Bridget Waller, RN is the Owner and Executive Director of Hillendale Home Care.
Bridget and Hillendale Home Care welcomes the community to take advantage of her years of nursing expertise to assist in the Home Care needs of clients and their families.
Click Here To View Our Home Care Aide Certification
The non-profit National Private Duty Association (NPDA), along with Hillendale Home Care, has announced that it will host a consumer education web conference entitled “Hiring Home Care Workers: Avoiding Tax and Legal Risks” on March 30, 2011, at 6 p.m.
The live and interactive program, which will provide advice on reducing risks during the home care hiring process, is free of charge to participants.
“Most seniors want to remain living at home as long as possible. The goal of our upcoming program is to educate families to help them make the best decisions when hiring caregivers for their seniors who need assistance around the house,” said Sheila McMackin, president of NPDA. “Going into this hiring process with a solid foundation of knowledge puts your mind at ease and reduces the potential for tax and legal problems down the road.”
The web conference topics include understanding home care provider hiring guidelines, tax and legal issues, identifying risks, and independent contractor issues.
Pre-registration for this event is required. Sign up today by visiting the registration link www.privatedutyhomecare.org.
The NPDA is the first and only association in the country dedicated exclusively to private pay home care providers. The NPDA, a non-profit organization, currently represents more than 1,100 home care agencies in 40 states and Puerto Rico.
Research has shown that sleep is essential to good health. While we can skimp on sleep for a short while without major complications, sleep deprivation of any kind has an effect on the body.
Sleep is how the mind rests from the rigors of the day. Without it, mental function suffers. Lack of sleep causes confusion, distortion of memory and decreased mental capacity.
Not only can lack of sleep contribute to depression risk, but depression itself can cause changes to sleep patterns. A depressed person may experience difficulty getting off to sleep coupled with early morning wakening.
Long-term insomnia means that individuals are more susceptible to reacting badly to stressors. Denying our bodies of needed sleep places strain on every portion of the physical body. Organs and systems are forced to work when they should be resting. This gives our bodies little time to heal itself in preparation for the next day.
Aside from the increased risk for various mental and physical health problems, sleep deprivation for caregivers can have other noticeable consequences:
Hillendale Home Care offers all of our clients and caregivers our wishes for energizing exercise for body and mind, healthy rest at night, and happy mornings every day!
There are many instances when home care is a perfectly appropriate care choice rather than nursing home placement or a permanent move to a retirement or assisted living facility. Whether a little amount of home care is needed to help avoid a future crisis, or sporadic home care is required following an acute illness or a fall, home care can enable one to reside and recuperate in comfortable, familiar surroundings.
How does one determine if home care is appropriate care choice for a particular person?
Look at Activities of Daily Living, those things that people do on a daily basis. These activities are fundamental to caring for oneself and maintaining independence: bathing, getting dressed, getting in or out of bed or a chair, eating and getting around or walking.
Instrumental Activities of Daily Living are activities related to independent living and include preparing meals, shopping for groceries, maintaining a residence, doing housework, taking medications, using a telephone, handling mail and traveling via a car or public transportation.
Recognizing a person’s limitations is the first step in developing a care plan to provide the appropriate type and level of assistance.
When aspects of daily life become challenging, a natural reaction for many people is avoidance. Rather than enabling someone to withdraw and isolate, caregivers should develop a plan that meets the physical, social and psychological needs of the care recipient.
Hillendale Home Care can provide a complete geriatric assessment with a suggestion for care needs.
You may be taking care of elderly parents now or looking at that possibility in the near future. According to a report from USATODAY/ABCNews/Gallup Poll, 41% of baby boomers are helping take care of elderly parents by providing personal help or financial assistance or both.
If financial planning and long term care planning have not been done previous to the need for care the burden falls on the care giving family member. Decisions about how care will be paid for, who will be responsible for managing the estate as well as how the long term care will be given can cause stress and contention among family members.
It is best for parents and all family members to be involved in planning for future financial needs. The financial resources being used today could change drastically with the occurrence of a stroke, illness or onset of dementia. In order to plan financially for long term care, you need to know what the costs are now and what they will be in the future…read the entire article by going to the link below
Please go to the following URL for the entire article and previous articles: Either click on the link http://www.planforcare.org or copy and paste the following into your browser: http://www.planforcare.org
The eggnog has vanished from the dairy aisles at the grocery stores for another twelve months, many trees have started their annual migration from the living room to the curb, and the next big event on the horizon is Groundhog Day. Going from January 1 to January 2 is like going from the fast lane on the freeway to the end of the line at the DMV. All the rushing around and preparing for the holidays is over, the kitchen is a mess, and we’re left with a list of resolutions we don’t want to re-read and mornings, it seems, are coming earlier and earlier in the day.
Don’t believe it, though. While the days are slowly growing longer (about a minute longer each day since the Winter Solstice on December 21), the days start for a lot of us with waking up to windows still dark with the lingering night. The post-holiday haze can make us post-holiday blue. While nobody can have a fabulous day every day, prolonged exposure to the blues can affect our health negatively.
