Happy Thanksgiving, from Long Term Solutions

With Thanksgiving just a day away, we would like to take some time to express our gratitude and appreciation for all of the incredible healthcare professionals that we work with, our amazing administrative and clinical staff, and all of the families and caregivers who we are able help through their eldercare process. At Long Term Solutions, we’re passionate about elder care, and we’re thankful that we have been able to help so many families in the process of graceful aging.

Furthermore, we would like to extend our thanks and appreciation to the 65.7 million caregivers who care for ailing or aging loved ones. Sadly, caregiving is usually a silent issue, so many of these caregivers don’t receive the praise and recognition that they deserve. It’s incredibly difficult to care for someone who is continuing to get worse and worse, but these caregivers continue to selflessly provide care and support through all of these emotional ups and downs. Caregivers are amazing and deserve thanks and praise for the amazing care they continue to provide. This year, remember to express your thanks and appreciation to any caregivers that you know.

With that said, we would like to wish everyone a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

How Can WeCare+ Help? Part II

Brian contacted WeCare+ and Leanne, a registered nurse and a care coordinator with Long Term Solutions, became his primary resource for helping his mother. He felt comfortable disclosing all of his concerns with her as she was a registered nurse. He wasn’t sure his mother was being completely honest with him on the phone, and he was concerned there was a bigger issue going on. He knew eventually her dementia would worsen, but he hadn’t planned for this yet. She had been successfully living independently up until now, and he had become comfortable with that. He came to the conclusion that he hadn’t planned appropriately. After their conversation, Leanne contacted a local RN in Florida named Ashley to go to conduct an onsite assessment. She advised the RN that she needed to keep three goals in mind: assess her current living situation, make recommendations for her current care needs, and anticipate her future care needs.

Ashley conducting the assessment quickly realized that Brian’s concerns were genuine. What Brian wasn’t able to discern from a distance Ashley saw in an instant. Like many other people with cognitive impairments, Linda had been able to camouflage many of her symptoms. As an eldercare expert, these discrepancies were something that Ashley was trained to pick up on. She was quick to discern that Linda’s objections as an indication of something more: ‘oh I can’t recall that right now,’ ‘my son already knows about that,’ or ‘of course I take my medications.’ However, when Ashley looked at her medication box she noticed that the only pills missing were Saturday’s. These incongruities in her stories and the conversation with Brian indicated that the dementia had progressed.

Ashley provided Leanne with her assessment, and Leanne followed up with Brian within 24 hours of the visit to discuss Linda’s current and future care needs. Leanne recommended home health aide services on a daily basis, as his mother needed help with medications, bills and other house tasks. There were also safety concerns that a home health aide would be able to address. For the future, Leanne encouraged Brian to consider some different types of facilities for his mother that would offer increased supervision and assistance. Together they put a plan in place for if her dementia worsened, and they successfully gave Brian comfort in knowing he was taking care of his mother. Leanne’s correspondence with Brian didn’t end there. They agreed to follow up every few months to see how his mother’s dementia was progressing, and alter her caregiver services if necessary.

How does WeCare+ help? Part I

Unless you have experience dealing with an elder care situation, it can be hard to completely understand just how complicated and overwhelming these situations can be. Here at Long Term Solutions, we work with caregivers on a daily basis. We understand how to support these caregivers, and guide individuals through these elder care crises. How can WeCare+ do this? Here's a story about Brian Smith, who's ailing mother is a plane ride away from him.

Brian Smith lives in San Diego, California, and far away from his elderly mother, Linda. She has mild dementia, and ever since his father passed away, he has been constantly worrying about her living alone. He wished he could be geographically closer to her, but that wasn’t an option with his career. Fortunately, she had been doing fine. She lived in a nice little apartment in Lantana, Florida. She had a part-time job at a little boutique downtown, and she had been able to independently manage everything from finances to grocery shopping.

Lately, it seemed like things weren’t quite right. Brian received several calls from her friends voicing concerns that she seemed slightly different. She had been missing lunches and not keeping in touch with them as regularly as she had; something was off. It seemed strange because whenever he spoke to his mom on the phone she said things were great. She admitted to missing a lunch or two, but she dismissed it as nothing more than that. Then Brian received a call from her employer, and he knew something was different. His mother had lost her job. She had missed work and was acting uncharacteristically. Brian didn’t have the freedom or time off from his job to fly out to Florida. He wasn’t quite sure that he would know what to do if he was there. He needed someone who was an expert in assessing and planning elder care. In addition to that, he wanted someone local. They needed to be able to visit his mother in her home. He looked for a solution, and he found WeCare+.

Anne Harrington Awarded The Eleanor K. Gill Outstanding Alumni Award for Clinical Excellence

Here at LTS, we are excited to share that Anne Harrington has been awarded the The Eleanor K. Gill Outstanding Alumni Award for Clinical Excellence in Nursing from University of Connecticut's School of Nursing. To read more about here award, click the link here.

