Home Care CareGivers

Archive for the ‘Home Care’ Category

Phoenix CareGiver Shows How The Population Is Changing As Boomers Age

Here’s what happening: America’s population is aging rapidly thanks to the baby boomer generation. The group is living longer as a whole than any generation in our history. As this group ages it becomes a blessing and it’s also a problem that creates worries and stress for the adult children of our elders.

When family members don’t live in the same town as their parents or who simply don’t have the time to attend to them, need to be assured that their needs are getting the level of attention essential to maintain their quality of life.
Assisted living facilities and rest homes can be too expensive for most families, especially in these difficult economic times. There are professional agencies that offer many of the same services as assisted living or residential communities while the elderly retain the independence that comes with remaining in their own homes. Most seniors relish their independence and struggle to maintain it. Staying in their own home is a major component in keeping their independence.

Here are some ways that a good Home Care provider can provide peace of mind for families and seniors.

A Caregiver can assist the senior at home, running errands and accompanying the senior to doctor appointments. At home the tasks are commonly called activities of daily living (ADL)
These activities include help with cooking, cleaning, shopping, dressing assistance, performing daily hygiene routines as well as many other household activities. Home care CareGivers can help with bathing, dressing, grooming, dental care, and more when seniors need a little extra assistance. For many elderly people, simply getting in and out of the tub can be dangerous, home care caregivers are there to keep seniors safe as well as maintaining a fulfilling lifestyle.
Home care professionals can also be trusted companions, providing empowering conversations and various therapies to enhance a senior’s day. These Home Care CareGivers can also take care of other tasks that may be difficult for some seniors such as: walking dogs, answering phones, meal preparation, laundry, and more. In some cases, live in and full housekeeping services are available.

Transportation Services

Transportation for seniors falls into two categories, local errands and extended trips.

Locally a senior needs go to appointments for eye glasses, hearing aids, dentists and other medical appointments. There is also a regular need for shopping trips or visiting the local senior center for lunch or bingo. All of these can be taken care of by the CareGiver using the clients car or the Caregivers’ car.

When a senior needs to travel on a longer trip by air, rail or ship, the services of a Personal Travel Companion are required. Paid Travel Companions are skilled in travel services as well as CareGiving.

For the family of a senior, the services of a Home Care CareGiver or a Paid Travel Companion can provide peace of mind knowing that their senior is well taken care of and safe.

Phoenix Home Care can be found at Care-To-Go.com and Travel Companion services can be found at CareToGoTravel.com

Phoenix CareGiver Explains How To Keep Track Of Medications

As we age doctors prescribe more and more prescriptions. There are so many kinds, side effects, restrictions and cautions that it becomes difficult to keep it all straight and be safe. Your caregiver can help with forms to keep track. You should have a master list, a log of drugs taken each day, and a separate sheet for medications that have serious side effects or special instructions. Included here are 5 Medication Tips to keep it all straight.

The Medications List

This form should have the basic information about the medication including times to be taken and description. The information included should have name, doctor’s name, doctor’s phone and address, pharmacy phone and address. The date of birth and social security number should be here because this is how pharmacy computers identify the patient for refills.

The Medications Side Effects Sheet

This form is just what it says. The patients name, address and phone should be here of course. There should also be a listing of drug names, dosage, frequency, and classification. There should be plenty of space for side effects, special instructions and cautions. There may be one drug per page.

7 Tips For Medications

Medication Tip #1

Keep your lists of medications current as prescriptions are added and removed. Keep several copies for your reference and be sure to take one with you for each doctor visit. Another helpful idea is the list the medications by which ones are taken in the morning, at dinner, and at bedtime.

Medication Tip #2

Be sure the medications are taken the way your health provider tells you to. Your medications are intended to help improve your health now and to prevent health problems in the future.

Medication Tip #3

Be sure to take your medications even if you feel fine. Some medications are intended to run for a specific amount of time and some take a step down process to stop the medication. Most medications however, are intended to help you feel better so don’t stop without consulting your health care professional.

Medication Tip #4

• Keep organized.
• Have your medication list with you at all times and posted around the house where you take medications, Kitchen, bathroom etc.
• Keep your list divided into AM, PM, and bedtime if you have medications taken at several times a day.
• Use a pill box organizer laid out for a week and labeled for each day. You still have to mark which ones are for different times a day.
  

