Tag Archives: NJ

Help for Family Caregivers

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Empowerment for Family Caregivers

What does it mean to become empowered? NFCA defines empowerment as a sense of confidence in your ability to bring about positive changes in your circumstances and to rise above the day to day challenges you face in your caregiver journey. It’s the optimism we strive for to take a positive approach in an effort to achieve a better quality of life for ourselves and our family. Sometimes it is the tiny changes we make in our lives which can have the most profound impact towards a much healthier and positive outlook.

Four Principles to Live By Include:

Believe in yourself and take charge of your life.
Protect your health
Reach out for help
Speak up for yourself and stand up for your rights

New Jersey’s Expert Home Care for Elders and Seniors provides care for your aging loved ones since 1984. Please call us when your loved one needs help – 800-848-2336.

Elderly Drivers Gives Up the Keys

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New Jersey’s Expert Home Care for Elders and Seniors provides care for your aging loved ones since 1984. Please call us when your loved one needs help – 800-848-2336.

Without wheels

“Many people can drive safely through their later years. As a group, older drivers are typically safe drivers. Drivers age 64 and older represent 14 percent of the driving population but just 8 percent of vehicular accidents,“ says Maureen Mohyde, director of Corporate Gerontology at The Hartford, and co-author of “We Need to Talk: Family Conversations with Older Drivers.”

About two-thirds of older drivers self-regulate or voluntarily restrict their driving to avoid night driving, slippery road conditions, rush hour or other difficult driving conditions, she adds.

As a concerned family member, relative or friend, it’s good to be proactive. There are positive things you can do to reduce driving risks and auto fatalities. The first step is to start talking about the subject before it becomes an issue.

You can broach the subject a number of ways. Talk about heavy traffic or road construction. Bring up news reports of an auto accident or announcement of a new senior transportation service. Deteriorating health, new medications or a recent fender-bender clearly mean it’s time to talk.

For help getting started, check out the free 24-page “ We Need to Talk: Family Conversations with Older Drivers,” produced by The Hartford in cooperation with the MIT Age Lab. The guide and video are available at: http://www.thehartford.com/talkwitholderdrivers/.

Key to any decision-making is driving  frequently enough with your elderly parent, relative, friend or client to know if they should still get behind the wheel. Some problems to watch for include: riding the break, hitting curbs, failure to stop at stop signs, running a red light, getting lost or confusing the gas and break pedals.

Finally, start investigating the options so that you can come to the table with transportation alternatives. Family members, friends, public transportation, taxis, senior services programs, non-profit organizations and churches offer a variety of ways to get around.

Most important of all, when it’s time to stop driving, be sure to let your loved one know they are only giving up their keys, not their lives.

Muscle-toning, Cardio, and Flexibility for Senior Fitness

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New Jersey’s Expert Home Care for Elders and Seniors provides care for your aging loved ones since 1984. Please call us when your loved one needs help – 800-848-2336.

Gardening has wonderful benefits for the muscles.  When carrying bags of soil, flats of flowers, or tools, make sure that they’re not too heavy for you.  Lift things in separate shifts if need be, but carrying the right amount of weight at a time is great for bone density and muscle toning.

Keeping up a garden also requires walking, digging, and planting.  All of these actions promote cardiovascular health by slightly elevating the heart rate and deepening the breath.  This improves circulation, lung capacity, and overall health.  Again, only do as much as feels comfortable and invigorating.

Swatting, kneeling, turning and twisting are great for your joints.  When it comes to flexibility, you really need to use it or lose it.  While gardening, focus on the subtle movements, and how the various actions are keeping your muscles and joints alive and well.

Gardening can also be great for you emotional health as well as physical health.  Relax and take deep breaths while gardening.  Admire all the colors and scents, have picnics in your garden, or maybe your first cup of coffee in the morning.  There’s no greater fulfillment than admiring the natural beauty around you that has been nurtured by your own hard work.

New Jersey Elder Care Planning

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New Jersey’s Expert Home Care for Elders and Seniors provides care for your aging loved ones since 1984. Please call us when your loved one needs help – 800-848-2336.

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

New Jersey Elder Wealth Transition

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New Jersey’s Expert Home Care for Elders and Seniors provides care for your aging loved ones since 1984. Please call us when your loved one needs help – 800-848-2336.

Five Steps to a Successful Transition of Family Wealth and Values

Roy Williams and Vic Preisser. Preparing Heirs: Five Steps to a Successful Transition of Family Wealth and Values. Robert D. Reed Publishers, San Francisco, CA. 2003.

If you have worked hard to accumulate wealth, you probably want to make sure your heirs don’t lose control of it. Preparing Heirs gives families the tools to successfully transfer wealth from one generation to the next.

