Posts Tagged ‘Caregiving’

Common Sense Caregiving by Gary Joseph LeBlanc: A must read for anyone caring for a loved one with Alzheimer’s

A columnist and book dealer from Spring Hill Florida Gary Joseph LeBlanc offers a personal and down to earth account of his experience caring for his father who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. This common sense account of is a must read for anyone caring for a loved one with Alzheimer’s disease.  Written as a completion of sixty-five articles from his column, LeBlanc gives an encouraging and enlightening guide for anyone navigating the turbulent waters of caring for a loved one with Alzheimer’s disease.

Read more

Discussing End of Life Care (Part 2)

In part one of this two part series, we looked at the different types of advance directives people can establish to ensure that their end-of-life care is in line with their wishes. Today, we look at how to talk to your loved ones and encourage them to express their wishes so that as they approach the end of their life, you as the caregiver know exactly how to proceed.

Care planning

Although there are always different techniques for approaching this conversation, there does seem to be one common opinion: the time to do it is now.  “Everyone over the age of 18 should have a health care proxy form filled out and should be discussing what they would want done with a person that would be making decisions for them in the event that they are not able to make these decisions for themselves,” said Fern Wasserman, Founder of New York Legal Nurse Consultants. New York Legal Nurse Consultants helps facilitate conversations between the individual filling out their health care proxy form and the people who will need to carry out these wishes in the event this person is unable to make their wishes known.

Colleen Reynolds, President of Edge Communications and former admissions and marketing coordinator of a skilled nursing facility in Fort Myers, Fla., also emphasizes that time is of the essence. “I’d suggest that the Healthcare POA/Surrogate be discussed well in advance of needing it. A DNR should be gently discussed, but discussed again when the decision is imminent,” she said. “I watched so many people struggle with this decision and family members who wished desperately that loved ones asked for a DNR after they had been resuscitated and then left to suffer brain damage and broken ribs.”

In Reynolds’s work, she had to have these conversations with patients who did not have any advance directives on file.  “Because the conversations didn’t happen earlier, it was often left up to me to talk to someone who was admitted, if they were not declared legally incompetent, to see if they wanted to be resuscitated in the event of heart failure. Strangers should not have to do this.”

Read more

Moving Mom to a Safe Place

By Mary Jo Garinger

My mom had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease seven years before my stepfather passed away suddenly. She had already been started on Aricept, a drug used to help alleviate some confusion in those with Alzheimer’s, but I hadn’t fully grasped the severity of her dementia and how much my step-father had cared – and covered up – for her until his passing five years ago.

As we stood at the hospital, Mom had no idea why she was there or what had happened to her husband, although I had told her repeatedly. The doctor would ask her questions and she would turn to me for the answers. She repeatedly asked me, just seconds apart, “Why are we here?” and “What’s a seizure?” when I told her how her husband had died.

My first task in taking charge of her care was to get a baseline on her medical condition, so I took her to her neurologist. She reconfirmed the Alzheimer’s diagnosis and suggested that I take her to a geriatric institute where she would receive the appropriate medical and psychological care. After she was evaluated by a full panel of medical experts, I received a written prescription stating my mother needed “24 hour assistance with medications, cooking meals, eating on a regular basis, daily hygiene, and observation for falls.” I was encouraged to seek Power of Attorney (POA) and move her to a safe environment. Convinced I was doing the right thing, I obtained the necessary medical signatures and paperwork so I could legally make medical and financial decisions for her.

Read more

Green Houses Growing Across the Country

The Boston Globe today takes a look at a “Green Home,” The Leonard Florence Center for Living in Chelsea, Mass. which opened a few months ago.  The facility has 10 private bedrooms on six stories, and focuses on allowing seniors to establish their own schedules and maintain independence and social interaction while still being monitored by a caregiver.  Instead of having a full staff, the facility rather has two primary caregivers that assist all of the residents with any needs they may encounter.

The Leonard Florence Center for Living was founded by the Chelsea Jewish Foundation, and is one of 89 Green Houses across the country.  AARP is currently lobbying for legislation to ease access to money to construct smaller nursing homes and assisted living facilities.

Readers: Are you or a loved one living in a “Green Home”?  What aspects of this type of living environment solidified your decision?  Are there drawbacks that you were not expecting?  Tell us in the comments!

Caring and Traveling with an Elderly Parent

Dr. Alexander Fiuza's Family

Dr. Alexander Fiuza's Family

By Alexander Fiuza, PhD

For many of us summer vacation means traveling with spouses and children, but for some of us it means traveling with our elderly parents. That’s what this year’s vacation was all about for me.

My father, Serafin Fiuza, now eighty-one years of age, dreamed about the day that he could return to his native Orense, in Galicia Spain.  On many occasions he mentioned to me his desire to see his homeland one more time. Thoughts of his childhood, family life and friends left behind during the European Civil Wars brought back feelings of nostalgia. And, he faced his own immortality with the loss of his own family members over the years, leaving him to be the only family member living in the United States.  This only fueled his desire to return at least one more time to visit his only living relative, Ramona Fiuza, his younger sister.

The siblings were separated at a young age and put onto ships that were destined to arrive to Cuba in hopes for a better life. My grandfather and his eleven brothers and sisters set sail in December of 1931 destined for this new life. Together with his wife and two of their four children, one of which was my father, they arrived in Havana, Cuba. His two other siblings went aboard another ship which arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina. These two siblings, Generoso Fiuza and Dolores Fiuza, would not see my father and his other siblings until the early 1970’s, when they all came to gather in Miami, Florida for a family reunion.  I still remember the emotions displayed and shared by all of our family members. Although I was young at the time, I still get emotional over the memories.