Medication Tip #5

Always talk to your pharmacist and health care provider about your entire list of medications. Often times you will have medications prescribed by several different health care providers. Be sure they all know your entire list of medications. Your pharmacist can also coordinate all of your medications in one place for you. This is especially important when you add a new one.

Medication Tip #6

Check your medication bottle label. Verify that the medication is the correct one, correct dosage and note any special instruction. The label will also tell you how many times you may refill it, the date it was filled and the date the prescription was written.

Medication Tip #7

When you need help understanding your medications, take an advocate with you to the doctors’ office and the pharmacy. Your CareGiver should be at each appointment with you. As an advocate, your CareGiver will be sure all instructions, side effects, and cautions are understood and written down. The CareGiver can then help with the lists you will keep as will as organizing you pill boxes for each week.

Be absolutely sure you understand everything about your medications. It is your responsibility to regulate your own health so if you don’t understand everything at the doctors’ be sure to have an advocate with you.

Medication Summary

• Learn about your medications and why you take each one.
• Talk with your health care provider and pharmacist about all your medications.
• Keep your medication lists up to date and handy.
• Organize your medications using a pillbox.
• Read and understand your medications labels.
• Take a CareGiver with you as an advocate to doctors’ appointments and to the pharmacy.

A Caregiver or in home companion is able to assist a veteran id refilling his prescriptions on line from the veterans website. On the site is a phone number where prescriptions can also be filled.

The following is a list of services that veterans and their caregivers can do for prescription refills and tracking.

MyHealthVet is an online website for personal health records and prescriptions refills and a multitude of other medical services for the veteran. There are also some great veteran assistance tools to use for veterans and their caregivers.

The website offers veterans access to veteran health care information anytime, anywhere, as well as refills on veteran issued prescriptions. Caregivers or veterans don’t have to be put on hold on the phone or wait in line when trying to refill their veterans’ prescriptions. Rather they can go to myhealth.va.gov and refill their veteran issued prescriptions.

Vets and their caregivers can:

• Refill veteran prescriptions online without waiting
• View active veteran prescriptions on line
• Choose an active prescription to be refilled
• Have the prescriptions delivered to the veterans home
• Check the status of a refill order anytime
• View, track and print veterans prescription history
• Review and print specific information about a single prescription, using the details option.

This is a tremendous service offered by the Veterans Administration for veterans. The side benefit is that a caregiver can do the refilling from the convenience of a computer and have the prescriptions delivered to the home.

In the Phoenix area Care-To-Go provides Platinum caregivers to assist seniors.  Beth Bates and Care-To-Go can be reached at 800-818-0407 or at http://Care-To-Go.com

Phoenix CareGiver Discusses Choices for Seniors Including More than Nursing Homes and Assisted Living Facilities

Seniors prefer living arrangements that offer socialization and an active lifestyle. Staying with families may not be the only option for some elderly persons. To keep independence and remain in the familiar surroundings of a senior’s own home is usually the best option. As seniors begin to need assistance, a Phoenix caregiver can provide part-time assistance. As the level of assistance required increases, the caregiver schedule can be increased to fit the needs of the senior to allow the senior to remain in their own home as long as possible.
Some elderly people prefer not to live in the same house with grown children and their families because different lifestyles. Other seniors may require extensive caregiving to assist with daily living activities, and supervision during the day, making it difficult to live with family members. In these cases, a Phoenix caregiver can provide the required assistance up to the point where the senior needs more help than can be provided at home.

Among the choices for senior living are; Retirement Communities, Assisted Living Facilities, Residential Care Facilities, Skilled Nursing Facilities, and Nursing Homes. Some facilities include all of these levels in one place.

More Residential Living Choices for Seniors

Not all elderly people have families. Some of those older people that do have family prefer not to live with adult children, nieces, nephews, or grandchildren. Some of these choices require the senior to purchase their home and others may rented on a month-to-month basis.

