, the more you play, and with a few good tips, you gradually improve your game. If you plan your senior golf outing at the right time, you might even find that the weather is just right for playing. After all that is why the pros use these courses to stay in the game. You could find yourself right in front or behind some of the most reputable players in the world. This sure would enhance the golfing vacation. You can choose where and when to travel, but if it happens to be in an area where the Senior Open is going on, you could also spend a day watching how they perform. Some golf courses even have there own resort hotels, which makes tee time no problem. If you plan your golf vacation, make sure to schedule a tee time so you do not miss out on the experience of playing golf away from home on a new course. This is the most exciting part about planning a golf vacation. You might consider a senior golf outing to the Jack Nicholas Golf Course down in Florida. This course is considered a prime golf course that offers a challenge for any player. If you find yourself intrigued with the course and need more time, you might even consider a condominium right by the course so your vacation can become permanent. You are going to see many different courses you can plan a vacation around looking for information about the top courses is found on the Internet. Start your search with "Championship Golf Courses" and see where the pros keep up with their game and stay in shape.

Feeding Problems in the Elderly

Feeding problems in elderly patients

19 April, 2001

VOL: 97, ISSUE: 16, PAGE NO: 60

Roger Weetch, RN, DipHS, is staff nurse, Bradford Royal Infirmary
A nutritionally sound diet has been shown to be an important factor in healthy ageing (Evans, 1994). Up to 40% of acute hospital patients are malnourished (McWhirter and Pennington, 1994). Some of them may be admitted in this condition, others become malnourished while in hospital (Association of Community Health Councils England and Wales, 1997).

A nutritionally sound diet has been shown to be an important factor in healthy ageing (Evans, 1994). Up to 40% of acute hospital patients are malnourished (McWhirter and Pennington, 1994). Some of them may be admitted in this condition, others become malnourished while in...Read More Here

Foreclosure Means Eviction of Elder Care Homes by Senior Citizen Housing Staff on October 20, 2010

A loophole in California’s law means senior citizen housing facilities don’t have to give notice to residents when owners are facing foreclosure, according to a New York Times article. This can cause an undue burden on patients and loved ones, especially those who require the most amount of care.

The article reports about an appalling scene where the Sheriff’s office showed up to execute an eviction notice at a board-and-care home for the elderly and found several bedridden patients and their distressed loved ones still trying to make last-minute transfer arrangements to other facilities. It appeared no one had given them notice.

“We got a call from Adult Protective Services letting us know that the house we were evicting had four or five bedridden residents, and the guy was ignoring the eviction notice,” the Sheriff’s Sergeant recalled. “I couldn’t believe it had gone this far.”

While there’s no way of knowing how many times this scene has played out, the newspaper’s research revealed that over 100 elder-care homes went through foreclosure in the San Francisco Bay Area during the six-month period from October 2009 to April 2010, which may have resulted in the eviction of some 700 residents, many of whom require help with basic daily living activities, and some of whom received no notification.

Transfer trauma refers to the stress experienced, both physically and mentally, by patients who have to be relocated. Research has shown that the severity of transfer trauma varies with the type of transfer, the mental and physical frailty of the patient, and their readiness for relocation.

California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (CANHR), a non-profit organization advocating for quality of life issues of California’s long-term care population, cosponsored legislation that would have required residents be given notice long before evictions could be carried out on unwitting patients and their loved ones. Among other things, the bill called for:

Residential Care Facilities for the Elderly (RCFE) to give notice to all residents and their loved ones of any foreclosure proceedings as they are initiated. Read More Here: http://www.seniorcitizenhousing.org/foreclosure-means-eviction-of-elder-care-homes/

Are You Looking For An Adult Family Care Home For Sale?

I have found some realtors that specialize in Adult Family Care Homes in Washington state. They list homes that are currently filled, licensed and empty as well as homes that are potential AFH's. I will put their link at the end of this post. If you are looking to purchase, these realtors might be your best net as this is what they specialize in. I have never met them, only found their site online and looked through it. It looks like a very well laid out and organized web site, easy to find what you are looking for. I saw that they have homes listed south and north of Seattle.

GO TO THE REAL ESTATE SITE

If you have any questions about buying or leasing an AFH, email me at afhwa@yahoo.com and i will do my best to help answer you, as I have been licensed in Real Estate in both Oregon and Washington and have been through AFH rehabs and retrofits.

Again, here is the link to the Real Estate web site

Click Here

Tips To Prevent Loneliness

A whole lot of active adults don’t like the idea of going to live in places just like Assisted Living Decatur. To them, this assisted living Decatur arrangement is not the ideal method to live, simply because they have a belief that it is a very lonely and also isolated method to exist. Well, we think otherwise. We say that loneliness is a state of mind. You don’t have to be lonely if you don’t want to, yet it’s up to you to take those necessary measures and reach out to others. In a place just like Assisted Living Decatur home, we’ll show you what to do to throw loneliness out the window!

