If you have a friend or family member giving in-home care for a loved one, you should really have a look at obtaining her a wonderful present for Valentine’s Day. In-home caregivers enable clients to benefit from happy, healthy lives in the comfort of their own house. While they supply amazing management to your loved ones, the holidays are the wonderful time period to demonstrate to them how unique they are by showering them with a selection of gifts to show how much they are appreciated.

Massage
Buy a gift certificate for a massage for the caregiver. 30-minute and One hour massages are being offered to lessen tension, emotional stress and concerns. Try to find hometown massage parlors in your area and find a respected place to send the caregiver. A good intensive, hands-on massage could possibly motivate them to make it portion of their regular regimen.

Gift Basket
You can buy pre-packed gift baskets at numerous retail stores, on the internet and florists. If you know the caregiver, you can get the basket yourself by including some of her most wanted issues. One example is, if you know she really likes to garden, fill the basket with small garden tools, packages of flower seeds and a flowerpot. If the caregiver is a male, fill the basket with sports-themed goods and a gift certificate for a round of golf.

Gift Certificates
Give the caregiver a Valentine’s Day card along with a gift certificate to dinner or to the movie theater. Make an effort to learn some of the caregiver’s favored dining establishment and get a certificate to that specific place. Obtain movies tickets online so they will not become expired and the caregiver can use them at anytime.

Spa Treatments
Female caregivers will delight in a spa day or spa treatments. Give her a gift certificate to a qualified spa. Several spas offer half day and full day amenities. Another concept is to get a gift certificate to a qualified nail salon for a manicure and pedicure. This will allow the caregiver to spend time by herself and relax.

Tea or Coffee
If the caregiver enjoys tea or coffee, make a special gift to give them on Valentine’s Day. Fill huge coffee mugs with an assortment of coffee and a gift card to a hometown coffee shop. For a tea lover, fill big glasses with different bags and boxes of tea.

Overview
In-home care takes a special person with a lot of patience. Show your caregiver how much you care about the things they do for you or your loved one by giving them a special gift on Valentine’s Day.

In-Home Care in Jacksonville, FL counselors at Comfort Keepers are available to talk with you about your in-home care needs including how to reduce caregiver stress while providing better, affordable home care. We specialize in providing Elder Care in Jacksonville.

Home care and home healthcare are different in two ways.

Home care offers non-medical services and is not paid for by Medicare; however some home care companies and agencies may be licensed by the states. Home care services are private pay services, meaning the patient or the patient’s family will pay directly for home care. Occasionally long-term care insurance may cover home care as well. Home health care, however, is medical care that is contained by health insurance or Medicare. To acquire home health care, a senior or a patient must be homebound and in need of medical care as identified by a doctor. Medicare might also cover non-medical solutions executed by a home health aide, but these services are only covered when various medical cares at home is required. Usually these non-medical services happen at the same time as medical care visits.

Home care provides non-medical services to seniors and patients getting better from operations. Help in bathing and dressing are typical home care services. Other tasks home care workers give include light housekeeping, meal preparation, running errands and transportation. Assistance in walking or exercise and other light assistance to make life easier are provided by home care professionals. As the population ages, home care agencies proliferated to meet the large needs of the elderly who like to continue to be in their homes, but who might need help to do so.

Home healthcare is doctor-prescribed, and is offered by skilled medical personnel such as nurses who can dispense medication. Physical and occupational therapists can also be involved in the health care program. Home health aides may be appointed to aid with activities of daily living. These services will be covered by Medicare as long as other medical care is also required.

Home care workers can give medication reminders, but cannot administer the medication. Home care workers also assist with daily living activities such as preparing meals, light housekeeping, aiding with bathing, running errands and providing transportation to appointments. Home care services are privately funded by the patient, senior or their family. Long-term care insurance may also cover home care services.