Read more

I Married an Illness

By Terri Corcoran

I married Vince in April 1999. It was a second marriage for us both – I was 48 and he was 64. We weren’t exactly in the robust years of our youth, but we were both healthy, or so I thought. A month after our wedding, Vince fell down while playing golf. At the time, no reason could be found for the fall. He would have more occasional, unexplained falls as time went on, and would develop apathy and lethargy that led me to doubt that he really cared about me.

For the first five years of our marriage, we went to five neurologists. We finally, in 2004, got the diagnosis of Fragile X Tremor Ataxia Syndrome (FXTAS), a genetic neurodegenerative condition which was not even identified by medical research until 2001. I was thrilled to have a diagnosis, but my caregiving had already become a full-time job. Vince was no longer able to walk without help, as he had no balance and not much coordination. He was incontinent (bowels and bladder), and I had to make the acquaintance of adult diapers. Worst of all, his brilliant mind (he had been a laser scientist with a Ph.D.) was becoming severely impaired as the messenger RNA in his brain cells became toxic.

Because Vince’s mind did not work, I could not safely leave him alone at all, so I had to leave my job to be with him 24/7. My new “lifestyle” consisted of taking care of all of Vince’s personal needs, developing a care plan since doctors did not know enough about this new syndrome to offer much advice other than “it will keep getting worse,” making sense of his financial affairs – which was a pile of nightmares resulting from years (even before our marriage, which I did not realize) of his mind slowly losing its executive abilities. I also had to practically reconstruct his horror of a house, which I had moved into with his promise that we would fix it up, but he couldn’t get his mind or body together to do anything. In addition to the never-ending home repairs, I had to add a wheelchair ramp, stair lifts and a handicapped bathroom. Instead of buying new furniture to replace his stuff from the 1950’s (yes, really – the ‘50’s!), I bought an assortment of canes and walkers, a transport chair, an easy-lift recliner, and whatever else I could find to make life any easier.

Read more

Report to Analyze Effect of Alzheimer’s on Women, Society

The Alzheimer’s Reading Room today presents an announcement that the second in The Shriver Report series, an ongoing study in transformational moments in American culture and society, will focus on female Alzheimer’s caregivers.  Last year’s report, titled “The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything,” was an extremely detailed look at the changes in our society caused by the large number of women joining the workforce in recent decades. On October 15, “The Shriver Report: A Women’s Nation Takes on Alzheimer’s” will be released, signifying the immense impact the disease has had on American society.

The study is led by and named for Maria Shriver, founder of the California Women’s Conference, and examines how aging Baby Boomers reaching their mid-60s and encountering Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia will impact society in the coming years.  It will main focus on the effects on women, since they are a large majority of informal caregivers.  Shriver provides an overview of how this shift will impact the workforce, with women needing to take time away from work to care for their aging loved ones, family life, and the healthcare system.

Court: Patients Cannot Reject Care Because of Race

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled in favor of black Certified Nursing Assistant Brenda Chaney, who sued the nursing home where she was working for allowing patients to reject care from her and other non-white caregivers, reports The Associated Press.  The ruling signifies a change in how nursing homes must balance patient preferences with the civil rights of their employees.

The Court decided that patients have the right to choose which employees care for them, as long as those decisions are not based on the caregiver’s race.  Chaney reported that she had been issued an assignment sheet at the Plainfield, Ind. nursing home that noted that one patient preferred “no black CNAs.”

News One reports that Chaney was driven to file the suit after she found a white patient, who had specifically filed orders for no black caregivers, lying on the floor and unable to lift herself up.  Instead of helping the woman back up, she had to search for a white aide to assist instead.  The nursing home had contended that it was legally bound to honor the patient’s wishes.

Cloak of Caregiver

By Joan Wright

As I sat in the back of the room, listening to the stories of caregivers about whom I was to write an article, I realized to my surprise that they were talking about me! Not me, specifically, but the role I had been playing without even realizing I was – the role of a caregiver. I, too, could recall countless trips escorting my parents to and from an assortment of doctors’ appointments, trying to coordinate medications and dietary needs, assisting with household duties that became more cumbersome for them, and becoming the designated driver for trips that involved highway travel. Despite my professional role in developing programs and services for elders and caregivers, I was now facing a critically different reality as a family caregiver – everything changes when it’s your own parents.

Read more

Caregivers: Can You Claim Your Elder as a Dependent?

If you are caring for a family member who has moved into your home, it may be possible to claim them as a dependent on your income taxes, with some exceptions, explains elder law attorney Craig Reaves on The New York Times’s New Old Age blog.   He discusses the situation of a reader who is caring for her mother in her own home and wants to claim her as a dependent, but her mother has concerns that this will affect her Medicare/Medicaid eligibility and make her daughter responsible for her debts after she passes.

Reaves explains in layman’s terms the different qualifiers for claiming an elder as a dependent: they must be related to the person filing, a U.S., Canada, or Mexico citizen, be below certain taxable income restrictions, and have more than half of their financial support provided by the adult child.

Readers: Have you claimed your elder as a dependent?  Was this financially beneficial? Are there other techniques that you have used to help save money while caregiving?  Tell us in the comments!

Page 1 of 212