Do you remember when gay meant happy? Now it has a completely different connotation. When something went well you were pleased as punch, or even happy as a clam at high tide.

A person who was astonished was likely to exclaim sakes alive. What about the term lands-a-goshen? Gee-whiz, that goes way back. Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.

Make no bones about it, people use profanity much more these days. When angry or frustrated, folks used to utter dagnabit, jeepers, cripes or for pete’s sake.

Someone who was off their rocker was mad as a hatter, not playing with a full deck, a complete numskull and ready for the funny farm. On the other hand, you could be sharp as a tack.

Mum’s the word. Keep it close to your chest. Hearing a doozy straight from the horse’s mouth may put you in such a tizzy that you let the cat out of the bag. A cock-and-bull story is likely to spread like wildfire. Better to let sleeping dogs lie than entice people to pick up their ears. Gossip is usually full of malarkey.

A wiseguy was called a smart aleck or smarty-pants. A good-looking guy was a dream boat. A gal was called a dish. She could be persnickety and still keep her dance card full, staying out on a Saturday night until the cows came home.

If you had the Midas touch your money could help you live high on the hog and buy something for an arm and a leg. Hard workers would get it by hook or by crook or just make it by the skin of their teeth.

When manna from heaven falls, you are in like Flynn. But a fool and his money are soon parted when falling for a pig in a poke. It doesn’t matter whether hoisted by your own petard or you can pass the buck. Golly, it’s hard to keep your chin up when you are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Does anybody get lumbago anymore? Of course they do. This is an old-fashioned term for lower back pain. I bet it was harder to find a chiropractor back in the olden days. Scrivener’s palsy might be a thing of the past. After all, who uses a feather pen and ink well anymore? BlackBerry thumb is more common these days.

It just goes to show you, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Stay cool, and don’t be a fuddy duddy.

UNDERSTANDING THE COST OF ELDER CARE SERVICES:

According to the MetLife Mature Market Annual Survey on the Cost of Care in the United States, the findings look like this:
• The national average daily rate for a private room in a nursing home rose 4.4% from $229 in 2010 to $239 in 2011.
• The national average monthly base rate in an assisted living community rose 5.6% from $3,293 in 2010 to $3,477 in 2011.
• The national average daily rate for adult day services rose 4.5% from $67 in 2010 to $70 in 2011.
• The national average hourly rates for home health aides ($21) and homemakers ($19) were unchanged from 2010.

HOW MUCH WILL IT COST YOUR FAMILY?

The very best way to know specifically how much home care services will cost is to seek advice from one of our professionals. All together you can come up with a plan of care and a number of hours that are not only cost-effective, but keep your aging loved one safe and in their own home.

Ask about options like The VA AID and ATTENDANCE PENSION BENEFIT, Reverse Mortgages, Life Settlements, and Long-Term Care Insurance. Chances are that one of those programs may be able to help with the cost.

HOW SOON CAN HOME CARE SERVICES START?

As soon as today in most cases. The start date is up to you, but our team is dedicated to getting a caregiver in your home as soon as you need them.

Contact us today: (856) 720-0081 

If you use a friend or family member giving In-home care for a loved one, you will need to consider finding her a unique gift idea for Valentine’s Day. In-home caregivers empower clients to get pleasure from comfortable, healthy lives in the contentment of their own property. While they give extraordinary handling to your loved ones, the holidays are the excellent time frame to point to how extraordinary they are by showering them with a spectrum of goodies to express how much they are treasured.

Massage
Get a gift certificate for a massage for your caregiver. 30-minute and One hour massages are out there to lessen pressure, stress and worries. Search for nearby massage salons in your place and find a dependable place to direct the caregiver. A good intensive, hands-on massage might motivate them to make it element of their regular schedule.

Gift Basket
You can buy pre-packaged gift baskets at several shops, on-line and florists. If you already know the caregiver, you can build the basket yourself by including some of her most desired items. As an example, if you know she likes to garden, pack 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 products 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 supper or to the movies. Try to discover some of the caregiver’s favored dining establishment and get a certificate to that particular place. Obtain movies tickets online so they will not become expired and the caregiver can use them at anytime.

Spa Treatments
Female caregivers will appreciate a spa day or spa treatments. Provide her a gift certificate to a hometown spa. Several spas offer half day and full day solutions. Another thought is to get a gift certificate to a neighborhood nail salon for a manicure and pedicure. This helps 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 sizeable coffee mugs with a variety of coffee and a gift card to a qualified coffee shop. For a tea lover, fill sizeable glasses with different bags and boxes of tea.

