The Process of Long Term Care Planning by Thomas Day

The Seven Steps of the Planning Process

Understanding the natural progression of long-term care and the resources available to help can be an invaluable asset to a family or spouse who are currently providing care or someday in the future, may eventually have to provide help for a loved one. We call this process long term care planning. It involves:

Understanding the Process of Planning

Understanding Care Settings

Understanding Government Long-Term Care Programs

Knowing Who to Contact for Help

Creating Sources of Funding to Pay for Services

Using Strategies to Preserve Assets

Creating a Long Term Care Plan

Holidays are approaching.. are you grappling with gift ideas for the senior in your life. Let us help you with that! We found several articles that you might want to check out before going to the mall.

Some ideas “Gifts for Seniors” mentioned here are:

• Blankets, robes, slippers
• Personal items; hand & body lotions, shower & bath gels, scented candles
• Gift certificates for gas, restaurants, or super markets
• Books & magazine subscriptions
• Towels, Wash cloths
• Read the full article

Another good article offering senior gift ideas – Christmas Gift Ideas 

It suggests:

• Offer to clean their house once a week or help them to maintain their yard. 
• Do you have a child in your household who always needs extra money? Is the child old enough to wash dishes? Discuss the idea with the elderly and the child - You pay the child.
• Do you love to bake or cook? Bake a cake, pie or prepare a meal for the person.
• Give a gift basket filled with bath supplies.
• Give food baskets filled with anything from cookies, candies, meats, breads, wines, and crackers and cheeses and everything in between.

Great gift ideas for your elderly loved one at Christmas!

Family Caregiving Skills 

-Educate yourself regarding your loved one’s illness and/or disability.

-Communicate efficiently and succinctly with healthcare professionals.

-Recognize you are a healthcare consumer deserving quality healthcare.

-Embrace your importance as a member of the healthcare team.

-Always provide input and ask as many questions as needed.

-Pick your battles; don’t sweat the small stuff. Identify inconsequential matters and focus your attention elsewhere

-Be an advocate—speak up. The squeaky wheel usually gets the grease.

With a major role change such as the one associated with becoming a family caregiver, emotions can and will run the gamut. There are in fact five stages of grief that are widely accepted in the scientific community to occur as denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance. Living and coping through each of these stages composes the learning framework for us to be able to adjust to witnessing someone we love fall victim to a debilitating illness.

Expert Home Care helps keep seniors and elders at home – safely & independently. Call us to find out how at (800) 848-2336.”Part of the problem with many individuals selling anti-aging medicines to the public is that they’re suggesting that because they can modify the risk of a particular disease they’re altering the aging process itself,” says Olshansky, senior research associate at the Center on Aging at the

University of Chicago and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

But the key to a longer life is more than just evading diseases, researchers say. Until that mystery is unlocked, any anti-aging medication promising long life in a bottle or pill can deliver only that promises.

Hopeful Anti-Aging Research 
Researchers are a long way from creating a pill that can help you live a longer and healthier life, but they’re making progress.

“The hope is that we now have animal experimental systems in which aging really can be slowed and experiments that can get at the basic biology of aging and how it’s related to diseases,” says Richard Miller, MD, PhD, associate director for research at the University of Michigan’s geriatrics center. “Although we don’t know how those experiments will come out, and we don’t know what the answers are, we now have some really exciting things from which answers can reasonably be expected to emerge.”

Expert Home Care helps keep seniors and elders at home – safely & independently. Call us to find out how at (800) 848-2336.

Is aging a process or disease we should attempt to stop? Researchers at a recent conference cohosted by the American Federation for Aging Research and The Gerontological Society of America advocate delaying the aging process, according to WebMD Medical News.

Researchers say that rather than hunting for ways to transform older people into younger versions of themselves, we should focus our efforts on enhancing health and vigor and reducing frailty and disability at all ages.

“What we should be pursuing is a way to slow down the biological process of aging rather than stop it. Delaying is the operative word, stopping or reversing should not be in our vocabulary,” says S. Jay Olshansky, PhD, professor of public health at the University of Illinois.

“If we succeeded in delaying aging, the bonus would likely be an extension of life,” Olshansky adds, “but more importantly, in my view, dramatic reductions in health care costs and improvements in public health at all ages.”

Major Concerns Over Aging

Each year Americans spend more than $1 billion on anti-aging cosmetics alone, according to WebMD. And the demand for anti-aging treatments, such as human growth hormone injections, vitamin and mineral supplements, and other types of hormone therapy is rapidly growing.

Visit us in a day to learn how to slow down aging in New Jersey.

American’s lack of financial planning for the future also extends to long-term care insurance. More than half of Americans will need long-term care during their lives. But only seven percent of seniors own private insurance that could help them pay for this type of care, says the Journal of Financial Planning.

Long-term care is simply the help people need when a serious illness, injury or disability makes them physically unable to care for themselves. It can be expensive, with the cost for a year’s nursing home stay averaging $44,000 and adult day care typically $50 a day.

Medicare and Medicaid don’t cover many types of long-term care. And most people can’t afford to pay for it out-of-pocket. Consequently, family members are often left with the burden of providing care. Nearly half of adults age 50 or older provide some care to a family member or loved one, according to AARP’s “The State of 50-Plus America, 2004″. And 31 percent of caregivers quit work to care for an older person with a severe impairment, forfeiting thousands of dollars annually in wages and health benefits.

In North America today, it is very common for children to provide full time care to their aging parents, often within their own homes. Adjusting to the arrival of a parent into a home can be both rewarding and burdening, and it is important that the caregiver receives both emotional and physical support from the rest of his/her family.

Unfortunately, caregiving for a parent is a situation that can often be a source of tension for siblings. It can be difficult for families to agree on the best methods of care, and is not uncommon for non caregiving family members to feel left out. In order to make the adjustment easier on the parent and caregiver, it’s crucial that non active siblings leave the major decisions to the caregiver while still being there for support. Siblings should respect decisions made by the caregiver and keep in mind the sacrifices that he/she has had to make in order to care for mom or dad.

Families need to stick together to provide for the well-being of their family unit, and maintain a peaceful and happy environment for their elder members.

To make sure that both you and your elder loved one are safe, here are some important tips:

• Keep a glass of water in every room for quick access.  Drink plenty of fluids, even if you don’t feel thirsty.
• Dress in light-weight clothing.  Remove all heavy materials, long sleeves and dark colors from closets. 
• Stay out of the sun during the hottest times of the day.  Sunburn makes heat dissipation more difficult.
• Take a nap during high heat times or find a good television program or movie to watch.
• Keep shades down and blinds pulled. 

Most people know that extreme heat can make us sick. But we may think of heat-related illness as something that only affects people who are overdoing it like overheated marathon runners, professional athletes, or new recruits doing drills on military bases.

But most people who die from heat stroke in the U.S. about 400 every year, and possibly more don’t get it from overexerting themselves on a muggy day. In certain people during high temperatures, it’s all too easy to develop heat stroke while sitting perfectly still on the couch.

Heat stroke occurs when the body is unable to regulate its temperature. The body’s temperature rises rapidly, the sweating mechanism fails, and the body is unable to cool down.

Read the full article: Hot Summer Days Can Make Sick People Sicker.

Call Expert Home Care NJ if your elder needs Home Health Care in New Jersey at 800-848-2336.