Some experts in the field of art therapy claim that seniors can only benefit from creative activities when they’re lead by trained specialists. Art is art no matter where or how it’s done, and whether or not the benefits to the body and mind are as extensive when the creative process takes place at home with the assistance of a family member or caregiver, the benefits still exist. Follow these tips to bring art therapy home to your senior:

1. Choose activities suitable to the senior’s level of mobility – although skill really doesn’t play a role in the benefits of artistic expression and seniors, you don’t want to make the experience frustrating for them. Keep a senior’s physical abilities in mind when choosing an activity.

2. Make activities challenging – age doesn’t mean seniors are less capable of creation. Don’t choose activities that are too simple, like those you’d give to a child.

3. Create a quiet environment – to receive the best possible benefits from a creative activity, seniors need a quiet environment where they can simply focus on creating. An area free from distraction will help set the tone for the creative process

4. Think about long-term projects – a quick craft that can be finished in a couple of hours won’t have the same benefits as one that extends over a period of time. Choosing an activity that seniors can think about and go back to day after day will really get the creative juices flowing

5. Work together – remember, even if you’re working on an art project together, don’t take over and don’t try to lead; it’s not about the end result of the creation, it’s about the journey along the way

Sources:

1. Washington Post

2. My Optum Health

3. Associated Content

Image: castrell.com

Greater Phoenix Senior Living & Central Phoenix Senior Living provides home care for elders and seniors . Call us! 623-583-5868, 480-991-3959 or 602-265-8228

What exactly is Swine Influenza? Learn the facts about the virus that’s catching the
attention of the news media and concerned citizens all over the US from The Center of
Disease Control and Prevention website and share your thoughts.

1.) How should this outbreak be handled?

2.) What can adults and seniors do to prevent exposure?

Please comment below with your opinions!

Image Source:
-New York Times

Gadgets for seniors have come a long way, and today’s elderly technologies benefit the lives of older adults by improving their safety and making day-to-day tasks easier for them. A number of new elderly equipment devices were unveiled at the 2009 Consumer Electronic Show in January.

Many of the electronics seem designed with the independently living senior in mind; devices like motion detectors and sensors can be installed in seniors’ homes in order to alert family members about falls and other in-home emergencies; other senior electronics like Clarity’s C900 mobile phone has a panic button that automatically dials 5 emergency contact numbers when triggered.

Other innovative technologies for seniors help them with Activities of Daily Living; smart pill dispensers remind seniors when to take their prescription medications and ensure that they take the prescribed amount; and robotic vacuum cleaners take away the strain of housekeeping by automatically cleaning up floor surfaces within a senior’s home. Seniors can also receive around-the-clock health monitoring with technological devices that monitor vital signs and alert family or medical practitioners when the status of their health changes. The Vital Jacket by Biodevices is a new fashionable senior gadget which is designed to monitor vital signs without bulky equipment, and while it is not yet available on the market, it hopes to improve medical care in homes and hospitals around the world.

Sources:
1.    InventorSpot.com
2.   Business Week
3.   Tender Hearts

Greater Phoenix Senior Living & Central Phoenix Senior Living provides home care for elders and seniors . Call us! 623-583-5868, 480-991-3959 or 602-265-8228.

Q – What should be included in a living will and should all seniors have them?
A – A living will communicates a senior’s wishes with regards to their healthcare, to ensure that family and medical practitioners carry them out even once they no longer have the ability to voice what they want. Every senior should prepare a living will before their health comes into question, because unfortunately illness just can’t always be predicted.

When creating living trusts and living wills during the process of estate planning, seniors should understand their options and clearly state their wishes when different medical issues occur. In a general statement, seniors can include treatments they would consider having or prefer should specific medical issues arise (for example, chemotherapy to treat cancer); while general statements are not legally binding, doctors will keep them in mind when determining the course of treatment. Advance decisions and advance directives also allow seniors to refuse specific treatments and actions by a medical doctor; for example, refusing life support under any circumstance. When creating a living will, seniors should also appoint an advocate, which can be a family member or caregiver, to ensure that medical wishes outlined in the living will are abided by.

Having a living will ensures that all seniors have a voice, and play a role in their own medical care; even when they are not physically able to communicate their healthcare needs.