The authors, both of whom are family coaches with many years of experience counseling wealthy families, interviewed thousands of families and discovered that 70 percent of wealth transfers fail. Preparing Heirs explains the techniques that worked for the 30 percent of families that successfully “transitioned” wealth.

According to the authors, the key to a successful transition of wealth is family involvement. “The most important single issue that undermines successful transfers of wealth is the breakdown of trust and communications within the family unit,” they write. Using handy checklists, Preparing Heirs discusses how to assess a wealth transition plan, how to fix deficiencies in the plan, how to prepare heirs, and how heirs can prepare themselves.

For mid-size and large estates, this book offers valuable advice on successfully transferring wealth to the next generation and beyond.

New Jersey Caregiving for Elderly Relatives

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New Jersey’s Expert Home Care for Elders and Seniors provides care for your aging loved ones since 1984. Please call us when your loved one needs help – 800-848-2336.

Just a few years ago, workers were likely to need time away from work for parent-teacher conferences, running kids to medical appointments, and staying home to nurse sick children.

Today, workers are more likely to miss work because of the needs of their parents. “Elder care has begun to rival child care as a workplace issue, and companies have started to realize that such support props up not just workers but also the bottom line,” according to the Dallas Morning News.

The National Alliance for Caregiving estimates that one in six American workers cares for an older relative. Caregiving usually adds 18 hours to the 40 hours most workers clock at the office. That means that those workers are working a job-and-a-half. Some companies are now hiring geriatric care managers as resources for employees bewildered by the demands of parents who are no longer capable of living independently. Estimates are that one in five caregivers quits or looks for a less demanding job. And that makes businesses’ responsiveness to employees’ caregiving needs more than a nice thing to do; it makes it an essential thing to do.

 

Tips to Build Strong Family Bonds for Caregivers

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Reinforcing Family Bonds

Caregiving responsibilities can get in the way of family relationships because new roles are formed; stresses may cause strain in family and bonds between caregivers and their care recipients may feel clinical. Whether it is a spouse providing care for their elder partner or an adult child providing care for a parent, families need to make the effort to maintain ties that do not relate to care duties.

The following methods will help caregivers maintain strong bonds with their care recipients that stem beyond their responsibilities as a provider.

• Sit down and look over family photos and reminisce about past memories
• Get together with other members of the family regularly
• Make time for activities that you once enjoyed together
• Discuss your relationship regularly, and do not hesitate to voice any concerns
• Continue to offer your care recipient as much independence as possible, you are there to help them with their care, but don’t want to make them feel like you are interfering in their life
• Maintain intimacy with your spouse or partner
• Don’t remain in a relationship that has survived out of obligation
• If the care structure is creating too much tension, step back and allow another relative, friend, or professional to take over
Source: http://arthritis.about.com/cs/sex/a/sicknesshealth.htm

Elder Abuse

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What can you do to save a life?

The National Center on Elder Abuse (NCEA) reported that some half a million seniors nationwide were abused in 1996.¹ That estimate confirmed a long-held theory of the aging research community that reported cases are only the “tip of the iceberg,” and for every reported incident of elder abuse, approximately five go unreported.

Fast forward a few years and a 2005 NCEA fact sheet states: “No one knows precisely how many older Americans are being abused, neglected, or exploited … there are no official national statistics. According to the best available estimates between 1 and 2 million Americans age 65 or older have been injured, exploited, or otherwise mistreated by someone on whom they depended for care or protection.” ²

The National Committee for the Prevention of Elder Abuse (NCPEA) defines elder abuse as: Any form of mistreatment that results in harm or loss to an older person. They use the following abuse categories: physical, sexual, psychological, financial, neglect and self-neglect. Because older victims usually have fewer support systems and reserves — physical, psychological, and economic — the impact of abuse and neglect is magnified, often causing a downward spiral of lost independence, serious illness and even death.

So why is it so difficult to track and prevent elder abuse? Chayo Reyes, a retired LAPD detective, instructor for the California Department of Justice, and proprietor of Elder Financial Protective Services, says that many elder crimes are not recorded or researched adequately. This is because the criminal is perceived as having “legal control” over the victim’s estate. Reyes adds, “Crimes against elders are not categorized as such, but more likely recorded as burglaries or domestic violence, and so statistics are lost in the system.”

Most seniors are healthy, active, and alert. Yet, over time, some seniors may experience diminished physical and mental capacities, and may do their best to disguise these losses. Taken together, such characteristics make many seniors vulnerable to miscommunication, misunderstanding, and worse, to being taken advantage of. The fact that seniors, aged 50 and over, control 70 percent of the nation’s wealth makes them a prime target for theft.