In-home care agencies have appeared all over the country. The course of action of hiring an agency starts off with proper investigation and taking the time to meet with each agency in order to assess their level of good quality, and their nursing staff’s experience, in relation to each family’s individual needs. It’s essential that each family take the time to make sure the home care agency they hire are up to date in licensing requirements, and that their nursing staff are free from criminal backgrounds. This is primarily true if elder care will be supplied when family members are not around to oversee when skilled nursing staff comes to visit. A high sense of trust needs to be developed between both parties in order to ensure a long-term, affirmative, relationship.

The following five tips are offered to those who are starting their research into finding care at home for their elderly family members.

1. Referral Sources
Ask friends, family and co-workers for recommendations to local companies they are familiar with. Inquire about their personal experiences, good and bad. Contact the elder’s long term care insurance company and ask for referrals (if in-home care is covered by their plan.) You can even contact your family physician and ask for local references. Your last choice is to try the net, but if you choose this route, make sure to spend extra time studying each company more thoroughly, as you won’t have unique experience to judge these companies by.

2. Background Checks
Once you’ve focused a short list of companies you wish to investigate further, make sure to ask what types of selection processes they put their nursing staff through prior to hiring them. Criminal background checks, credit checks, and checking own references should be conventional in all companies.

3. Staff Skills & Experience
Inquire as to what the minimum qualifications each company usually requires when hiring their care providers. Do they only hire college educated nurses? Are their care providers certified nursing assistants? Or, do they simply demand that their staff have a background in helping care for the elderly? The more advanced their requirements, the better care will likely be supplied.

4. Company Reputation
Check with your local Better Business Bureau to evaluateeach company’s general rating. Do they have multiple complaints listed? Are there any standout problems? You can also try a common search online by typing in the company’s name and the word “complaint” into any search engine to look at what comes up from the general public’s perception.

5. Licensing
Ensure that any company you manage has the proper city, county and state licensing updated and in good standing. Remove the worry of hiring any company that is not authentic in practice.

Finally, don’t be shy about asking many specific questions. All respected companies pride themselves in customer satisfaction and should be prepared to openly, and willingly, supply any and all information to prospective clients. Due diligence on your part will ensure a long-term, encouraging experience for yourself and your family members.   

When researching options for home care agencies in Lakewood FL, Alzheimer’s Home Care Solutions counselors at Comfort Keepers are available to talk with you about your in-home care needs including how to reduce caregiver stress while providing better, affordable home care. We specialize in providing Elder Care in Lakewood.

Home care services may include daily aide with feeding, dressing and undressing, bathing, light housekeeping and medication reminders.

Social Security and Medicare

Social Security is a retirement fund and disability pension for disabled workers. The quantity each man or women will receive is influenced by the quantity paid into the fund during his or her employed years. If a spouse passes away, the surviving spouse is entitled to widows or widowers pension. For over fifty percent of Americans, Social Security benefits will be their principal resource of funds when they retire.

Medicare

Medicare is provided to most people age 65 and older. Medicare will pay for home care services that come under the category of “home healthcare” or “skilled care”. This means that the treatment must be provided by a professional, must be requested by a physician and the care receiver must be homebound in order to receive it. Medicare won’t cover companion home care services. It won’t cover private duty home care services.

Private Income

For many people, revenue from different sources such as income off an available enterprise may have a secure margin in their bank account by which to cover home care services they may need now or later in life. Any CDs connected to these accounts are also an added gain.

Retirement funds such as a 401(k), IRA, Keogh or other such groupings are possible choices to consider also when figuring out how much and which level of care is needed for the senior loved one.

Pension plans made available to employees of some companies have provided adequate revenue for the retirees to live on and complement other income they may have.  

Stocks And Stock Mutual Funds

Some retirees are living off stocks or funds from the stock market. It is true that with the instability in the stock market of recent years, this is changing the way some individuals are looking at retirement income. There are still about 14 percent of retirees that have an income from this source.

