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
Can an Old Dog Learn New Tricks?
According to scientific studies, both older pets and humans alike have the capacity to learn new skills. According to the AARP, the cognitive changes that occur with age can sometimes make it more difficult for seniors to remember things they learned in the past, and learn new material. Training an older employee to enhance their skills or for a new job can be a greater challenge for a person over 50 then for a young professional.
Older adults who have worked in the same job or industry for a number of years, can find it more challenging to adjust to big changes. They may be set it the routines and methods that they have determined most efficient to get the job done and may on occasion resent a younger person trying to implement changes. However, that’s not to say seniors can’t adapt to change and “think outside of the box” when the situation dictates; since older people have stronger motivation, they are likely to do whatever they can to exceed job expectations and please their employer.
Individuals who choose to work up to or past normal retirement age, need to be prepared to accept and learn about new technology and adapt their skills to meet the changing times.
Sources: http://assets.aarp.org/rgcenter/econ/inb151_work.pdf
http://www.businessknowhow.com/manage/hire-seniors.htm
Home Instead Senior Care in Austin helps families cope with Caregiver Stress. Please call us at 512-347-9207 when seeking non-medical, companionship, and professional caregvers in Austin.
Family Matters- Long distance caregiving
Balancing our day to day responsibilities can be very difficult under any circumstance, but when your parent is in need of a full time caregiver, and you live far away, it can make one feel helpless and even guilty for not being able to be there. First of all, you are not alone. 7 million adults are long-distance caregivers, caring for elderly parents who live an hour or more away.
What can you do from a distance? Here are some ideas:
1. Seek out help from people in the community: neighbors, friends, doctors. Call them about the situation. Leave information on how to get in touch with you.
2. Try to find a directory of senior resources and services by checking with a library or senior center for lists of resources.
3. Pull together a list of prescriptions and over-the-counter medications. Get doses and schedules. This information is essential in a medical emergency. Update it regularly.
4. When you visit, go through the house looking for possible hazards and safety concerns. Stay for a weekend or week and help make needed improvements.
5. Find out if your parent has an advance directive stating his or her health care treatment preferences. If not, talk about setting one up. If so, make sure you have a copy and you know where a copy is kept. The doctor should also have a copy for the medical record.
Don’t be hard on yourself. Even if you can’t be there on a daily basis, knowing you are there for your loved one will make them feel better.
CDC Recommends Flu Shot for More Americans than Ever Before
With the flu season approaching, U.S. health officials are predicting this year’s vaccine will be a better match for the circulating influenza strains than last year’s vaccine proved to be. And, they believe supplies will be plentiful.
The U. S. Centers for Disease Control recommends that more Americans than ever be vaccinated against the flu, according to a Health Day report. For the first time, the agency recommends children ages six months to 18 years receive the vaccine.
The vaccine also is recommended for:
The vaccine contains three new flu strains research indicates are the most likely to cause illness during the upcoming flu season – two influenza A strains and one influenza B strain.
“This is the largest group of people we have ever recommended get flu shots,” said CDC Director Dr. Julie L. Gerberding. That’s about 261 million people in the United States.
“We still face an excess burden of mortality from what is our nation’s No. 1 vaccine-preventable disease,” she said. Every year, there are 36,000 deaths, 200,000 hospitalizations and countless days of work and school lost due to flu,” she said.
People can receive vaccinations as soon as they become available, and they can continue to get one throughout the flu season, into December, January and beyond.
More information about the flu is available on the CDC Web site.
Home Instead Senior Care Austin - Alzheimer’s Disease and dementia home care. Our CAREGivers are trained to help people with memory loss live a better life. Call us at (512) 347-9207.
Alzheimer’s Care in Austin brought to you by Home Instead Senior Care Austin. For more information getting help for your loved one living in Austin, please call us 512-347-9207.
