How to Be an Effective Senior Advocate During a Hospitalization
Whether a loved one is hospitalized for a planned surgery or an unplanned medical emergency, you may be left feeling vulnerable and helpless. You are fully trusting the trained medical professionals to meet all of your loved one’s needs during their stay in the hospital and to know precisely what to do to keep them […]
How to Handle a Decrease in Appetite in a Senior Loved One
You have just made a huge batch of Mom’s special chili recipe. The house smells yummy, and you cannot wait to eat. However, while you are enjoying not just the taste but the memories the meal invokes, Mom is simply stirring the food around in her own bowl. And it’s not the first time. Recently […]
Adapt Activities to Help Preserve Independence During Dementia
If you’re caring for a loved one with Alzheimer’s disease, you might be inclined to do whatever you can for the person to ease the stress of even the most basic everyday tasks. Living independently and dementia may seem like polar opposites. However, we all have an innate need to safeguard self-reliance and the freedom […]
Top Caregiving Tips: What to Do About Dementia Shadowing
Primary caregivers for people with dementia are often all too familiar with the challenge of trying to take a calm moment or two alone – to get a quick shower, step into the other room, or even use the bathroom. Those diagnosed with dementia can experience heightened fear when a family member is out of […]
How to Work With Your Pharmacist to Learn About a New Medication
You have just left the doctor’s office with Mom. The doctor is forwarding a new medication to the drug store that should be ready as soon as you get there. You plan to zip through the drive-through window, grab the medication, and take Mom to lunch. But is there a step you’re missing? When a […]
Financial Planning for Family Caregivers
Providing care for a senior parent is a time-consuming labor of love. It may also have an effect on finances, as family caregivers may decide to reduce their work hours, take an unpaid leave, or quit working altogether. It’s common for financial planning for family caregivers to fall by the wayside as they concentrate on […]
Symptoms That May Indicate a Loved One Might Have Alzheimer’s
You can’t quite put your finger on it, but you have begun to observe some differences in Mom’s habits recently. She is a bit more forgetful than before. She keeps losing her car keys. Sometimes she repeats herself. Could it be dementia? Currently, over 6.5 million people age 65 and older are struggling with dementia, […]
Beyond the Winter Doldrums: How to Help Seniors with Anhedonia
After the busyness of the holidays, it’s not uncommon for the winter doldrums to emerge. Yet what might appear at first to be just a bit of boredom could in fact be something more serious that should be addressed. Anhedonia is a or a loss of interest in activities that a person once enjoyed and […]
Health and Wellness Tips for a Healthier 2023
While we prepare to move forward into 2023, it is an ideal time to ponder what we have learned over the last year and what adjustments we would like to make in the coming year. It’s more than simply making a resolution that we will likely give up on within a matter of weeks. It […]
How to Know When a Senior Has Mild Cognitive Impairment
Returning home for the holidays is a great opportunity to make new memories and reminisce together about holidays past. But it’s also when family members often see changes with elder loved ones – changes that could be too slight to detect during a phone call or FaceTime, but are glaringly evident in person. One such […]