The Wall Street Journal, 11/29/2007 (page D1)
When John Fowlkes's adult daughter suggested installing an electronic monitoring system in his apartment to oversee his well-being from afar, "I was very skeptical," he says. To Mr. Fowlkes, 86, who has an active social life including an 80-year-old girlfriend, the idea evoked thoughts of Big Brother.
Rest of article here. And here's the video that accompanied the article.
Adults are not the only ones shouldering the responsibilities of caregiving in the
One-third of the young caregivers help with medications, and nearly two-thirds help someone with the day-to-day activities of living, such as getting dressed, eating and going to the bathroom. There are just as many boys as girls providing assistance.
Support groups for these children—many of whom say their roles as caregivers both enrich and stress their lives—has been practically nonexistent. However, Nurse Connie Siskowski, director of a new advocacy group called the American Association of Caregiving Youth, wants to change that. In a report by National Public Radio, she discusses how, as a child, she cared for her grandfather, sometimes giving him medication. She says for many years she even felt partly responsible for his death. With this experience behind her, she says she understands firsthand the importance of providing support to young caregivers. To read more, please go here.
There are an estimated 34 million Americans assisting in the care of an older family member or friend, and an additional 10.6 million helping someone between the ages of 18 and 49, according to the National Alliance for Caregiving. Many of these elderly and/or disabled individuals long to live independently in their own homes, but they are held back by problems of Connectivity, Capacity and Capital.
CMI's SimplyHome system of assistive technology addresses all of these issues. It CONNECTS caregivers to loved ones via web, email, text messaging and two-way voice. Because the technology makes possible connectivity to several caregivers at once, the CAPACITY problem is also resolved.
For an elderly parent, for example, you can share the responsibility of responding to SimplyHome “alerts” with one or more family members, professional caregiver(s), and/or SimplyHome’s 24/7 Central Station. Before responding in person to an indication of trouble, you can use an optional video cam to do a Live Look-In, or see a short video clip of when your care recipient was last active.
Professional caregivers find they can support twice as many residents with the SimplyHome system as without it.
Finally, CMI makes this equipment highly affordable (the CAPITAL issue) as a low-cost monthly rental. You can add or subtract components of the system at any time. If an elderly parent begins to wander due to dementia, you can easily add a small people-tracking device.
Everything CMI offers is easy to install (no holes to drill), and 24/7 technical support is provided. CMI also sells power tools for busy caregivers. For more information, call 828/684-8441, email info@simplyhome-cmi.com or go to www.simplyhome-cmi.com.
A new, in-depth study of the costs of caregiving reveals that Americans spend far more to care for aging parents and spouses than was previously thought, according to an article in the New York Times. The telephone survey of 1,000 individuals, conducted by the National Alliance for Caregiving, was the first to take a detailed look at the many Americans who sacrifice savings, entertainment and even their own healthcare to care for aging family members.
"The out-of-pocket cost of caring for an aging parent or spouse averages about $5,500 a year, according to the nation’s first in-depth study of such expenses, a sum that is more than double previous estimates and more than the average American household spends annually on health care and entertainment combined.
Family members responsible for ailing loved ones provide not only “hands on” care but often reach into their own pockets to pay for many other expenses of care recipients, including groceries, household goods, drugs, medical co-payments and transportation. That nudges the average cost of providing long-distance care to $8,728 a year." To read more, please go here.
A 2006 study on the maturing of
Among the study’s recommendations:
The complete list of recommended practices can be viewed here.
"Homer and Edna Walls raised nine children in Waukesha, Wis. He owned a trucking business. She was a homemaker. Soon after their youngest graduated from high school, they became typical snowbirds, flying to Arizona in winter and returning home in summer.
In the early 1990s, they sold their Wisconsin home and made what they imagined would be a permanent move to an active adult community in Green Valley, in the high desert south of Tucson. They were among the youngest when they arrived. Twelve years later, some friends had died or moved. 'Pretty soon, they were the old ones,' daughter Chris Kronsnoble says. 'There were some health issues.'" To read more, go here.
SimplyHome
A new company called Enurgi has taken its cue from social networks by creating a service network that connects caregivers with patients and facilitates their business transactions online.