Because of tax advantages for withholding stocks outside of retirement accounts and the income tax they must pay on withdrawals from the traditional 401(k)’s and IRA accounts, it is a good idea for seniors to have a good investment firm or certified financial planner helping them.

Home Equity

The equity earned on a home is another way of financing a retirement and any home care services needed in their advancing years. Sometimes the adult children are unable to provide all the care for their parents and must rely on some in-home care of their loved ones. This is just one more avenue that can be explored for possible means of financing home care for the family. There are more advertisements than ever about reverse mortgage as a way of having a retirement fund. Most financial planners will advice this as a last resort only.

Veterans Aid & Attendance Pension

This pension allows for veterans and the surviving spouses financial support that are in need of home care services this includes individuals who are in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.

Medicaid or Medi-Cal

Medicaid or Medi-Cal (in California) is a state funded program for individuals that require home care services (IHSS), are in a skilled nursing or intermediate care home and do not have any other income other than Social Security benefits.

With just a little analysis and planning, home care services for the elderly need not be a concern to the adult child. Whether the time is right now or in the future, a seemingly difficult task is actually quite easy to navigate with proper planning.

The good news is that there is a strategy that can help. You and your parents should possibly consider home care. Home care is a great choice for getting supporting support for your aging loved ones. Home care is a type of care in which a healthcare professional or other skilled caregiver goes into your parents’ home to offer different services and types of care. You and your parents can decide how many hours each day professional assistance is needed and which times of day your parents need the most aid.

You may squander a lot of time thinking about your parents when you can’t be with them. Your parents may not want to go out of their home to go into a nursing home or assisted living facility. The conclusion to this difficulty is in-home care, which will allow your parents to stay in their own home where they are most content and will minimize some of your concern and stress about the issue.

When you choose in-home care, the healthcare professional can relieve you of some of your jobs. The caregiver can aid your parents with basic skills such as bathing and getting dressed each morning. The caregiver can even help out your parents if they need help using the toilet.

As the child of aging parents, you might be concerned that your parents don’t have the ability to prepare food anymore, or you might be worried that your parents aren’t dining as well as they should be. A caregiver can help ease these concerns by organizing meals and making sure they dine each day. You and your parents can even converse with the caregiver to discuss your considerations and put together a dietary plan that makes everyone feel great about your parents’ nutritional requirements.

If you choose to get in-home care for your aging parents, you can get additional guidance in the area of housework. The chances are that you have been trying to keep your property clean as well as your parents’ home. This can be especially challenging if you work a full time job on top of everything else. When you retain the services of a professional in the field of elder care, that person can help with light house cleaning duties, which include doing the washing.

Perhaps one of the best elements of elder care is that your parents will have some company during the day when you can’t be there. Your aging parents may seem lonely, and you may be feeling disappointed because you can’t spend the amount of time with your parents that you wish you could. You can stop being culpable that you aren’t with your parents and start feeling fantastic about realizing someone is with your parents who cares. Actually, a caregiver can even take your parents out of the house to doctor’s visits, the store, the pharmacy, or just about any place your parents wants to travel.

Elder care may be the support you and your parents need. Your parents can live independently, and you can get the extra help you might need to make sure your parents’ needs are being met. Just knowing that another person is there with your parents can ease some of the load from you.

Home Care in Jacksonville, FL counselors at Comfort Keepers are available to talk with you about your in-home care needs including how to reduce caregiver stress while providing better, affordable home care. We specialize in providing Elder Care in Jacksonville.

Caring for an aging parent who continues to lives in their house is not easy. That is never more true than when the parent has significant health issues that need frequent care. Notwithstanding what age a person is, it is not easy to give up self-sufficiency. That is why it is hard for children to talk to their aging parents about home care services. It is essential to find ways to analyze care services with parents in a delicate tone that does not feel threatening to them.

