Go Grandma Go!

A little happy as we kick of this spring break week!

This grandma is cute as pie!

Upcoming CAREGiver Webinar

The Home Instead Senior Care® network's 2013 Family Caregiver Support Web Seminar Series features free monthly seminars for senior care professionals on a variety of topics that can help set them apart as experts in their field.

The Home Instead Senior Care network is offering free continuing education credits (CEUs) in conjunction with the web series, which addresses senior resistance to care and features relevant issues such as sibling communication, seniors and nutrition, navigating the senior care maze, and seniors and cognitive issues. The program has been adapted for CEU accreditation in cooperation with the American Society on Aging (ASA). CEUs are available for 60 days following the live event. The CEU courses, which began in 2010, are offered compliments of the Home Instead Senior Care network so there is no cost for the CEU.

Understanding Diabetes in Older Adults
10 AM Pacific / 11 AM Mountain / 12 PM Central / 1 PM Eastern / 2 PM Atlantic (ADT)

• Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Register here!

Diabetes affects millions of Americans, and this webinar will detail some of the risk factors, as well as how to prevent or delay the onset of the disease. Tips on how to manage diabetes so that you, or your loved one, can live a normal, active lifestyle and avoid complications will also be covered.

Participants in this web seminar will be able to:

• List four symptoms and warning signs of diabetes in older adults
• Identify six complications commonly associated with diabetes
• Describe five ways diabetes can be managed

Presenters:

Dr. Amy D'Aprix is the Executive Director of the DAI Foundation, a nonprofit organization established to meet the needs of caregivers. She is also President of Dr. Amy Inc., a company dedicated to Family Caregiver Wellness by providing access to information and education, services, support with emotional and family issues, and legal and financial support. She holds a PhD and Masters in Social Work, specializing in Gerontology, and earned her CSA (Certified Senior Advisor) - a designation for which she also trains others, as part of their accreditation.

Mary Alexander, Director of Strategic Alliances with Home Instead Senior Care corporation, actively manages strategic partnerships with companies, associations and organizations whose products, services and programs help franchise owners grow their businesses. She and her team’s focus include long-term care insurance companies, hospitals, health care organizations, work/life balance opportunities and senior industry leaders.

Caring Cards

These questions are great! Our Marketing Director took them to a group at an Independent Living Facility. This group is really independent and took the cards to a place where they volunteer with other seniors. They used them as a game which turned out to be a very fun day for everyone!

Here are some for you to use:
1) What were some of your favorite subjects at school?
2) What newspapers and magazines did you like to read when you were younger?
3) What were your nicknames growing up?
4) What are some of the funniest things your children said to you when they were young?

Caring Cards

More questions to help you get some great conversations started:

1) What do you think contributes most to a happy marriage?

2) How does the world feel different today compared to when you were a child?

3) Where did you go to school?

4) Who are some of your all-time favorite singers?

5) Tell me about your parents. 

Caring Cards - getting the conversation started

Kathie Nitz - Her story

"I was inspired to create these cards as a way to connect with my mom. As her caregiver, I could see she was increasingly having difficulty remembering day-to-day activities and depending on me to generate our conversations.
Caring Cards enabled me to easily gain access to her wisdom and stories she was delighted to share. We've spent many hours chatting, laughing and learning a lot about each other.
Now it's your turn. My hope is that Caring Cards will generate interesting conversations and create memorable moments for you, too. Enjoy!"

WAYS TO USE CARING CARDS:
You feel great when you see a senior's eyes light up as you unlock a long-forgotten, enjoyable memory. With Caring Cards, you can help this happen every day!
Use caring cards to start a conversation:

• During mealtimes.
• Over morning coffee.
• While helping others with daily tasks.
• When traveling together.

Here is a few to get you started:

1) What world events had the most impact on you while you were growing up?

2) What food or drink was a special treat when you were a child?

3) What clothing was popular when you were a young adult?

Being Green

Sometimes I get so tickled with the things I see on facebook. There is a page called Grandma raised in the South that always posts really funny things!

This is hilarious!

Being Green...

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older woman, that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment.

The woman apologized and explained, "We didn't have this green thing back in my earlier days."

The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations."

She was right -- our generation didn't have the green thing in its day.

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were truly recycled.

But we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags, that we reused for numerous things, most memorable besides household garbage bags, was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our schoolbooks. This was to ensure that public property, (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags.

But too bad we didn't do the green thing back then.

We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.

But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throwaway kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.

But that young lady is right; we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.

But she's right; we didn't have the green thing back then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.

But we didn't have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then?

Caring Cards

Conversation is the cornerstone of any good relationship. But it can be difficult to keep the chit-chat going if you don't know anything about an older adult and his or her past. That's why our Home Office has introduced the first edition of Caring Cards. Our Caring Cards feature more than 50 questions on a wide range of topics to help you engage seniors in meaningful conversations and keep those conversations going.

Over the next few weeks we will be sharing some of the questions with you to help you get the conversation going with your loved one. You may just learn something new! 