Overview
In-home care takes a unique 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.

Home care and home healthcare are different in two ways.

Home care offers non-medical services and is not paid for by Medicare, although some home care providers 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. Once in a while long-term care insurance may handle home care as well. Home health care, however, is medical care that is covered by health insurance or Medicare. To get home health care, a senior or a patient must always be homebound and in need of assistance of medical care as determined by a doctor. Medicare could additionally cover non-medical providers executed by a home health aide, but these services are only covered when different medical care at home is necessary. Normally these non-medical services occur at the same time as medical care visits.

Home care delivers non-medical services to seniors and patients recovering from operations. Assistance in bathing and dressing are standard home care services. Other chores home care workers deliver include light housekeeping, meal preparation, running errands and transportation. Help in walking or exercise and other light support to make life easier are offered by home care professionals. As the population ages, home care agencies proliferated to meet the requirements of the elderly who prefer to reside in their homes, but who might require 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 might possibly be concerned in the health care plan. Home health aides may be assigned to help out with activities of daily living. These services will probably be covered by Medicare as long as other medical care is also demanded.

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

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

The following 5 points are offered to those who are opening 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 general practitioner and ask for local references. Your last choice is to try the world wide web, but if you choose this route, make sure to spend extra time looking at each company more thoroughly, as you won’t have unique experience to judge these companies by.

2. Background Checks
Once you’ve sorted out a short list of companies you wish to investigate further, make sure to ask what types of screening 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
Ask as to what the minimum qualifications each company needs when hiring their care providers. Do they only hire college educated nurses? Are their care providers certified nursing assistants? Or, do they simply have to have that their staff have a background in helping care for the elderly? The more refined their requirements, the better care will likely be given.

4. Company Reputation
Check with your local Better Business Bureau to assess each company’s general rating. Do they have multiple complaints listed? Are there any standout criticisms? You can also try a typical search online by typing in the company’s name and the word “complaint” into any search engine to find what comes up from the general public’s point of view.

5. Licensing
Make sure any company you manage has the proper city, county and state licensing current and in good standing. Get rid of the worry of hiring any company that is not reputable in practice.

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

When researching options for home care agencies in Turnersville NJ, and for all of your senior care needs in Cherry Hill NJ and the surrounding areas call and talk to us at Home to Stay Healthcare Solutions (856) 720-0081 

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

Social Security and Medicare

Social Security is a retirement plan fund and disability pension for disabled workers. The amount each individual will receive is dependent upon the amount paid into the fund during his or her employed years. If a husband/wife dies, the surviving husband/wife is entitled to widows or widowers pension. For over 50% of Americans, Social Security benefits will be their principal foundation of funds when they retire.

Medicare

Medicare is provided to nearly all people age 65 and older. Medicare will pay for home care services that fit in the category of “home healthcare” or “skilled care”. This means that the treatment must be provided by a professional, must be directed by a physician and the care receiver must be homebound in order to receive it. Medicare does not cover companion home care services. It will not cover private duty home care services.

Private Income

For many individuals, income from different sources such as income off an already present small business may have a comfortable margin in their bank account by which to pay for home care services they may need now or later in life. Any CDs attached to these accounts are also an added bonus.

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

Pension plans available to employees of some companies have provided suitable earnings for the retirees to live on and supplement other revenue 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 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 exploration and financial 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 daunting task is actually quite easy to navigate with proper planning.

By Alexia Elejalde-ruiz

Chicago Tribune

Original Article Posted Here: http://mobile.philly.com/health/?wss=/philly/health&id=137436328&deliver=iphone&c=y&clmob=y&viewAll=y#more

CHICAGO – Peyton “Pete” Dralle wasted little time after he learned doctors could do no more to treat his throat cancer. He took spur-of-the-moment trips, got his affairs in order and, when he finally agreed to care at San Diego Hospice, he documented his life story.

Using a technique called dignity therapy, psychologist Lori Montross interviewed Dralle five months before his death about meaningful life moments, lessons he’d learned and those he wished to pass on to loved ones. She transcribed their audio recordings, then read the transcript aloud to Dralle, who edited it to his liking. The resulting 14-page “legacy document” was bundled into a leather binder for him to bequeath to whomever he pleased.