Guilt- Children find it rather tough to approach parents about caregiver stress they have been beginning to feel since taking on the job. Children often feel guilty over looking into care for their parents because their parents brought them up and the children feel as though they are letting their parents down if they need to begin home care. The answer for these conditions may be to get respite care to come to the home and help in the short term. This will help test the waters to see how the parent adjusts to having in-home care. The parent may freely allow the offer of respite care to aid in day-to-day elder care. This can easily rid the children of a guilty feeling that is not necessary to begin with.

Confronting it Head-On- Beating around the bush when trying to talk to an elderly parent about elder care will result in not talking about it at all. Have all the facts necessary to describe to the parent what is included and all the good reasons that it is a idea to hire elder care. The information gathered should include pricing as well as possible options to cover the costs if insurance does not cover it. Nearly all elderly people are on a fixed income and that is something that children should consider before speaking to their parents about respite care. Be light but direct when approaching the subject.

Authenticity- The authenticity of a parent that needs an in-home caregiver is vital to stress all through the conversation. Parents should be reminded that the children work full-time positions, have small children to care for or nearly anything else that raises caregiver stress levels. Stress brings about bad communication skills and ultimately annoyance and bitterness over having to tackle the extra function of caring for an elderly parent. When children take on the commitment of caring for an ill parent, the connection often suffers greatly because of the stress related complications.

Concerns- Be open and genuine with the elderly parent when he or she has concerns. The issues might seem like complaints or excuses, but they are real issues that the parent is feeling and should be addressed rather quickly. Two of the main issues the parent might have are cost and having someone in the home who is a new person. Do not make promises that cannot be kept, but present guidance gained by talking to a specialist about it.

Adult children who are looking after of their elderly parents discover early on that it is a daunting job at best. There are duties involved in caring for an elderly parent that are really difficult to handle. Children and parents should aid each other when they can. There is a time to realize that an in-home caregiver is the best solution. Be well prepared to take on the extra cost if the elderly parent cannot handle the cost themselves. Some insurance companies will cover the cost in certain circumstances. Otherwise, arrangements have to be made financially if an in-home caregiver is the only strategy.

Prior to my need to find care for my elderly neighbor, Joe, after he dislocated his shoulder, the closest thing I’d seen to “in-home care” was the public health nurse who
used to come to our home to give my grandmother her vitamin B-12 shot. That was decades before I became Joe’s caregiver. I simply hadn’t had a need to keep up with
care trends.

After Joe’s wife died, it became evident to me that Joe needed someone close by that he could count on. His only child, a son, lived on the east coast, while Joe remained in his native North Dakota. Joe’s total hearing loss didn’t make life any easier for him, as his only contact with his family was by mail. He had some long-time friends to check on him, but that was it. I as his neighbor felt a draw to help him, so I did.

Joe had a history of falling, but his first serious fall happened while he was out in his garage. That time, he dislocated his shoulder. I rode the ambulance with him,
accompanied him through all of his medical work, and then chatted with a social worker who insisted we get him some in-home care, at least temporarily.

Learning the Ropes: Nursing Care is Generally Covered by Medicare while Custodial Care is Not

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For years, when I knew my brother and his wife were going to visit our parents, I’d prepare my sibling for how “bad” Mom and Dad were going to look. Our parents both lived with degenerative diseases, and each had a different type of dementia. It seemed to me, their primary caregiver, that they were fading away. My sister saw them nearly once each week, as well, and she agreed with me. We didn’t want our brother to be shocked by their failing health, so we prepared him. Or so we thought.

It turned out that our parents were so pumped up about their son coming to visit, that he’d arrive and see our elders looking really quite good. I then felt foolish for having over prepared my brother in excess for something he just couldn’t see.

As soon as my brother would leave, like a deflated balloon, our parents would sink back to the level where they were before the visit. One year – and this nearly broke my heart – my mother was so excited about the visit she could talk of nothing else. Then, after my brother left, Mom asked which weekend he was coming. She’d totally forgotten the visit had happened.