On our last posting - Alzheimer’s Care Austin blog, Home Instead Senior Care Austin shared with blog readers symptoms on Alzheimer’s and memory loss issues.. what to look for. This is not meant to be used as a diagnostic tool and we highly recommend seeing a physician for better understanding and diagnosis of any memory loss and/or medical issues.
The Alzheimer’s Organization, see more at Alz.org, experts have documented these additional symptoms and progression or patterns that occur with Alzheimer’s disease and developed several methods of “staging” based on these patterns.
Stage 3:
Mild cognitive decline
Early-stage Alzheimer’s can be diagnosed in some, but not all, individuals with these symptoms.
Friends, family or co-workers begin to notice deficiencies. Problems with memory or concentration may be measurable in clinical testing or discernible during a detailed medical interview. Common difficulties include:
Stage 4:
Moderate cognitive decline (Mild or early-stage Alzheimer’s disease)
At this stage, a careful medical interview detects clear-cut deficiencies in the following areas:
Alzheimer’s Care in Austin brought to you by Home Instead Senior Care Austin. For more information getting help for your loved one living in Austin, please call us 512-347-9207.
Home Instead Senior Care Austin helps you care for your loved ones living with dementia, Alzheimer’s, and memory loss. Please calll us when you seek help 512-347-9207. When families ask us what’s it like to have Alzheimer’s disease, we believe what you want to know is how painful living with memory loss can be for loved ones. Please tell us your story. When you consider your loved one living with Alzheimer’s disease or memory loss, what questions about it comes to your mind that you would like to know? Leave your comment below.
People with Alzheimer’s disease may not need too much help at first. But, as the disease progresses, they will need more and more assistance each day. Your family member with Alzheimer’s disease will eventually be unable to think of, plan and/or possibly knowing when to eat. That’s where Home Instead Senior Care Austin comes in. Please Call 512-347-9207 for an evaluation of your loved one.
Consider the following story about a client with Alzheimer’s disease from her CAREgiver from Home Instead Senior Care. The progression of a family member’s disease is typical of what it is like to have Alzheimer’s disease.
Life began to fall apart gradually for this wife and mother. At first, the signs were subtle.. she would forget a favorite recipe or misplace a set of keys. Next she had to give up her treasured teaching career. Eventually, she could no longer perform household duties and care for herself and her home. That was the worst part, feeling the disease take hold of every aspect of her life. When I became involved, the family had been living in a new home for one year. Nevertheless, I found boxes still packed and pictures not hung. The family was in various stages of denial, anger and crisis.
To understand better what it’s like to have Alzheimer’s disease, think about the following: When you are getting ready to brush your teeth, you can quickly and easily picture the entire process in your mind. A client with Alz disease may not recognize the phrase “brush your teeth”. Sometimes, they may not even recognize a toothbrush.
People with Alzheimer’s eventually cannot plan, nor can they look forward to each new day by themselves. They are unable to recall what needs to be done, plan tasks and carry them out. Home Instead Senior Care in Austin can help. Call 512-347-9207.
Caring for self while caring for another is the ultimate necessity! We can help. Home Instead Senior Care in Austin is the leading home care help for seniors living with memory loss, dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease. Please call us when you need a break and you cannot do it alone.. 512-347-9207.
We know that caregiving may have negative impacts on your wellbeing unless you learn to recognize and address important issues. It’s estimated that half of all Alzheimer’s family caregivers experience depression. Family caregivers also experience personal health issues, complications in the workplace, fatigue, and stress with other family members that result in conflicts and less leisure time.
On the positive side, some family caregivers find that providing care in the home is beneficial because it gives them a new purpose in their lives, strengthens family relationships, or fulfills commitments to their loved one.
Providing around-the-clock care requires a great deal of time and energy mixed with financial cost. These factors can take a significant physical and emotional toll. As a family caregiver, you must learn to nurture your own needs.
Home Instead Senior Care in Austin can provide you with some coping strategies for these daunting challenges:
• Look for support – Many family caregivers withdraw from family and friends because they feel no one understands. It is very helpful and in many cases, therapeutic, for you to join a support group where you can learn from others through sharing your experiences.