The site is premised on the notion that it is currently too difficult for the elderly and disabled to find professionals to care for them (or clinicians to find clients who can benefit from their particular skills). Since Enurgi serves as a tool for both patients and caregivers, it can be viewed from either of two ends.
SimplyHome
The lives of elderly nursing home patients are being put at risk by the actions of acute hospitals, according to the Irish Nursing Homes Organisation.
This follows revelations that an 84-year-old woman, who was diagnosed with Clostridium Difficile, was sent to a nursing home by hospital staff, despite being gravely ill and a serious risk to other patients.
SimplyHome
Unpaid caregivers, usually friends and family members, provide the majority of support for disabled individuals in the United States, grossing the equivalent of $350 billion in free labor last year — more than the total Medicaid or Medicare expenditures in 2005 — according to AARP, a non-profit membership association for those ages 50 and up.
A key benefit of our SimplyHome system is it enables caregivers of seniors and disabled people seeking to live independently to PROVIDE that help efficiently. If, as a caregiver, you have a cell phone, email and web access (who doesn't these days?), then SimplyHome can tether you into the resident's home such that when there's trouble, or the appearance of trouble, you're notified INSTANTLY and can react/respond-- whether you're around the corner or in another state.
And yet, the resident will not find such oversight and monitoring to be onerous or invasive. Our wireless sensors just quietly send data all the time, and alerts when necessary....
Alexis Abramson is the "Lifestyle Gerontologist" for Retirement Living. Often cited as America's leading, impassioned champion for the dignity and independence of those over 60, Alexis Abramson is an inspiring speaker, corporate consultant, successful author and award-winning entrepreneur. Her message of respect for elders, and solutions for barrier-free and independent living in later years, have been featured in many national publications including TIME, Forbes, Wall Street Journal and People magazines.
In addition to the Caregivers Survival Handbook, Abramson is also the author of Home Safety for Seniors, a room-by-room reference and idea-book for making independent senior, and home-bound, living easier. Abramson holds a Master's and a Doctorate degree in Gerontology which she received from the University of Southern California, the country's premier school of Gerontology.
Caring for an aging parent, elderly spouse, domestic partner or close friend presents tough challenges – especially when a crisis hits and the responsibilities of elder care descend upon you suddenly. Perhaps your aging mother has fallen, is hospitalized with a broken hip and needs to go to a rehab facility.
Caregiving can also begin as a result of a series of unsettling mishaps and warning signs that indicate a need for long term care. Perhaps your elderly spouse has wandered off and gotten lost several times. Or a long-time friend has lost a lot of weight and rarely leaves home.
You may be the only person to step in and become the caregiver, or you may be the linchpin of a large network of family members and friends willing to help. Whatever the situation, you are not sure of the next step, or even the first step.
SimplyHome website
SugarStats provides a simple, clean and intuitive interface to track, monitor and access your blood sugar levels and diabetic statistics to spot dangerous trends and better manage your diabetic lifestyle.
With SugarStats you will be able to:
We have an important feature called "Up & About." It works like this:
Retirement Living TV host John Palmer (former anchor and White House correspondent for NBC) moderated a panel at South Carolina's Statewide "Call to Action" Leadership Summit on Aging at the Grand Strand Senior Center in Myrtle Beach, SC on April 27.
The panel included Lt. Governor Bauer and U.S. Assistant Secretary for Aging at the Department of Health and Human Services Josefina Carbonell. Bauer and Carbonell discussed how South Carolina and the Federal Government are responding to the growing needs of seniors in America.
RLTV recorded this important community event on April 27, 2007 for broadcast in June 2007.
Few people understand the challenges faced by the District's disabled residents the way Judith E. Heumann does. She knows the impact of a broken elevator at a Metro station -- and the frustration of being told she cannot do something she wants to do.
Heumann, who appeared at a confirmation hearing this week before the D.C. Council, is slated to become director of the D.C. Department of Disability Services -- a new agency with a legacy of problems. If confirmed to the job July 10, she will bring the savvy and vision of a lifelong advocate who fiercely believes that people with disabilities should live and work as independently as possible.
Some 500,000 Americans use the medical alert service called Lifeline. When you need help you press a button and it connects you with a Lifeline monitor who is supposed to get you the help you need.