Sources:
1. CNNMoney.com Gerri Willis
2. Directgov

Greater Phoenix Senior Living & Central Phoenix Senior Living provides home care for elders and seniors . Call us! 623-583-5868, 480-991-3959 or 602-265-8228.

When it comes time to make decisions regarding senior care services for your aging parent, one of the major factors to consider is affordability. Believe it or not, in home care services are one of the most affordable options for seniors who are struggling to live independently in their own homes. Hiring a caregiver to help out in your aging parent’s home can cost anywhere from $12 to $25 an hour, depending upon the services provided by the agency and the state that you live in. Compared to a traditional nursing home or long-term care facility, which cost on average of $153 per day in the United States, the costs of in-home care are substantially lower, especially because of the flexibility it offers. With in-home caregiving services, families can decide the amount of care required by an in-home caregiver, which can start at a few hours a week to 8-hour long caregiving days. This can be determined both on care requirements of the senior, and the finances they have available for home care.

In order to determine if senior services are affordable for the senior in your family, take a close look at both their income and expenses; ensuring that their budget allows them to continue to put away 10% to fund future medical and housing needs. Medicare and Medicaid do not typically cover in-home care services, but many private insurance policies do; so ensure you determine which home care costs would have to be paid out of pocket and make sure that all the numbers add up to figure out if home care is an affordable option.

Sources:
1. Business Week: (Beth Piskora)

2. The Federal LTC Insurance Program

3. Senior Living Today

Greater Phoenix Senior Living & Central Phoenix Senior Living provides home care for elders and seniors . Call us! 623-583-5868, 480-991-3959 or 602-265-8228.

For many seniors, their necessary prescription drug costs can be as great as half of their annual incomes, but by investing in prescription drug cards some of the financial burden of their medications can be alleviated without ever having to sacrifice healthcare. However, for many of these programs, offered primarily by major pharmaceutical companies, the discount available varies for each prescription medication and ranges anywhere from a 1% to 20% savings; which forces seniors to pay into multiple discount card programs and shop around for the best price every time they are ready to fill a prescription.

According to an examination completed by Susan Dentzer for NewsHour, by making use of multiple prescription drug programs, an elderly couple with senior drug costs of $16,000 per year could save anywhere from $500 to $1,600 per year. The discount may seem insignificant when compared to the total annual drug cost, however, the annual savings can add up to a substantial nest egg for seniors who feel the efforts are worth the prescription savings. Recently, a $4 discount prescription program was released by Walmart; to offer even more substantial drug savings for seniors, with hundreds of prescription drugs available at $4 for a 30-day supply.

Seniors can benefit from using discount prescription drug programs, including Medicaid’s prescription subsidies for the elderly who have reached their $4,000 quota. However, the US still has a long way to go to catch up to other countries, like Canada, which have provincial drug subsidy programs automatically available to all senior residents who face the financial reality of retirement.

Sources:
1. Online NewsHour

2. Walmart.com

3. Makoa.org

Greater Phoenix Senior Living & Central Phoenix Senior Living provides home care for elders and seniors . Call us! 623-583-5868, 480-991-3959 or 602-265-8228.

Caregiver Stress-Stress and spousal caregiving

Naturally, you wouldn’t think twice about caring for your partner now that they are in a situation where there’s a growing need for your assistance. Whether it is a chronic health problem, issues with mobility or decreased cognitive function, your support will likely be necessary.

Sometimes caring for a spouse can leave the family caregiver feeling overwhelmed and stressed. This can be compounded if the caregiver is also taking over responsibilities that were once handled solely by their ailing spouse, from cooking and doing laundry, to balancing the checkbook and heading up the financial decisions.

Signs that Spousal Caregiving May Be Becoming Too Risky for You:

* Missing or delaying your own doctor appointments

* Ignoring your own health problems or symptoms

* Not eating a healthy diet

* Overusing tobacco and alcohol

* Giving up exercise habits

* Losing sleep

* Losing connections with friends

* Bottling up feelings of anger and frustration and then being surprised by angry, even violent, outbursts directed at your spouse, other family members, co-workers - even strangers

* Feeling sad, down, depressed or hopeless

* Loss of energy

* Lacking interest in things that used to give you pleasure

* Feeling resentful toward your spouse

* Blaming your spouse for the situation

* Feeling that people ask more of you than they should

* Feeling like caregiving has affected family relationships in a negative way

* Feeling annoyed by other family members who don’t help out or who criticize your care

Reaching out and asking for help is a very healthy thing to do if you are feeling overwhelmed. Look into hiring a part time caregiver to come in and help. Take back “you” again. It’s important.