March Monthly Solutions

Did you know about our Continuing Education Units? 

See below for more information

Sandra Arrick ~ January CAREGiver of the Month

Congratulations to Sandra Arrick ~ our January 2013 CAREGiver of the Month!

Sandra has been with us since 2010 and has worked over 3000 hours during her tenure.  This is actually her 2^nd time to get CG of the month.  She is an amazing cook and all her clients love her cooking.  She is super reliable and when she is assigned a case it seems she is the main CAREGiver until that case ends.  

When asked what she loves most about being a CAREGiver she stated that “ she feels like she is a chameleon”.  She can blend in with all different types of people and situations.  She loves being a CAREGiver and knowing that what she does makes a difference. 

Mary Maxwell & Pesky Rugs

Mary Maxwell is back and has some things to say about those pesky throw rugs!

Carol is concerned now that her father is using a walker he will trip on a throw rug but her parents refuse to take advice from her. Mary offers a humorous advice to get their attention.

2012 Salute to Senior Services Winner, Clark Paradise

 Meet Clark Paradise

U.S. 2012 Salute to Senior Services Winner

In the winter of 2005, Jean and Clark Paradise became aware of three camps of homeless individuals living in the woods outside of Lakewood, NJ. With the help of Minister Steve Brigham, they started bringing blankets, clothing, and portable heaters to the camps. They soon learned that these folks were lacking personal care items like soap, shampoo, toothpaste, toilet paper, etc.

Answering the call to action, they asked friends and family to gather clothes, blankets and personal care items to bring to the tent city. The response was positive, the generosity more than they expected. They sought out others who would need the remaining donations. What they discovered was shocking. They found that there were many families living in motel rooms throughout Ocean County and hundreds more barely getting by, and so they continued to ask for donations and brought them to motels, the tent city, soup kitchens and shelters. As word spread about their ministry, they started to receive phone calls requesting help from church groups and individuals. As the need grew, so did their ambition and so Your Grandmother's Cupboard was born. From a small donated space in Ocean County, they now operate from locations in Toms River and Phillipsburg, The "Cupboard" has acquired three enclosed trailers and two mini-vans that are used to serve thousands of homeless and nearly homeless families and individuals every month throughout New Jersey and parts of Pennsylvania.

What should have been a quiet retirement for Jean and Clark has turned into a full time job. Both in their 80's they visit over 25 soup kitchens, shelters and motels every month bringing a trailer full of donated clothes, blankets, books, food and toiletries.

Do you know someone like Clark that needs to be nominated for the 2013 award?

If so, click here!

2012 CAREGiver of the Year ~ Tiffiney Maltimore

Congratulations to Tiffiney Matlimore ~ our 2012 CAREGiver of the Year

Tiffiney has been employed with us since 2009 and has worked over 6000 hours during her tenure.   She has a positive attitude with everyone (clients & staff).  She always has a smile on her face and is we know when she is in the building because you can hear her giggling .  Tiffiney is always ready to work when needed.  When Tiffiney is assigned a client she is always requested to come back by their family.  She takes pride in her work and it shows .

Tiffiney loves the fact that she is able to help her clients and bring a smile to their face.  

16 GREAT YEARS!

We are proud to serve seniors in Birmingham area. We are excited to be celebrating our 16th year! 

Therapy for Caregivers. An Article off the New Old Blog!

Another good one from the New Old Age blog on the NY Times! You know your life has changed when this is the first website you pull up every morning!

If you know someone that is struggling as a caregiver - please tell them about us and let us help! We consider ourselves to be the best non-medical care for seniors in Birmingham!

http://newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/22/for-traumatized-caregivers-therapy-helps/

For Traumatized Caregivers, Therapy Helps

By JUDITH GRAHAM

I recently wrote about caregivers who experienced symptoms of traumatic-like stress, and readers responded with heart-rending stories. Many described being haunted by distress long after a relative died.

Especially painful, readers said, was witnessing a loved one’s suffering and feeling helpless to do anything about it.

The therapists I spoke with said they often encountered symptoms among caregivers similar to those shown by people with post-traumatic stress — intrusive thoughts, disabling anxiety, hyper-vigilance, avoidance behaviors and more — even though research documenting this reaction is scarce. Improvement with treatment is possible, they say, although a sense of loss may never disappear completely.

I asked these professionals for stories about patients to illustrate the therapeutic process. Read them below and you’ll notice common themes. Recovery depends on unearthing the source of psychological distress and facing it directly rather than pushing it away. Learning new ways of thinking can change the tenor of caregiving, in real time or in retrospect, and help someone recover a sense of emotional balance.

Barry Jacobs, a clinical psychologist and author of “The Emotional Survival Guide for Caregivers” (Guilford Press, 2006), was careful to distinguish normal grief associated with caregiving from a traumatic-style response.

“Nightmares, lingering bereavement or the mild re-experiencing of events that doesn’t send a person into a panic every time is normal” and often resolves with time, he said.