• Let go of guilt – Let go of “the guilt trip” by realizing a need to temporarily set aside caregiving responsibilities for a respite.
• Nurture the body – Be sure to get enough sleep and eat properly.
• Nurture the mind and spirit – Schedule family sessions and discuss any conflicts that relate to the care of your loved one. Take breaks from caregiving as often as possible by asking other family members to help. Be sure to acknowledge your feeling of loss and grief.
For more help and support for aging relatives living in Austin, Texas, please call us 512-347-9207 and visit for more information Home Instead Senior Care Austin. We are here to help.
Home Instead Senior Care Austin 512-347-9207
In our last blog, we offered a few tips on things to do and activities that Home Instead advises family members to “entertain” loved ones living with a memory loss or dementia - please refer to our recent post dated June 20th. Give us some activities you’ve created for a loved one - tell us how you entertain someone with memory loss.. post in the comment below.
We’re continuing here with more tips on caring for someone with Alzheimer’s in Austin:
Use a card table, craft table, dining room table or a garage bench. Provide the containers and allow your loved one to sort them in his or her creative way. Christmas in July is just fine. The following example shows a meaningful activity that a family caregiver and her mother could do together:
I came up with the idea of making necklaces out of cereal and string to keep Mom busy in the morning. Stringing the cereal onto the string required concentration and she enjoyed doing it. I took the activity a step further and decided to give the necklaces to Mom’s grandchildren. When I shared my idea with her, she was excited and wanted to make more.
Another popular location for meaningful activities is the garden. You and your loved one can spend many hours in the open air with activities such as pulling weeds, watering plants, cleaning dead plants from pots and re-planting with colorful flowers. You can also gather fallen leaves and put them in trash bags, or even plant bulbs. If your loved one wanders, just be sure to secure the garden.
Working with the laundry is a familiar activity. All you need is clean laundry and a basket. You and your loved one can arrange, fold and stack laundry such as bath towels, kitchen towels, pillow cases, etc.
You can still share cooking as an activity with some changes in approach. Keep your loved one from the stove and electrical appliances, and remove dangerous utensils.
Use mealtime clean-up as an activity. Tell your loved one that you will set the table if he or she will clear it following the meal. It is important that the person with Alzheimer’s receives cues to get started and instructions on where to place the items near the sink. If you have a dishwasher, load it, but keep a few plastic items out to wash in sudsy water. Your loved one can wash and you can dry and put the dishes away.
The following example shows how a family caregiver involved her sister, Rebecca, in a mealtime activity:
When it came time to fix dinner each night, Rebecca would want to help, but was no longer able to cook step-by-step or handle the hot foods. So I encouraged her to set the table, butter the bread, and select a juice so she could still be involved. The most challenging thing for me was to keep Rebecca busy and occupied, yet safe at the same time. It was well worth the extra effort. I could tell Rebecca was happy to be included.
Sweeping and dusting are safe and useful tasks. Be sure to remove collectibles and valuables before initiating these activities. You can spend many happy hours looking at magazines with pictures. Ask friends and relatives to save them for you.
Following are some additional suggestions to use with your loved one as you do activities together:
• Plan each day one step at a time.
• Be flexible, if something doesn’t work, go to plan B.
• Accept outside support when it is offered.
• Speak slowly and refrain from asking your loved one
any questions.
• Right now is forever, so enjoy it.
The best way to approach any activity is to simply think how you would like to be treated.
Home Instead Senior Care Austin 512-347-9207
Home Instead Senior Care Austin (512) 347-9207
The Activities that family members plan to do with an aging relative who is living with Dementia, Alzheimer’s, or memory loss, should be for pleasure and success, not training or discipline. The most meaningful activities that a friend or family member can plan for loved ones are those that complement lifetime habits. To design these activities, you need to assess your loved one’s lifestyle activities before Alzheimer’s disease and put them into one of the following two categories:
• Home Chores
Did your loved one pay the bills, cook the meals, organize activities, water the plants, shop, do laundry, build and repair items, do yard work, etc?