So how can you be aware and actively prevent elder abuse? Gerontologist Marion Somers, Ph.D. says there are signs of changes we should look for, such as:

    * Weight: Have they gained or lost weight?
    * Attire: Has their appearance changed; are they taking less care of themselves, and no longer neat or tidy?
    * Personal hygiene: Are they not bathing? Is their hair not clean or combed?
    * Social Interaction: Are they not as social, ignoring the telephone, withdrawn?
    * Voice: Has the tone or clarity of their voice changed?

To learn more about elder abuse — the signs and solutions — the NCPEA recommends that professionals working with, and families caring for elders, watch “Saving Our Parents,” a new and exciting documentary. Winner of the 16th Annual Mature Media Awards Educational & Training Video Program, the film is the collaborative effort of numerous experts and professionals. Divided into easily viewable segments, it contains interviews of victimized families, expertise from various professional fields and inspirational advice and tips. Visit www.savingourparents.com to view clips. Segments include:

    * Predatory caregivers and crooked conservators
    * Financial scam artists
    * Neglectful nursing homes
    * Generations living together
    * The importance of hiring a geriatric care manager
    * Dangerous hoarding disorders that pose health risks
    * Alzheimer’s: Former president Ronald Reagan and his son, Michael’s, transformational experience
    * Tips from elder abuse attorney

¹ 1998 National Elder Abuse Incidence Study (NEAIS)
² Elder Mistreatment: Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation in an Aging America. 2003. Washington, DC: National Research Council Panel to Review and Prevalence of Elder Abuse and Neglect.

Gillian White, Staff Writer
Delphi Health Products, Inc.

5 Questions to Ask Your Financial Planner

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1. How have my investments actually performed? It’s scary to watch the Dow drop by more than 700 points in one day. But how does that compare with your own investments? “To some extent, everyone is seeing market losses right now,” says John Gannon, senior vice president of investor education for the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). “But it’s really an important time to open your account statements and take a look at them and benchmark your performance.”

Ask your financial adviser to compare the performance of your investments to relevant indexes or to other funds with similar investing strategies — focusing on the past few months and years, not the day-to-day gyrations.

Also ask about the performance of your overall portfolio, focusing on the past one, three and five years. “I really feel that no financial-planning client or investment advisory client should be doing as badly as the markets; that is, if the broad market is down 25%, then they should be down no more than 20% and probably less,” says Bob Veres, publisher of Inside Information, a well-respected newsletter for financial planners.

2. How do my investments match my time frame and goals? One of the biggest benefits of working with a financial planner is that he or she should pick investments within the context of your overall financial plan — dividing your savings into several sections and selecting the investments for each based on your time frame and goals.

And ask about the adviser’s strategy for meeting your medium-term goals.

3. What adjustments are you making because of this market? “A good adviser will have put a plan in place that expects horrible times in the markets,” says Daniel Moisand, a certified financial planner in Melbourne, Fla., and chairman of the Certified Financial Planner Board’s disciplinary and ethics commission.

The adviser shouldn’t make rash decisions during a market downturn, especially if you’ve been well-diversified and your investments match your time frame and goals. “Any adviser who says you should sell everything during the capitulation period of a bear market is not somebody I would want to work with,” Veres says.

4. How much am I paying for guarantees? Some “advisers” may offer to eliminate future worries by selling a product promising big guarantees. “I would be highly skeptical of any product pitches that purport to have severed the relationship between risk and reward,” says Moisand.

5. How do you plan to keep me updated and answer questions? You can learn a lot about your financial planner during this crisis — not just how he or she manages your investments, but how well the adviser explains the situation and what action you should take, answers your questions and makes you feel more comfortable. “This is probably the time when you need your financial professional more than at any other time,” says Gannon.

And your adviser should be giving you the attention you deserve now.

If you haven’t been satisfied with your planner’s performance, see In Search of Good Advice for help finding a new one.

http://kiplinger.com/columns/ask/archive/2008/q1027.htm

Exercise Slows Alzheimer’s Disease

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Use it or lose it? 

Exercising the body helps the brain. That’s the conclusion of a new study that reviewed the effects of exercise on brain functioning in humans and animals.

Based on a wide-ranging review of existing studies, researchers found a significant relationship between physical activity and later cognitive function and decreased occurrence of dementia. Better yet, the evidence suggests that the benefits may last several decades.

Studies of persons over age 65 found that those who exercised for at least 15-30 minutes at a time three times a week were less likely to develop Alzheimer’s Disease, even if they were genetically predisposed to the disease.

The exercise doesn’t have to be strenuous. One study of 62- to 70-year-olds who continued to work and retirees who moderately exercised, showed they had higher sustained levels of cerebral blood flow and superior performance on general measures of cognition as compared to the group of inactive retirees.

The review covered 40 years of research.