Here are a few ideas for elderly living:

• Retirement Communities. Some regions dedicate entire residential communities to senior living. For example, Sun City West is Arizona’s finest golf retirement community. Sun City West is a newer version of the original Sun City. Located near Phoenix, this fabulous resort-style setting is inhabited by golden age seniors who aren’t ready to slow down. The community is entirely self-contained and self-governed.
• Assisted Living Facilities. Apartment style living offers independence, yet elderly clients can request assistance with meals, housekeeping, and transportation within a radius from the facility. Transportation may include trips to grocery stores, malls, or medical facilities. These facilities usually include a dining room for meals and many recreational activities. Assisted living facilities may or may not offer nursing or other medical services. Most offer a hair salon and other personal services.
• Residential Care Facilities. RCFs for the elderly are designed for people who cannot live alone but want to maintain some measurable control over their lives. Help with personal care is provided as well as assistance with meals and other daily living tasks. There is a staff on call around the clock, but no skilled nursing.
• Skilled Nursing Facilities. Skilled nursing facilities are equipped to administer medical care such as giving medications and providing other services within the realm of nursing duties. Some facilities may provide rehabilitative therapies.
• Nursing Homes. Nursing homes provide medical care for people who cannot manage medical or personal needs at home, but who do not need hospitalization. The staff can provide medical care, as well as speech, physical, and occupational therapies. There might be a nurses’ station close by. Other nursing homes try to be more like home. They try to have a neighborhood feel. Often, they don’t have a fixed day-to-day schedule, and kitchens might be open to residents.

Selecting a Housing Facility for a Senior

The selection of the appropriate residential living situation can be a complicated issue.  First, most seniors want to be at home (usually alone).  The first choice is to try caregiving at home.  After that a choice must be made to accommodate the senior and meet the actual needs of the senior. there are several services available to help families make the right choice for mom or dad.

ElderCare For Mom

There is no doubt about it: America’s populace is ageing rapidly along with living long as as a group more than any generation in  American history. This is definitely a blessing, but this is fact that creates fears as well as tension for the children of seniors. Families who do not live in the same town as their parents or don’t want to spend time to attend to their requirements, need to be assured that the elders  are receiving the level of attention they need.

Assisted living facilities or rest homes are cost-prohibitive for most families, especially in hard financial times. Happily, in-home professionals offer a lot of of the same services as assisted living locations while the elderly keep the independent life style that they are used to in their own homes. Here are some ways that a good provider provides peace of mind for families and seniors.

Among the many factors that a lot of seniors go to assisted homes is that they cannot be counted upon to keep up with every day activities and require supervision. Home care professionals can assist the elderly with their needs, right in their own homes. These actions consist of help moving around and performing hygine activities. Professional home-care could aid with bathing, dressing, grooming, denture care, and more because seniors require more assistance. For many elderly folks, just using the bathtub could be dangerous: Home caregivers are there to assist seniors at home.

Home care professionals can also act as loving companions, providing much-needed conversation in addition to enrichment for the elder’s life. During their visit, professional home care caregivers can take care of household tasks that are not easy for lots of our loved ones such as, feeding the cat, answering the telephone, food preperation, and more.

Transport for the senior

Professional home care caregivers could be valued helpers when it comes to providing elders with much-needed transport to hospital appointments, the dry cleaners, or wherever they need to go.
For many, these services could be a cost effective and less disruptive choice than assisted living: for millions of seniors’ families, it is a blessing.

Professional Caregivers are available from Care-To-Go.com in the Phoenix area.

Seniors are discovering Medical Travel (Tourism) to other countries for medical surgeries.

For a many of reasons, the elderly are going overseas for many types of necessary procedures and surgeries .

While the United States medical costs go up and health insurance  provide less funds it is important to go to a more cost effective place.

Med Tourism agencies could arrange what ever services you need to get to and from another country, which Dr., clinic and transportation needed.

Care-To-Go Travel Companions are ready to escort you to and/or from the place for the surgeries or procedures.

For complete information on Med Tours and Travel Companions  contact Care-To-Go at 1-800-818-0407 and see www.CareToGoTravel.com

Phoenix Care-To-Go CareGiver points to article on Flue Shots

A recent comprehensive review of clinical trials suggests that there has been LITTLE evidence to demonstrate the flu vaccines used in the past 40 years are safe to use to prevent flu effectively in people aged 65 years and over.

Ironically, elderly people are among the most vulnerable and they are in the priority group to receive flu vaccine as the medical industry and government health agencies keep telling them that flu vaccine is the best preventative against flu.

Tom Jefferson of the Cochrane Collaboration in Rome, Italy and colleagues conducted a thorough search of studies based on previous vaccine trials.   Of the 75 studies reviewed, the researchers were able to identify only one recent randomized controlled trial with "real" outcomes.  All the other studies in the review except one were considered of low quality and open to bias, Wiley-Blackwell, the journal publisher says in a press release.