Congratulations to Anne Harrington, Chief Operating Officer and co-founder of Long Term Solutions! 

5 Things Working Caregivers Should Do

As we’ve reiterated before, it’s incredibly hard to maintain a full-time job while providing care for an ailing or aging loved one. However, there are some things that working caregivers can do to help avoid burnout and promote balance in their life.

1. Working caregivers need to communicate honestly and openly with their employers. The only way employers can help their caregiver employees is if they know about their caregiving duties. Furthermore, most employers don’t completely understand what goes into full-time caregiving. Working caregivers should tell their employer everything that is going on in their caregiving situation, as well as the amount of time that they have to dedicate to their caregiver duties. Also, this communication needs to be continuous. Working caregivers need to keep their employers in the loop, and let them know when their ailing or aging loved one isn’t doing well. That way, there will be no unexpected surprises if the working caregiver has to leave to go to the hospital or bring their ailing or aging loved one to the doctor.

2. They can also talk to the person they’re caring for. Working caregivers need to remember to talk to their ailing or aging loved one. Usually, caregivers blame themselves and feel guilty if they aren’t dedicated 100% of their time to their ailing or aging loved one. However, if the working caregiver is regularly communicating with their ailing or aging loved one, they can take time for work or themselves without feeling guilty. Communicating their needs will help their ailing or aging loved one is incredibly important to avoiding burnout.

3. Working caregivers need to remember their friends and families. Working caregivers are usually so caught up in their responsibilities that they forget to ask for help. Remind any working caregivers that their friends and family are always available to help, even though they may not be the primary caregivers. If the caregiver isn’t comfortable relinquishing any of their caregiving duties, they can ask for help with running errands for themselves or picking up prescriptions.

4. Working caregivers have to take time to themselves. This is probably the most important thing that a working caregiver can do to prevent burnout. It doesn’t mean every working caregiver needs to take a week vacation immediately, but they do need to start committing at least 15 minutes a day to time alone.

 5. Talk to your employer about other options. Many employers offer eldercare support programs. Here at Long Term Solutions, we offer one of those programs to employers called WeCare+. It is a unique program that is specifically designed to help working caregivers find support and balance. While some employers don’t offer eldercare specific programs, they may offer flextime, telecommuting options, and more.

To learn more about Long Term Solutions and WeCare+, you can visit our website by clicking here.

New Technology for Caregivers: Planning with Apps

Caregivers assume an incredible amount of responsibility and a majority of their responsibilities revolve around planning and keeping track of most, if not all, of their loved one’s care needs. Usually, this is in the form of tracking doctor’s appointments, managing their loved one’s medications, and keeping track of important documents.  Fortunately, with almost everyone using a smartphone, there are a lot of technologies out there that can help caregivers with this planning.

Keeping Track of Doctor’s Appointments:

It’s incredibly easy to lose those small business cards that doctor’s offices give out for appointments. This can be especially difficult for a caregiver trying to track multiple appointments with multiple physicians and specialists. Tracking all of the appointments in a day planner is an option, but remembering to bring the planner to every appointment can be difficult. However, planning applications, such as Google Calendar, can be a great asset. Appointments can be organized by color, so a certain specialist can be assigned a specific color. This calendar can be accessed from multiple platforms, and can be quickly pulled up while scheduling.

Managing Medications:

There are multiple medication management applications, and most app stores allow users to browse through screenshots and reviews before committing to one. There is a great application called RxmindMe Prescription. This is a perfect application for caregivers. The application allows caregivers to set up alerts on a daily, hourly, or weekly basis. The app allows caregivers to be as specific or as general as they want. For example, a caregiver could put in an alert that says “call mom to reminder her about heart medication,” or the reminder could be more specific and state “remind mom to take 15 mg of Doxycycline.”  The best part of this application is the “Prescriptions” feature. This allows caregivers to group specific medications in categories. For example, heart medication, could be broken down into Lasix and Advair. In addition to this, the caregivers can upload pictures of the pills and dosing instructions for each medication to ensure that they are providing their loved one with the correct medication.

General Caregiver Information:

Eldercare 911 is an app designed by Dr. Marion Somers who is a Geriatric Care Manager, and it’s an incredible asset to caregivers. This is an incredibly helpful app that is designed to provide caregivers with all of the information needed while in an eldercare crisis. There is information regarding what to do before the crisis occurs, at the hospital, while planning for discharge, post-hospital care and while in recovery at home. Under each one of these categories are several sub-categories with even more resources. For example, if a caregiver is preparing for the discharge of your loved one from the hospital, this app provides information on how to hire help for your home, dealing with feelings of being overwhelmed, understanding adaptive equipment and more.  It’s incredibly easy to navigate, and the amount of resources in this app is astounding.

Currently, all of these applications are free in the iTunes store. Caregivers may have to try a couple of applications before finding one that works for them, but, in the time that they will save in the long run, it’s worth adopting these technologies.