1. Make an effort to talk to your fellow residents – There’s a saying that goes, share a seat and win a friend. Well, this ought to be your mantra. You’re a lot more than sharing a seat, you’re also sharing a whole new home, hence there isn’t any reason on earth why you can’t be...READ MORE HERE

Each week starting this next week, I will be uploading blank FORMS that you may find useful in your Adult Family Care Home Business. I will upload at least one a week. You may download these forms to use as you wish in your business. They may be forms for admission, charting, Policies, etc. These are all forms that I created for my business and have been used by many others that I have networked and shared with.
Stay Tuned :)
I look forward to sharing useful tools and info with all of you business owners ♥
If you want to make sure to get in on receiving these "Forms", you can send me an email at afhwa@yahoo.com and put 'Forms" in the subject line :) I will send you each form as I publish it :)
Be sure to tell your AFH friends and associates about the FREE forms and other Helpful tools and info I will be posting weekly.

Software For Seniors! Great Idea!

This is a link to a site that has software for seniors...making it easier for them to use the internet and computer...Just follow this link CLICK HERE

 Here is What their site has to say:

Senior-friendly PC in Minutes!

- Awarded "Best Gift for Seniors 2012" by GeeksAdvice™

Seniorama Pointer™ makes computers simple and easy for seniors to use. If you're looking for the perfect gift for your aging parents or relatives - you came to the right place. Satisfaction Guaranteed. Incredible value. Get it now!

Designed for elderly PC users. Easy-to-use navigation and interface let the elderly users enjoy a new world of experience.

Customizable font/size settings. Perfect for people with limited eyesight and various other disabilities.

Unique web browsing application helps elderly users browse the internet with ease and comfort. Easy-email access included!

Elderly suited games, Skype app with video, phone, text chat, full screen photo albums and much more.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO

News Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 22, 2012


Contact: HHS Press Office
(202) 690-6343
Health insurance rate hikes in nine states deemed excessive by HHS

Secretary Sebelius calls on insurance companies to drop unreasonable rate hikes

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced today that health insurance premium increases in nine states have been deemed “unreasonable” under the rate review authority granted by the Affordable Care Act.

"Thanks to the Affordable Care Act consumers are no longer in the dark about their health insurance premiums," said Secretary Sebelius. "Now, insurance companies are required to justify rate increases of 10 percent or higher. It’s time for these companies to immediately rescind these unreasonable rate hikes, issue refunds to consumers or publicly explain their refusal to do so."

Secretary Sebelius also released a new report today showing that, six months after ...Read More Here

Patients can be discharged from a hospital because of many different reasons, such as having been determined to be medically well enough to leave, or they may also be discharged because of being transferred to another facility. Additionally, there are some instances when patients may request to sign themselves out against doctors orders. No matter what the reason a patient is being discharged, they are usually given explicit medical instructions which will help continue their medical care once they return home. Sometimes when a person is being discharged there will have to be special arrangements made, such as physical therapy appointments or possibly home health care visits.

For an elderly patient many of the standard medical issues with discharge are raised to a much higher level of concern, since the elderly person may have no one to help them after they have returned home. It is important when an elderly person is leaving the hospital that a full assessment of what the elderly person will need once having left the hospital is made, and relayed to the...Read More Here

A Fun Activity for Elderly

Pride in the home: Flower arranging

Residents can create floral displays for the entrance (for those with any experience in flower
arranging this will be easier). Those who struggle can do posies for the dining table. This
activity can grow with residents taking an interest in what colour schemes and which flowers
to choose. Residents can even plant bulbs for the spring, which then gives even more
activities ideas, such as selling planted bulbs for charity, giving planted bulbs to family and
friends as gifts and entering local spring flower shows.

Equipment needed
 Flowers
 A vase
 Flower arranging tools, such as wire, wire cutters and pedestal.




Instructions

1. Start with leaves and arrange them to create some structure.
2. Then add the largest flowers first. A general rule is add odd numbers of flowers as
this makes arranging easier.
3. Once you’ve added fully open flowers add buds that are not yet open.
4. Finally, add any others bits of grass and other items to make the arrangement look
good.

A great Activity For the Elderly

Super Smells

A perfect game to reinvigorate the senses. Super smells is the ideal for people with sensory
or memory problems as it helps people reminisce about pervious trips/experiences.
Equipment needed
Paper cups
Blind fold (a dark scarf would be sufficient)
A variety of strong smelling flavors
Pen
Paper

When selecting the strong smelling ingredients try to think about the certain theme
or memory. For example using Vinegar and Vanilla could provoke a memory of a
seaside holiday.


Instructions

1. Place a different strong smelling ingredient in each cup
2. Blindfold each person then get them to record their answer.
3. Then allow them to smell all the pots again with their eyes open.
4. See if the answers have changed then reveal the results