Read Complete Article

Contact Care-To-Go for Phoenix Home Care CareGivers and Phoenix Travel Companions for Seniors 800-818-0407

Phoenix based Care-To-Go reports on increase of Boomers and the need for more home care and CareGivers

Care-To-Go serving Scottsdale, Phoenix, Paradise Valley, Sun City can be reached at 800-818-0407 and on the web at www.Care-To-Go.com

The elderly care industry looks to be prosperous for years to come thanks to America’s aging population. But, before it can experience that growth, it first has changing customer dynamics and a recession to deal with.

The U.S. Census Bureau projects a 147% increase in the senior population over the next 40 years to a total of 86.7 million.

The present 65 and older population is 37.3 million, 14 million of whom are reportedly disabled. By 2050, the Bureau believes 21% of Americans will be senior citizens, a 9% increase over the present number.

There is no doubt the population is aging and that will greatly increase the demand for elderly care services, says Lauren Shaham, vice president of communications at the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging. She also believes the personalities and values of the baby boomers will change the way elderly care services are administered.

“This is a group of people used to defining their own terms and getting what they want,” she says. “We believe there will be more services provided at home, and those services will be very flexible and very tailored to individual needs and wants.”

Shaham says the number of patients in nursing homes has been in decline for the last two decades and will continue to decrease. She says the future role of nursing homes will likely be in providing care mostly for the very ill, but also as temporary care providers for those recovering from difficult operations who may not yet be ready to return to their homes.

Though there may be high demand for elderly care services in the future, nursing homes and home health providers are concerned about the effects of the recession right now. Read Entire Article

Memphis Business Journal – by Kyle Duck

Care-To-Go Travel Companions are always on the lookout for interesting travel deals and ideas.  The following article for travel agents reveals Top 30 Themed Cruises for 2010.  Traveling Caregiver assistance can make a vacation for a senior an enjoyable and safe event.

Tapping into themed cruises that precisely match your client’s interest, hobby or passion is equivalent to adding a “must-have” ingredient to your recipe for sales success.

Themed cruises often include private onboard events or activities not open to regular cruise guests. So, “the cruise isn’t sold based on price, it’s sold on a specific experience,” stresses Susan Schaefer, independent affiliate of America’s Vacation Center, Brentwood, TN. “Your client isn’t looking for the lowest price, so you aren’t competing with pricing when selling a themed cruise.”

Read entire article

Care-To-Go Travel Companions can be reached at 800-818-0407 or on the web at www.CareToGoTravel.com

Blood Pressure Worry: It’s Linked to Dementia

Phoenix, Scottsdale, Caregiver reports that Blood pressure worry can be linked to dementia in the elderly.

HEALTHBEAT: Study will put to test growing evidence linking high blood pressure to dementia

By LAURAN NEERGAARD AP Medical Writer
WASHINGTON January 25, 2010 (AP)

If the cardiologist’s warnings don’t scare you, consider this: Controlling blood pressure just might be the best protection yet known against dementia.

In a flurry of new research, scientists scanned people’s brains to show hypertension fuels a kind of scarring linked to later development of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. Those scars can start building up in middle age, decades before memory problems will appear.

The evidence is strong enough that the National Institutes of Health soon will begin enrolling thousands of hypertension sufferers in a major study to see if aggressive treatment — pushing blood pressure lower than currently recommended — better protects not just their hearts but their brains.

"If you look … for things that we can prevent that lead to cognitive decline in the elderly, hypertension is at the top of the list," Dr. Walter Koroshetz, deputy director of NIH’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, told The Associated Press.

Age is the biggest risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia that affect about one in eight people 65 or older.

Scientists have long noticed that some of the same triggers for heart disease — high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes — seem to increase the risk of dementia, too. But for years, they thought that link was with "vascular dementia," memory problems usually linked to small strokes, and not the scarier classic Alzheimer’s disease.

Now those lines are blurring as specialists realize that many if not most patients have a mix of the two dementias. Somehow, factors like hypertension — blood pressure readings of 140 over 90 or higher — that weaken arteries also seem to spur Alzheimer’s disease-like processes.

One suspect: Scarring known as white matter lesions. White matter acts as the brain’s telephone network, a system of axons, or nerve fibers, that allow brain cells to communicate with each other. Even slightly elevated blood pressure can damage the tiny blood vessels that nourish white matter, interrupting those signals.

Care-To-Go, Phoenix, Scottsdale, home care, caregivers can be reached at Care-To-Go.com and 800-818-0407