Dralle’s longtime partner, Lisa Amparan, remembers the sense of importance Dralle felt in being able to contribute something in his ailing state, and the relief he felt when it was finished, as though he’d gotten something off his plate.

“He got to tell his own story in his own words, and no one had to tell it for him,” said Amparan, 48, who this month marks the first anniversary of Dralle’s death. She keeps the binder, which she decorated with photos, on a bedroom bookshelf, and leafs through it when she misses him most.

Dignity therapy, an exercise that aims to give terminally ill patients a sense of meaning, closure and posterity in their final days, has experienced a surge of interest recently thanks to research showing it improves quality of life more effectively than other methods of end-of-life care.

A study published this summer in the journal Lancet Oncology found that patients who underwent dignity therapy were significantly more likely to report enhanced sense of dignity, better spiritual well-being and a sense of helpfulness to their families than those who underwent standard palliative care or client-centered care, which is when clinicians work one-on-one with a patient on current issues.

Earlier studies have shown dignity therapy also provides comfort to grieving families.

Study author Harvey Chochinov, a Canadian psychiatrist who developed the technique a decade ago and holds annual training sessions in Winnipeg, Manitoba, said he added training sessions this year in San Diego and Australia to accommodate rising demand. In December, he published Dignity Therapy: Final Words for Final Days, the first book to lay out a blueprint for his technique.

Although hospices for decades have engaged patients in reflective “life review,” what distinguishes dignity therapy is that it provides training and a framework for helping patients produce a tangible legacy document, and there’s empirical evidence that it’s beneficial, said J. Donald Schumacher, president and CEO of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.

“I think it’s a very, very, very notable and useful technique, and I hope it does get adopted by many of the practitioners out there,” Schumacher said.

Although published research on the effectiveness of dignity therapy has so far focused on patients with less than six months to live, a forthcoming study on the frail elderly shows similar outcomes, plus benefit to the health care workers who care for them, Chochinov said.

Chochinov, a psychiatry professor at the University of Manitoba, said he was inspired to learn more about the role of dignity in end-of-life care because Dutch studies had found “loss of dignity” to be the most frequently cited reason terminally ill patients pursued euthanasia to hasten death.

A host of factors can undermine dignity as people succumb to illness, including a loss of personhood, a loss of purpose and, prominently, perceiving themselves to not be appreciated by others, Chochinov said. Often there is fear that their lives won’t have a ripple effect.

By asking probing questions – “When did you feel most alive?” “Are there specific things you want your family to know about you?” – trained dignity therapists aim to capture what really makes a person tick. They also focus on generativity, a psychological term that describes the desire to guide the next generation.

“You can be in conversations with people where they may in essence be speaking to great-great-grandchildren they will never meet,” said Montross, who trained with Chochinov and now is assistant director of the Palliative Care Psychiatry Research Program at the Institute for Palliative Medicine at San Diego Hospice.

Unlike a lot of psychotherapy, which pushes people to confront painful issues of their past, dignity therapy meets people where they are, so they can address the topics they consider most pertinent and write their own stories.

Sometimes the conversations are heartbreaking. Chochinov remembers an elderly patient who said it was too late to ask for forgiveness after drinking away his relationships, but he wanted his grandchildren to know who he had been so that they could choose better paths. Another dying man wanted his wife to know it was OK with him if she fell in love with someone new.

Sometimes reconciliation is more important than facts. Montross remembers a patient who said nasty things about his estranged sister during their interview, but upon hearing his words read back to him, he revised his comments to be kinder.

Strikingly, the most prominent topic that graces every conversation is love, Montross and colleagues found in a study on the logistics of implementing dignity therapy in hospice communities, published last year in the Journal of Palliative Medicine. Another universal theme was lessons learned in life, the most common being to accept and acknowledge one’s own imperfections, Montross said.

With the clarity that comes with having limited time left, memories from a lifetime are distilled into the most essential, Montross said. Legacy documents, written in Q-and-A format, average 3,000 words, or eight single-spaced pages, her study found.

Shortly after Montross delivered Dralle’s freshly bound document, Amparan read it aloud to him as they lay together in bed. Initially nervous she might find out about some other woman he loved, Amparan instead got confirmation that this was a man she knew more intimately than anyone.

“It was like falling in love again and again and again, and remembering what the experience was,” said Amparan, who has since shared the book with a few of Dralle’s close friends.