Greater Phoenix Senior Living & Central Phoenix Senior Living provides home care for elders and seniors . Call us! 623-583-5868, 480-991-3959 or 602-265-8228.

Computers when connected to the web can help seniors remain independent and out of the nursing home facilities. Using computers also help seniors’ minds remain active. It’s a great way for seniors to remain occupied and benefit their lives in many other ways. The biggest benefit is to increase  the senior’s ability to communicate with relatives and friends.

Using email is a better way for them to comprehend information especially when they have hearing problems. When a computer is connected to the Internet, it gives a senior the capability to look up needed research and information related to health, allowing them to know whether their various ailments are cause for worry, and give details that their physician did not discuss with them.

For many seniors, learning to navigate the computer and internet for the first time brings challenges. But for many, eventually prove they can learn.

Greater Phoenix Senior Living & Central Phoenix Senior Living provides home care for elders and seniors . Call us! 623-583-5868, 480-991-3959 or 602-265-8228.

Greater Phoenix Senior Living & Central Phoenix Senior Living provides home care for elders and seniors . Call us! 623-583-5868, 480-991-3959 or 602-265-8228.

With the conversion to an all-digital TV market just around the corner, the government’s $1.34 billion coupon program for digital converter boxes is out of money. Anybody requesting a $40 coupon to offset the cost of buying a converter box for digital TV will now be placed on a waiting list, USA Today reports.

Meredith Baker, acting head of the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration, attributed the cash shortfall, in part, to a late surge in coupon requests.

Baker says consumers can still request a coupon, but it may not show up before Feb. 17 when the conversion takes place. Another option is to buy a box without a coupon. Converter boxes cost $40 to $70 on average. When this switch occurs, more than 70 million TVs that use an antenna to receive over-the-air signals will need a converter box to turn digital signals into analog. Cable and satellite TV customers are not affected.

In December, consumers requested 7.2 million coupons, more than double the level in October. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., chairman of the House Telecommunications and the Internet subcommittee, is working on a plan that would allow NTIA to start re-issuing coupons that have been sent to consumers but not redeemed. NTIA currently waits for coupons to expire — that takes 90 days — before reissuing them. The average redemption rate is just 52 percent now, so such a change could free up millions of dollars.

CAREGivers may want to make sure their clients are aware of the change and help them obtain a converter box, if needed.

Greater Phoenix Senior Living & Central Phoenix Senior Living provides home care for elders and seniors . Call us! 623-583-5868, 480-991-3959 or 602-265-8228.

Every year, one in three Americans 65 and older falls. 30 percent of the falls cause injuries requiring medical attention caused by a bump or blow to the head. Traumatic brain injuries may be missed or misdiagnosed among older adults.

Traumatic brain injuries due to falls caused nearly 8,000 deaths and 56,000 hospitalizations in 2005, according to a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report. Brain injuries accounted for half of these deaths.

“Most people think older adults may only break their hip when they fall, but research shows that traumatic brain injuries also can have serious consequences”, said Dr. Ileana Arias, director of the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control.

While falls are not an inevitable consequence of aging, they do occur more frequently among older adults whose health and aging conditions are associated risk factors. To help prevent these injuries, the CDC developed the “Help Seniors Live Better, Longer: Prevent Brain Injury” initiative for seniors, their caregivers and healthcare providers. It features easy-to-use materials in a concise question-and-answer format to help prevent, recognize and respond to traumatic brain injuries. The materials are available at www.cdc.gov/BrainInjuryInSeniors.

Millions of people in this country provide care for an older adult, a parent, grandparent, other family member, professional caregiver, or a close friend. For most caregivers, the older adult’s health is the overriding concern. One way to help older adults live, better lives and stay independent is by learning about traumatic brain injury, or TBI and how to prevent it.

The Facts:

Falls are the leading cause of TBI.
People 75 years of age and older have the highest rates of TBI-related hospitalizations and death.

We suggest that Phoenix seniors and families follow these tips when questioning whether they or an aging family member should continue to drive. Family members ask us frequently, “When should my dad stop driving?”, or “How do I know if it’s safe for mom to drive?”