Still, the aging parent can only keep up this wellness act for a short time. So, if an adult child coming from a distance can stay a few days, he or she does have a chance to get a fresh look at how the parents are doing. Their input can help the caregiver who sees the parents daily, since a primary caregiver may not notice subtle changes.

Also, we who live close to our elders, or who are primary caregivers, tend to do what needs to be done, so it could be that the elders are losing certain abilities and we haven’t noticed. That’s when someone who only sees the elders occasionally can be really helpful.

Do Mom and Dad “Cover” for Each Other?

Long married couples can often finish each other’s sentences. They can help each other read, eat and do other things so common to daily life that no one stops to notice that they are such a team they are “filling in the gaps” for each other. Often, even they don’t know this is happening. When you visit, try to “separate” the team a bit. See if Dad’s hearing is getting worse, but Mom is hearing for him. See if Mom’s balance is bad in the morning, but Dad is getting her breakfast and making sure she is steady before anyone else sees her. In other words, see if it takes a team for them just to hang on.

Teamwork is wonderful, and it’s beautiful to see long-married couples working seamlessly beside each other. However, if there are health issues that need tending to, this teamwork can be detrimental. Getting each of your parents alone will help you identify strong and weak points.

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Here’s the good news: there is a wealth of information and resources out there that are easily accessible. That being said, what you need to remember above all is that flexibility is the key to success. No matter how many books you read or checklists you follow, your loved one’s care needs will change, or his needs might be so unique that you must create alternative solutions other than those suggested. Buying an expensive, high tech gadget to assist your loved one with daily tasks may not always be the best option – in fact, the gadget itself could present more hazard than help. Alzheimer’s does not fit in a box, so any resources you consult may have to be adapted to fit your care recipient’s unique situation.

Caregivers must begin to look at the home in a brand new light. What hazards exist that could be easily removed? What environmental features should be brought in to foster independence while maintaining safety? And, perhaps the most complicated question is, simply, where does one begin?

An understanding of the changes that can affect the person with dementia is helpful to provide a firm foundation. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, there are five key changes that will occur throughout the disease process:

• Judgment: forgetting how to use household appliances, etc.
• Sense of time and place: getting lost on one’s own street; being unable to recognize or find areas in the home.
• Behavior: the care recipient will become easily confused, suspicious or fearful.
• Physical ability: the person with dementia may have trouble with balance; depending upon a walker or wheelchair to get around.
• Senses: changes in vision, hearing, sensitivity to temperatures or depth perception

Clearly, these changes underscore the importance of flexibility. Some persons with dementia may experience all of these changes at once, others may never have a change in behavior, but may have a drastic drop in physical ability. Some may only experience moderate changes in these areas but these changes may occur over a longer period of time. There is no timeline for these transformations, making the challenge of adapting the home all the more difficult.

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“Frustrating,” said my son. “He can’t walk fast or ride a bike or do sports. So he’s probably not having much fun.”

“Lonely,” said my daughter. “He doesn’t have any children in his house.”

Well, it’s possible they were both right. But it’s also possible they were both wrong – or that even if they correctly identified the man’s circumstances – limited mobility, solitary household – they miscalculated his feelings about it.

Stanford University professor Laura Carstensen, founding director of the Stanford Center of Longevity, notes that for many adults, contentment and pleasure in life actually increase as they age.

The possible reasons for this are manifold. As my children surmised, elderly people face circumstances that may look to the rest of us like obstacles: increasing levels of physical disability, a decrease in energy, less human interaction than younger people often have in their lives. But as today’s population ages, many members are also reporting some surprising “up sides” to the experience. Some who attacked the career climb with a vengeance in their earlier adulthood are finally finding the time for hobbies, interests and intellectual enrichment. Seniors who opt to sell family homes and downsize often enjoy freedom from home maintenance and yard work. And while having close family for support would certainly be considered a benefit in most circumstances, older people find it enormously liberating to be done with all the anxieties and uncertainties that accompany parenting.

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