There’s no magic wand for getting through the doldrums, but there are tricks you can use to good effect. Looking forward instead of back can be amazingly effective, and there’s a brand new clean calendar chock of opportunities that are written in invisible ink. Staying active in your own life and in other’s lives is also beyond reproach as a method of renewing the spirit. Amazing things can happen to us when we do something like volunteering, planting a tree, starting to learn another language, painting a wall, or mulling over the tough decision of choosing a new hobby; even something as simple as discovering a new favorite book or a new piece of music can restart our batteries.
Spring is around the corner, and Hillendale Home Care wishes you and yours a happy, healthy, and reinvigorated New Year!
Most aging adults strive to remain independent as long as possible; healthy eating and physical activity can go a long way towards that goal. Some physical weakness can be part of the aging process; but functional decline is often the result of a sedentary lifestyle and improper nutrition.
Why is Exercise so important?
There are many physical and psychological benefits to exercise – even for the frail elderly. According to the Office of Aging, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, exercise and fitness can be effectively used to achieve goals, such as:
The exercise program best for each individual varies, but establishing set times and days to exercise will help foster a longer-term commitment and routine. Even a 6-minute routine a few times a day can make a noticeable difference. Take part in simple seated exercises, or low impact activities such as walking, swimming or water aerobics, bowling, dancing or Yoga. For a frail person, just working on getting up and down out of a chair unassisted is using muscles that need to be exercised.
Resource links compliments of Hillendale Home Care
Exercise for Older Adults http://nihseniorhealth.gov/exerciseforolderadults/toc.html
Seated Exercises http://www.livewellagewell.info/study/2007/12-ChairExercisesUGA113006.pdf
http://www.exercise4weightloss.com/senior-stretching-exercises.html
Eating for Health & Longevity
A challenge for older adults is to meet the same nutrient needs as when they were younger, yet consume fewer calories. As adults age, calorie needs change due to more body fat, less lean muscle and less activity, and many develop a glucose intolerance. An emphasis on nutrient-dense foods and fluid balance are key, as well as choosing complex carbohydrates that put less stress on the circulating blood glucose.
A well-balanced diet includes:
Although the majority of nutrients an older adult consumes should come from food sources, these nutrients may be difficult to obtain from food alone, especially when calorie needs go down. A doctor can help determine which vitamins or supplements are needed to augment each individual diet.
The equivalent of five to eight glasses of water should be consumed every day to reduce stress on kidney function, which tends to decline with age. Adequate water intake is also essential to ease constipation, flush toxins from the body, and help keep joints flexible and the mind clear. Foods with high water content include melons, grapes, cucumbers, onions, apples, cabbage and soup.
Loss of appetite is common with older people who may feel lonely at mealtimes, or have trouble making meals for themselves. Eating with family and friends, taking part in group meal programs, or bringing in a home care aide to cook for them are helpful in combating this problem.
Resource links compliments of Hillendale Home Care.
Eating Well as You Get Older http://nihseniorhealth.gov/eatingwellasyougetolder/toc.html
Healthy Meals: Cooking for One or Two http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/healthy-cooking/HQ00474
Elderly Nutrition Snacks http://www.elder-one-stop.com/elderly-nutrition-snacks.html
The holidays are always a wonderful time of year for family gatherings, reflection on what we have and the spirit of giving. The television is packed with specials showing relationships and families coming together for the holidays.
But the holidays can also be a time of stress and sadness for those who are caring for family members that are struggling with health problems, frailty, dementia and loss. Those who care for these individuals may feel overwhelmed, frustrated, depressed or resentful as they watch “perfect” families enjoying the holidays. There are many surveys and documents that show that caregivers are highly susceptible to these feelings. If you are a caregiver, there are measures you can take to avoid this.
…read the entire article by going to the link below
Please go to the following URL for the entire article and previous articles: Either click on the link http://www.planforcare.org or copy and paste the following into your browser: http://www.planforcare.org
As the days become shorter and the nights become longer, and as Thanksgiving is fast approaching, we feel it is appropriate and timely to consider and give thanks to the often-overlooked, but never maligned Good Night’s Rest.
Research has shown that sleep is essential to good health. Sleep is how the mind rests, recovers, and resets from the rigors of the day. Without the proper amount of regular sleep, mental function suffers.
Confusion, distortion of memory, and decreased mental capacity are among the short-term results of sleep loss. In the long term, a number of studies have found that poor sleeping patterns can cause depression later in life. In an ironic case of Catch-22, not only can lack of sleep contribute to depression risk, but depression itself can cause changes in sleep patterns.
Other physical dangers of sleep deprivation include: wear and tear on the vital organs and systems of the body, diminished muscle strength and endurance, heightened sensitivity to pain, increased appetite leading to excessive weight gain, and disruption of insulin production and sugar metabolism which can increase the risk of diabetes.
Please stay tuned for our next blog where we will discuss sleep disorder symptoms and reducing Care Giver burnout!