Written just before his 75th birthday, Dralle’s document tells of the wanderlust that prompted him to leave home at 15; the persistence that was his key to success as a salesman; and the irony that his impending death made him feel more alive, more attuned to the feel of the grass under his feet, than ever before. With a self-deprecating humor undiminished by his illness, the former Navy man and avid golfer counseled his loved ones: “Be a person of your word.”

Dralle’s parting thoughts may have left a greater ripple than he realized.

“To be honest,” said Montross, who spent 10 hours interviewing Dralle, “he held more grace in his dying 90-pound frame than men twice his size or half his age.”

Can family help?

 While everyone should be encouraged to have meaningful conversations with loved ones, dignity therapy is a technique designed for trained professionals who can handle emotionally intense interviews and respond appropriately if a patient’s sentiments are potentially hurtful to others, said Chochinov, its creator.

Not all patients should participate, Chochinov said. People who are so ill that it is affecting their cognition, or who are so severely depressed that it is warping their perceptions of themselves and their past, should not undergo dignity therapy because they could create distorted memories.

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

You may squander a lot of time fretting about your parents when you can’t be with them. Your parents may not want to leave their home to go into a nursing home or assisted living facility. The remedy to this dilemma is in-home care, which will allow your parents to stay in their own home where they are most contented and will relieve some of your fear and stress about the issue.

When you choose in-home care, the healthcare professional can relieve you of some of your tasks. The caregiver can help your parents with basic skills such as bathing and getting dressed each morning. The caregiver can even help 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 eating as well as they should be. A caregiver can help ease these anxieties by planning meals and making sure they eat each day. You and your parents can even chat with the caregiver to focus on your concerns and put together a dietary plan that makes everyone feel better about your parents’ nutritional requirements.

If you choose to get in-home care for your aging parents, you can get supplemental guidance in the area of home tasks. Most likely that you have been trying to keep your household clean as well as your parents’ home. This can be especially exhausting if you perform a full time job on top of everything else. When you select a professional in the field of elder care, that person can help with light housework duties, which include doing the washing.

Perhaps one of the best features of elder care is that your parents will have some company during the day when you can’t be there. Your aging parents may be getting lonely, and you may be feeling troubled because you can’t spend the amount of time with your parents that you hope you could. You can stop feeling culpable that you aren’t with your parents and start feeling excellent about knowing someone is with your parents who cares. After all, 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 go.

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

Guilt- Children find it hard to come to parents about caregiver stress they have been experiencing since taking on the task. Children often feel ashamed over thinking about care for their parents because their parents raised them and the children feel as though they are letting their parents down if they need to establish home care. The option for these problems may be to engage respite care to come to the home and help temporarily. This will help test the waters to see how the parent adjusts to having in-home care. The parent may willingly agree to the offer of respite care to help in everyday elder care. This can successfully rid the children of a guilty feeling that is not necessary to start with.

Experiencing it Head-On- Beating around the bush when aiming to talk to an elderly parent about elder care will end in not talking about it at all. Have all the knowledge necessary to illustrate to the parent what is entailed and all the arguments that it is a good plan to hire elder care. The details gathered should include charges as well as possible ideas to cover the costs if insurance does not cover it. Nearly all elderly people are on a fixed income and that is one thing that children should consider before communicating with their parents about respite care. Be soft but candid when getting close to the subject matter.

Truth- The truth of a parent in need of an in-home caregiver is very important to stress in the course of the talk. Parents should be told that the children work full-time jobs, have kids to care for or anything else that raises caregiver stress levels. Stress ends up in bad communication skills and ultimately anger and bitterness over having to undertake the extra job of caring for an elderly parent. When children take on the responsibility of caring for an ill parent, the rapport often suffers greatly because of the stress related complications.

Worries- Be open and honest with the elderly parent when he or she has fears. The worries might seem like complaints or excuses, but they are real fears that the parent is feeling and should be addressed speedily. Two of the main concerns the parent might have are cost and having someone in the home who is a stranger. Do not make claims that cannot be sustained, but give suggestions gained by talking to a professional about it.

Adult children who are taking care of their elderly parents find out early on that it is a daunting duty at best. There are duties involved in caring for an elderly parent that are tough to handle. Children and parents should guide each other when they can. There is a time to realize that an in-home caregiver is the best choice. Be well prepared to take on the extra cost if the elderly parent cannot take care of 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 choice.