But Christine Talley's family says that lifeline cost her her life.
When the time came for Alice and Robert Demmler to leave Maiden Bridge Apartments, they knew exactly where their next home would be.
His aunt and uncle and her mother and sister had all spent several years at Asbury Heights in Mt. Lebanon, a continuing care community operated by United Methodist Services for the Aging. Why take a chance on anyplace else?
Last year, the couple made the move into a two-bedroom apartment on the 27-acre campus. Avid travelers, they particularly enjoy the fact that they can pack up at anytime and go.
"And I have a huge kitchen," says Mrs. Demmler. "The biggest I've ever had."
Their eagerness to move makes the Demmlers somewhat atypical. According to 2000 AARP survey, an overwhelming majority of older Americans want to remain in their own homes for as long as possible.But when they do move, they don't go far. Three-quarters of people age 55 and older who move each year stay in the same state, according to the 2000 Census. Half remain in the same county.
SimplyHome website
So the decision last year to downsize to a two-bedroom apartment at a retirement community in Butler County was a very difficult one.
"That was home," says Mr. Sunderman, a retired business manager. "It was the longest we lived in any one place in 54 years of marriage."
Now in their late 70s, the couple had reached the point where mowing the lawn and washing the house's 29 windows was just too big a chore. Adding to their stress level was a health scare in 2004 that started them thinking about what might happen if one of them got sick.
I saw some statistics the other day that said that roughly 86% of Americans want to stay in their homes as long as they possibly can. Here’s the challenge with that desire: Nearly 99% of the homes are not designed to do that. The opportunity in all of this is to start thinking now about the adaptations that need to be made to allow you to age gracefully in front of the 60 inch liquid plasma TV with the Dolby sound system throbbing around you. The alternative to this planning is that if you want to stay in your home and decide not to plan, your dining room needs to be big enough to accommodate a hospital bed and the home theatre has to have a Porta-Potty in it. Here are some suggestions:
You can definitely age in place. The trick here is to have a place that's suitible for aging.
A "SMART" apartment that uses cutting-edge technology to assist vulnerable, elderly people opens its doors tomorrow.
The flat, at The Rowans sheltered scheme in Tyldesley, has built-in sensors that can detect and give an early warning of when tenants might be at risk. The sensors raise an alarm with a back-up team, allowing them to send help more quickly.
Conceptually, what's described in this article is what you get with our SimplyHome system. At a fraction of the price of this UK technology.
According to the 1997 National Nursing Home Survey, there were 1,465,000 residents age 65 and older in nursing homes (about 4.3% of the US population age 65 and older in 1997). Nearly three-fourths of these residents were women, and about one-half were age 85 and older.
In 1997, about 75% of all nursing home residents 65 and older required assistance in three or more activities of daily living, including bathing, dressing, eating, transferring from bed to chair, and using the toilet. About 42% of nursing home residents were diagnosed with dementia, and 12% had other psychiatric conditions, such as schizophrenia and mood disorders.
Lengths of stay in nursing homes vary widely and can be measured in different ways. Many people enter for brief stays; in 1997, 67% of people who left nursing homes had stayed for three months or fewer. However, the same data show that, of all those currently living in a nursing home in 1997, only 18% had been there fewer than three months (see Figure 1).
May 16, 2007 -
Medicare Advantage Marketing & Sales: Who Has The Advantage?
Senator Herb Kohl (D-WI) will chair a hearing titled "Medicare Advantage Marketing & Sales: Who Has The Advantage?" on Wednesday, May 16, 2007 at 10:30 a.m. in Dirksen 106.
I was walking through the mall the other day in
It struck me as odd that as a member of a consumer group that allegedly holds 70% of the liquid wealth in the country, purchases 40% of the second homes, makes up 60% of the tithing of most denominations and keeps 90% of the United Way and Red Cross organizations functioning that the only thing that really acknowledges that I’m valuable is that the Cheesecake Factory is really delighted when I come in. They are always happy in the
Here’s what’s really going on: From the mall to housing to medicine to restaurants there is still not a commercial acknowledgement that we are changing as a society. It’s not that aging makes everything over, it just makes it different. My sense is that the great fortunes of the world are going to be made in the businesses that get this and capitalize on it. I don’t think we have to make age the focus…we just have to make it a consideration.
