Tag Archives: seniors

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.

New Jersey Help for Seniors

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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.

A recent report in AARP’s Bulletin Today by Sid Kirchheimer, author of “Scam-Proof Your Life” (AARP 2006), says that with a tough economy more Americans are looking for new ways to bring home the bacon — often by working from home. But far too many fall victim to scams. According to Kirchheimer, the Internet has proved to be a great recruiting tool for work-at-home prospects, allowing scammers to hide their identities and post phony “testimonials.”

An October 2007 report by the Federal Trade Commission says that about 2.5 million Americans — nearly 1 percent of the entire population — fall for work-at-home scams each year, and many are repeat victims.

Here are two of the most common work-at-home scams:

    * “Bait-and-switch” schemes require up-front payment for materials. Victims may pay an initial cost and then not receive the promised supplies, instructions, or “client” leads; or they may receive some goods but then must shell out more for the “complete package.”
    * “Check-forwarding” scams occur when victims receive a check for promised or completed work only to be asked to wire a portion of it back to the scammer. The received check inevitably proves to be counterfeit, and banks hold victims responsible; victims may also face check-fraud charges.

For more information on preventing these scams, go to http://www.ftc.gov/bizopps.

Nutrition for Seniors

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You Are What You Eat – By Senior Daily Living

Our eating changes as we age. When we’re young, we gravitate towards foods that are fun, fast, and satisfying. Our lives are hectic, our pocketbooks are light, and our stomachs are never satisfied. You grab some hot wings when drinking at a bar with friends, you reach for pizza on your lunch break, and you indulge in your banan walnut muffin the morning. We often don’t think twice about these choices when we’re healthy and have our whole lives ahead of us.

However, when we age and our bodies become ill or just more susceptible to illness, it’s necessary to create a different relationship to food and our bodies.

The concept of “health food” can be a confusing one. Everyone seems to have a different notion about what foods heal and promote life, and which foods do not. But the answer could be as simple as getting the facts, and experimenting with your own body to find what’s satisfying, nourishing, and creates your own personal state of well-being.

7 Tips on Keeping the Weight Off

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While there are many ways to successfully lose weight, most people regain it over time. Ongoing research is now giving us insights into how to keep the weight off.

The National Weight Control Registry makes these suggestions:

* Keep eating fewer calories.

* Eat a healthy breakfast.

* Exercise regularly. More than 90 percent of people who’ve kept the weight off use physical activity as part of their weight-control program.

* Weigh yourself daily. If your weight begins to creep up, make a plan to get back on track.

* Beware the fast food. If you do eat fast food, eat it less than once a week. Do not eat out more than three times a week, at any type of restaurant.

* Don’t be a couch potato. Successful weight losers watch less than ten hours of TV per week — much less than average. Try to exercise instead of eating while you watch.

* Be consistent. Those who “go off their diet” on weekends, vacations, or holidays have a harder time keeping the weight off.

http://www.everydayhealth.com/publicsite/index.aspx?puid=dc54f5d2-47ca-473b-aea1-c787005f3004&p=19&xid=nl_EverydayHealthHealthyLiving_20080920

New Jersey Seniors Connect with Friends at Holidays

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For the 27th consecutive year, Merrill Lynch (NYSE:MER) today welcomed senior citizens to its offices in New York City for free use of the firm’s telephones to call friends and family across the world. In addition, earlier in December, the firm opened offices in many cities across the United States and overseas to enable senior citizens to make similar calls.

Christmas Calls Program Brings Holiday Cheer Worldwide  
Created in 1980, the Merrill Lynch Christmas Calls Program is a company-wide initiative that has reached more than 270,000 senior citizens globally since inception. “The Christmas Calls Program always has been a favorite event of my family, and a tradition at Merrill Lynch in the United States and abroad,” said John McDermott, senior vice president, corporate audit and compliance, and 2006 Christmas Calls Program chairman. “It is a joyous event for employees and other volunteers who take time from their holiday celebrations to support thousands of seniors.”

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Focus on Seniors

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Expert Home Care is proud to announce that its first show date for its new radio show called “Focus on Seniors” will be airing on June 3rd at 5pm Eastern time on WSradio.com

We will be on the air every other week on Tuesdays starting from this date.

We will be discussing the topics that relate to todays seniors and their families from many different angles.

If you have any specific topics that you would like us to discuss, please let us know.

Tune in at the time or listen from the archives on the site.