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.

Rising Cost of Nursing Homes

This year, Genworth Financial released their 9^th annual Cost of Care Survey. The results serve as a perfect microscope to examine the cost of care state by state, and to understand emerging trends in the cost of care. One of the most striking figures is the cost of a nursing home and their expected increase in price.

In the study, the facilities are broken down into three categories: assisted living facility, nursing home(semi-private room) and nursing home (private room). For this article, we are just focusing on nursing home stays in a semi-private room. Nationwide, the average nursing home costs $200 a day. This figure has increased 3.63% in 2011, and over the next five years it is expected to grow 4.5%.

 Across the United States, it looks like this trend stays true for each state, with some regions being more expensive than others:

•  The North East has some of the most expensive care. In Massachusetts a nursing home stay costs $322 a day, and $117,530 a year. 
•  The cost of care in the West Coast is cheaper than the North East, but is still above the national average. In California a nursing home stay costs $224 a day, and $81,760 a year. 
• Nursing homes in the South are slightly above the national average. 
• In Florida, a nursing home stay costs $215 a day, and $78,475 a year
• The Midwest also is slightly below the national average, with a nursing home in Indiana costing $187 a day, and $68,255 a year.
• The most expensive nursing homes can be found in Alaska, with a nursing home costing $273,750 a year.
• The cheapest nursing homes can be found in Texas with nursing homes costing $47,450 a year.

What does this mean for caregivers? Already, more and more family members are fulfilling the role of caregiver due to the cost of healthcare. With the costs of facility focused care expected to increase at an average of $15,300 a year, more and more family members will become caregivers because facility based care is just too unaffordable.

You can compare costs in your state and others at Genworth’s website, here

Balancing Caregiving and Employment

At LTS, we understand how caregiving responsibilities can impact careers. The nature of caregiving responsibilities can change from day to day, and, often times, caregivers find themselves doing a variety of tasks for their loved ones. Sometimes, employers aren’t aware of the different challenges caregivers face.

Here are some of the things that caregivers regularly find themselves helping with:

• Managing medications
• Communicating with their loved one’s physicians
• Scheduling doctors’ appointments
• Transporting their ailing or aging loved one to these appointments
• Grocery shopping for their ailing or aging loved one
• Cooking meals
• Managing finances
• Providing social interaction
• Providing emotional support

These are just some of the tasks that caregivers are involved in. Furthermore, their caregiving responsibilities are dependent upon the health of their ailing or aging loved ones, and the responsibilities increase if their loved one’s health begins to fail. With that in mind, let’s discuss some possible ways caregivers can help to balance some of the responsibilities involved with caregiving and their career.  
 
Communication is perhaps one of the most important things that a working caregiver can do to achieve balance. The communication works in two ways. First, working caregivers should keep their employers informed. This way, the employer will know what is going on and will not be blindsided or upset if the working caregiver has to step out for a family emergency. One important thing to note is that employers need to be open to this information, and employers need to be willing to help their employees through this difficult time. Secondly, working caregivers need to communicate their needs. Working caregivers can express what they need from the employer, whether it be more flexible scheduling, some time off, or a lighter workload. In addition to communicating with employers, working caregivers can find solace and, often, a helping hand if they keep their friends and family informed.   

The second most important tool in working to achieve caregiver work life balance is having time off. Any working caregiver will immediately say this is next to impossible, but it is truly a necessity for balance. A week-long vacation may be hard to schedule, but working caregivers must block out at least 15 minutes a day to themselves. This 15 minutes will allow the working caregivers time to get everything off of their mind, and, also, to avoid burnout. 

Lastly, working caregivers should ask for help. This is another form of communication, but it is usually more difficult for some caregivers to do than simply talking about what they’re going through. However, working caregivers need to ask for help when feeling overwhelmed. This help can come in a variety of ways and doesn’t necessarily have to be related to their caregiving responsibilities. Perhaps it is making a meal for them, running some errands around town, or picking up their children from school. All of these things help to reduce some of the burden put on working caregivers, and it will keep the caregivers from become burnt out.

Using these three tools can help working caregivers achieve balance with their careers and caregiving responsibilities.

Caring for the Elderly: Fall Risk: Part 1

Here in New England, fall is in full swing. We have beautiful fall foliage, chilly mornings and nights, and the days are getting shorter and shorter. While all of these are welcome parts of fall, the falling leaves, the changes in temperature, and the dwindling daylight can pose some safety hazards for the elderly.

Slippery Leaves 
The mild fall weather is a great opportunity to be outside, and many elderly take advantage of this by going on walks. However, the leaves on the ground can pose a serious fall risk. These dry leaves can absorb an incredibly large amount of water, and this makes them extremely slippery.

Please advise any of your elderly loved ones to practice caution while walking on a leaf covered sidewalk:

• Walk slowly over leaf covered areas 
• Always wear sneakers while walking to increase traction 
• If you are walking with an elderly loved one, support them by the arm while walking across any leaf covered areas 

Frost
The cold mornings and evenings create a second hazard: frost. The warm afternoon temperatures can quickly drop, and any condensation or moisture that is on the ground will turn into frost. This can be somewhat unexpected in months like September and October, but that is exactly why it is so dangerous. The elderly can avoid falls by taking several precautions:

• Walk slowly on the sidewalk 
• Avoid shaded areas as these are more likely to have frost 
• Try walking later in the day, as most of the frost is melted by noon 

Shorter days

Lastly, the shorter days can be a hazard to the elderly who may have difficulty seeing at night. Remember to remind your elderly loved ones about the time change. In addition to that, you can encourage them to alter their daily schedule by an hour or two, and advise them to plan all of their errands and appointments for the afternoon. That way, they can avoid being on the road after dark.

For the elderly, falls are incredibly dangerous. The elderly are at a much higher risk for suffering a broken bone or serious injury as the result of a fall. Furthermore, hospital stays can lead to an increased risk of pneumonia, cognitive decline, and other diseases. This season, please be sure to keep your elderly loved one safe from harm.