The first consideration as Boomers we can make is to consider how our Parents would like to be talked to and treated as a generation. Take a look at YouTube and its clip by The Zimmers “My Generation”. In addition to being entertaining it’s how your parents look now and how we’ll all look in about 20 or so years. National Parent Care Day (www.parentcaresolution.com) is another way to honor them. Just talking with them would be a start.
The real focus here is to not allow our parents or us as we age to be turned into some sort of objects in the room that are talked about in the third person even though we are there.. Part of the mall experience that I described above is a subtle step toward that type of marginalization. The message is that you become less and less significant as you age except for the money you can supply. In fact, it’s not even important that you spend it…just let your children be the agents for dispensation.
The mall would love it if you just sent the money. They wouldn’t have to have so many benches for people to rest on.
I love Dr. Frank Luntz new book, Words that Work (Hyperion Books 2007). In his book, Dr. Luntz talks about the way words are used to influence and motivate and the way they are used to connect thought and emotion. He talks about how to use the right words for the situation and how to choose the right words for the effect that one wants to create. If only Dr. Luntz had been in my grade school I think I could’ve skipped a lot of the “See Spot Run” stuff and gotten directly to telling Spot to stop creating spots on the floor for me to clean up.
As I read through the book I couldn’t help but think how the entire vocabulary of talking to people as they age has the collective aroma of formaldehyde and death. “
I think we should strike Geriatric from the dictionary. First of all, it sounds like some sort of insect that lives in the jungle or minimally, makes food rot when it gets near it. As much as I love the people who call themselves Geriatric Case Workers and Gerontologists I certainly don’t want to meet one or even have them over for dinner. I just can’t imagine being enthused as an older person by knowing that a Geriatric Case Worker is coming over this afternoon so a Gerontologist can assess what Special Care Center I would work best in.
Here’s the problem with this language: the language turns the older person into an object to be studied, evaluated, classified, catalogued and eventually filed away in a home somewhere. We wouldn’t even attempt this type of strategy with a young person graduating from college, an early 30’s professional, or a mature mid-level executive. All of the language used to describe those folks is really about their future. All of the language used to describe older folks is about their future as well…except the language just makes the future feel dismal and depressing. Language creates culture and the language we use for aging creates a fatalistic culture.
Why don’t we come up with some new words? As Boomers we could practice on our parents and embrace them fully as we age.
I’d rather have my Second Stage Life Strategist over for dinner than my Gerontologist anyway.
As I talk with folks around the country about their parents and how to help them as they age, one of the most common laments is that whenever they attempt to bring the subject of aging and care up, the parents either shut down completely or create a diversion. To tell the truth, I can't blame the parents for doing either. Most of the conversations begin with either assumptions or intrusions. Questions like "Have you considered a nursing home?" or the ever popular "Let's talk about selling this house before it gets to be too much." are really violations of the autonomy and freedom your parents are trying to hold on to.
Instead of trying to get your parents to agree to a DEFAULT position that you've created based on what YOU think is best for them why don't you let them DESIGN a situation that's best for THEM? It would make for a much less stressful situation and certainly one that's more interesting. But how, exactly, do you go about doing this?
Understand that some parents will never talk about this subject. Maybe those folks are your folks. If that is the case, get your name off everything that will make you legally accountable or responsible for them when they can't take care of themselves. If you don't you will have the mess of a lifetime to contend with. If they will talk about it, use the approach that we have created in The Parent Care Solution...The Six Conversations using the acronym C.A.R.E. The C is for Challenges, the A is for Alternatives, the R is for resources and the E. is for experience. Using this structure throughout the Six Conversations allows your parents to have complete control over the way their aging future looks. Your biggest job is to just listen and then see if you can help them implement it.
Here's why C.A.R.E works. Americans as a whole are stimulated by Challenges. Challenges bring out the best in us as a people. Parents are no exceptions. We always want to know what our Alternatives or options are for any challnge we face. As a people, we like options and are used to them. We have virtually unlimited Resources to face almost any situation and if we don't have them, we know someone who does. Finally, we want to completely design the Experience we have around most everything. Our long term care is no exception.
Try the C.A.R.E. approach if what you are doing isn't working. This just might do the trick.