• Career Activities
Was your loved one an accountant, secretary, manager, waiter, soldier, tradesperson, volunteer, teacher, academic, CEO, homemaker or banker? Think about the activities the job involved.
Activities should:
• Mirror your loved one’s life experience.
• Honor the need to feel useful and appreciated.
One way to mirror a loved one’s life experience is to create an environment that is similar to one from the past. For example, if he or she had an office at work, you can create a similar space in the current environment. Make it safe by eliminating scissors, staples, letter openers, tacks or matches. Remove important mail to a new location under your control and place nonessential mail in trays for sorting. Ask neighbors and family members to save catalogs for a mail sorting activity.
Items typically found in a garage provide a good sorting activity for men. Provide several boxes or jars for sorting. Your loved one can sort nuts and bolts into jars and boxes. Remove dangerous items and replace them with sanding wood and leather objects to craft. Other things in a garage may also interest women, such as seasonal greeting cards, wrapping paper, ribbons and bows, gift boxes and countless holiday decorations.
Home Instead Senior Care Austin - giving specialty care for memory loss in Austin, Texas. Call us at 512-347-9207.
Memory Loss and Dementia Home Care concerns in Austin - Feelings, Behaviors and Activities
Family members of an aging relative living with Alzheimer’s Disease or Memory loss in Austin, Texas, can find help with Home Instead Senior Care Austin please contact us or call (512)347-9207.
Family members of loved ones who are living with memory loss such as Dementia and Alzheimer’s may better understand the confusion that is part of living with memory loss. It’s difficult to see one’s parents struggle with memory deficiencies but know that it is part of the disease. Here’s a list of what your loved on may be experiencing:
• Want to know who to turn to.
• Want to keep everything in sight.
• Become agitated (because they feel stranded or lost).
• Need constant reassurance.
When you imagine your loved one’s feelings of confusion and fear, it’s easier to understand how those feelings can lead to frustration. What’s more, individuals with Alzheimer’s disease cannot sequence events properly and that, too, makes them feel frustrated or angry. For example, when looking at a plate of food, they may not recognize it, or they may not understand what to eat, or how to use the utensil. The behavior that follows may be to simply sit there, not eat and push the plate away out of frustration.
Not being able to put routine actions in sequence can turn your loved one’s world upside down. Common actions become impossible tasks. The behavior around this maddening circumstance may be to strike out in frustration. Family caregivers are often the recipient of this rage. To understand how this feels, imagine how you would react if you looked in the mirror and didn’t recognize the person staring back.
Paranoia
People with Alzheimer’s disease can become paranoid and show it in the following ways:
• They may feel that someone or something is out to get them.
• They can be accusatory: “Someone is trying to poison me,” believing someone is trying to poison them with food they do not recognize.
• They believe everyone is robbing them.
Paranoia may result in the following:
• Fear of strangers, thinking these people are evil.
• Anger, resulting from not understanding what is happening.
• Agitation that occurs when the person with Alzheimer’s feels fear and anger.
Catastrophic Reactions
A catastrophic reaction is a sudden change in behavior for the worse, due to a person’s inability to process, understand, and cope with input from the environment. Catastrophic reactions can be violent and dangerous to the person with Alzheimer’s disease and to those people who are nearby. If one occurs, it is imperative that you help redirect your loved one to another place or activity. If these reactions persist, you should consult your loved one’s physician regarding medication to manage the behavior.
Creating Meaningful Activities
For a person with Alzheimer’s disease, an activity is anything that occupies time. When time isn’t filled, it can be spent on the creation of new and challenging behaviors. As a family caregiver, you can also benefit from activities in the following ways:
• Increased free time
• Increased quality of time spent together
• A happier loved one
Home Instead Senior Care Austin are here to help family members of an aging relative living with Alzheimer’s Disease or Memory loss in Austin, Texas. Please contact us or call (512)347-9207.