Contrast that with one of his patients, a Greek-American woman who assisted her elderly parents daily until her father, a retired firefighter, went to the hospital for what doctors thought would be a minor procedure and died there of a heart attack in the middle of the night.

Every night afterward, at exactly 3 a.m., this patient awoke in a panic from a dream in which a phone was ringing. Unable to go back to sleep for hours, she agonized about her father dying alone at that hour.

The guilt was so overwhelming, the woman couldn’t bear to see her mother, talk with her sisters or concentrate at work or at home. Sleep deprived and troubled by anxiety, she went to see her doctor, who works in the same clinic as Dr. Jacobs and referred her to therapy.

The first thing Dr. Jacobs did was to “identify what happened to this patient as traumatic, and tell her acute anxiety was an understandable response.” Then he asked her to “grieve her father’s death” by reaching out to her siblings and her mother and openly expressing her sadness.

Dr. Jacobs also suggested that this patient set aside a time every day to think about her father — not just the end of his life, but also all the things she had loved about him and the good times they’d had together as a family.

Don’t expect your night time awakenings to go away immediately, the psychologist told his patient. Instead, plan for how you’re going to respond when these occur.

Seven months later, the patient reported her panic at a “3 or 4” level instead of a “10” (the highest possible number), Dr. Jacobs said.

“She’ll say, ‘oh, there’s the nightmare again,’ and she can now go back to sleep fairly quickly,” he continued. “Research about anxiety tells us that the more we face what we fear, the quicker we are to extinguish our fear response and the better able we are to tolerate it.”

Sara Qualls, a professor of psychology at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs, said it’s natural for caregivers to be disgusted by some of what they have to do — toileting a loved one, for instance — and to be profoundly conflicted when they try to reconcile this feeling with a feeling of devotion. In some circumstances, traumatic-like responses can result.

Her work entails naming the emotion the caregiver is experiencing, letting the person know it’s normal, and trying to identify the trigger.

For instance, an older man may come in saying he’s failed his wife with dementia by not doing enough for her. Addressing this man’s guilt, Dr. Qualls may find that he can’t stand being exposed to urine or feces but has to help his wife go to the bathroom. Instead of facing his true feelings, he’s beating up on himself psychologically — a diversion.

Once a conflict of this kind is identified, Dr. Qualls said she can help a person deal with the trigger by using relaxation exercises and problem-solving techniques, or by arranging for someone else to do a task that he or she simply can’t tolerate.

Asked for an example, Dr. Qualls described a woman who traveled to another state to see her mother, only to find her in a profound disheveled, chaotic state. Her mother said that she didn’t want help, and her brother responded with disbelief. Soon, the woman’s blood pressure rose, and she began having nightmares.

In therapy, Dr. Qualls reassured the patient that her fear for her mother’s safety was reasonable and guided her toward practical solutions. Gradually, she was able to enlist her brother’s help and change her mother’s living situation, and her sense of isolation and helplessness dissipated.

“I think that a piece of the trauma reaction that is so devastating is the intense privacy of it,” Dr. Qualls said. “Our work helps people moderate their emotional reactivity through human contact, sharing and learning strategies to manage their responsiveness.”

Dolores Gallagher-Thompson, a professor of psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine in California, noted that stress can accumulate during caregiving and reach a tipping point where someone’s ability to cope is overwhelmed.

She tells of a vibrant, active woman in her 60s caring for an older husband who declined rapidly from dementia. “She’d get used to one set of losses, and then a new loss would occur,” Dr. Gallagher-Thompson said.

The tipping point came when the husband began running away from home and was picked up by the police several times. The woman dropped everything else and became vigilant, feeling as if she had to watch her husband day and night. Still, he would sneak away and became more and more difficult.

Both husband and wife had come from Jewish families caught up in the Holocaust during World War II, and the feeling of “complete and utter helplessness and hopelessness” that descended on this older woman was intolerable, Dr. Gallagher-Thompson said.

Therapy was targeted toward helping the patient articulate thoughts and feelings that weren’t immediately at the surface of her consciousness, like, for example, her terror at the prospect of abandonment. “I’d ask her ‘what are you afraid of? If you visualize your husband in a nursing home or assisted living, what do you see?’” Dr. Gallagher-Thompson said.

Then the conversation would turn to the choices the older woman had. Go and look at some long-term care places and see what you think, her psychologist suggested. You can decide how often you want to visit. “This isn’t an either-or — either you’re miserable 24/7 or you don’t love him,” she advised.

The older man went to assisted living, where he died not long afterward of pneumonia that wasn’t diagnosed right away. The wife fell into a depression, preoccupied with the thought that it was all her fault.

Another six months of therapy convinced her that she had done what she could for her husband. Today she works closely with her local Alzheimer’s Association chapter, “helping other caregivers learn how to deal with these kinds of issues in support groups,” Dr. Gallagher-Thompson said.

Client Satisfaction Survey Quote