What Is Someone With Dementia Thinking?
By Paula Spencer Scott, Caring.com senior editor

Parents are known to gaze into their babies’ eyes and wonder, What’s going on in there? Those of us who are caring for loved ones who have Alzheimer’s disease or another dementia do the same thing.

I know, because I found myself wondering about my own dad’s self awareness just the other day. A recent stroke left him wheelchair-bound. This is a big change for someone who was in a bowling league ’til this spring, at 87. But the stroke also seemed to worsen his dementia. He’s living in a rehabilitation facility for now, and when I visit and find him lined up with other wheelchair-bound elders in the dementia unit, watching TV, I can’t help thinking that he’s doing exactly what he swore he never would: “sit around with a bunch of old people who don’t know any better.” Thing is, he doesn’t seem to mind it.

As Alzheimer’s, a progressive disease, worsens, it robs the ability to have conscious awareness. What does that mean for caregivers?

In early/mid stages of Alzheimer’s:

• Most people are aware of initial cognitive changes in themselves (whether they say anything about it or not).
• Self awareness doesn’t disappear overnight. Research has shown that many people are relieved by a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, rather than upset, because they finally have a logical explanation for something unnerving that’s dogged at them.

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If you or someone you know needs help with elder care in Seattle WA or the surrounding area, contact the caregivers at Andelcare. We provide quality and affordable home care for many disabled and elderly loved ones in our community. Call us at 888-788-3051 for more information.

Coach Summitt’s Diagnosis Puts Spotlight on Early-Onset Alzheimer’s
Staywell Custom Communications

Alzheimer’s disease is one of the most dreaded afflictions of old age, but the announcement by celebrated women’s basketball coach Pat Summit of her Alzheimer’s diagnosis at age 59 has put a spotlight on the less common, but perhaps even more devastating, form of the disease.

About 500,000 people in the United States, or about 5 percent of those with Alzheimer’s, have early-onset Alzheimer’s, also called “young-onset” because it’s diagnosed before age 65, said Dr. Zoe Arvanitakis, a neurologist in the Alzheimer’s Disease Center at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

Though rarer still, diagnoses among people in their 30s and 40s aren’t unheard of, she noted.

“In contrast to what many people think, Alzheimer’s disease does not only affect older persons. It can also affect persons in their middle adult ages,” Arvanitakis said.

Symptoms for early-onset Alzheimer’s are the same as for late-onset disease, experts said. Summit, coach of the University of Tennessee Lady Vols, told the Washington Post this week that she suspected her forgetfulness was a side effect of a rheumatoid arthritis drug, until Mayo Clinic doctors told her she was showing mild signs of the dementia.

Typically, early-onset Alzheimer’s progresses more quickly than late-onset Alzheimer’s, experts said.

Still, the time from which a person first has symptoms to the time they’ve lost so much of their mental abilities that they’re truly disabled varies widely from person to person, said Dr. Gary Kennedy, director of the division of geriatric psychiatry at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City.

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The caregivers at Andelcare are available to talk with you and your family about all of your elder care needs. Andelcare is a home care agency providing quality, affordable elder care in Seattle and the surrounding areas. Call 888-788-3051 for more information.

Caregiver Stress Can Show in Body Language, Causing Negative Results All Around
by Carol Bradley Bursack, Editor-in-Chief

Our body language affects those we care for. If we are stressed and our movements show it, our care receiver is likely to feel that stress. That, in turn, can make the care receiver more stressed and cranky. We then can create a negative cycle. Ideally, caregivers will learn to work off stress away from the care receiver, so that he or she can present a calm and loving presence for his or her loved one.

Have you ever had a day where you realize, after the fact, that your movements were jerky, you were hurried with everything you did, your teeth were clenched, perhaps your breathing was shallow? If you haven’t, most caregivers would like to know your secret. A perfect caregiver would never let his or her stress be evident around the care receiver. However, we are imperfect human beings.

Coping with the needs of an elder or a spouse with dementia can be especially stressful; however, any long-term elder care is something that can take a physical, mental and emotional toll on nearly anyone.

When dementia is part of the picture

People with dementia, particularly advanced dementia, are often only able to comprehend the here and now. Therefore, the fact that this person may have asked the same question of the caregiver every five minutes for an hour is just a reflection that this is what is going on in the care receiver’s mind.

So, if your dad asks, “When’s Henry picking me up?” that’s just what your dad is thinking. He doesn’t remember asking you about it. He’s just pondering the fact that Henry is his old friend who he went to a men’s coffee group with during their work years. He can’t remember that not only is the group no longer meeting, but that most of the attendees, including Henry, are deceased.

The first time, today, your dad asks this question, you answer sweetly and with compassion, “Dad, I’m afraid Henry can’t make it today.” You’ve already made peace with the fact that you can’t go into why Henry can’t “make it”, since your dad can’t remember the reasons anyway.

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The caregivers at Andelcare are available to talk with you and your family about all of your elder care needs. Andelcare is a home care agency providing quality, affordable elder care in Seattle and the surrounding areas. Call 888-788-3051 for more information.

Alzheimer’s Caregiving: How To Ask For Help
Alzheimer’s caregiving isn’t a one-person task — and friends and loved ones may be more willing to help than you’d think. Here’s help reaching out.
By Mayo Clinic staff

Alzheimer’s caregiving is a tough job, and it’s too much for one person to handle alone. No one is equipped to care for another person 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you’re caring for a loved one who has Alzheimer’s disease, understand the stress you’re facing — and know how to ask for help.

What’s happening

At first, you may be able to meet your loved one’s needs yourself. This may last months or even years, depending on how quickly the disease progresses and your own mental and physical health. Eventually, however, your loved one will need more help with everyday tasks such as eating, bathing and toileting. And just as the physical demands of Alzheimer’s caregiving increase, so can the emotional toll.

Challenging dementia-related behaviors can strain the coping skills of even the most patient and understanding Alzheimer’s caregiver.

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Alzheimer’s home care counselors at Andelcare are available to talk with you and your family about care needs for your loved one, including, how to reduce caregiver stress while providing affordable and quality care. Andelcare is a home care agency providing Alzheimer’s Home Care in Seattle WA and surrounding communities.

Is Your Dad’s Confusion Dementia or Too Many Prescriptions?
by Carol Bradley Bursack, Editor-in-Chief

Many adult children find themselves worried about their parent’s failing memory or balance issues only to discover that the parent is taking an armload of drugs prescribed by different doctors. Once all of the drugs are examined by one doctor and many of them eliminated, the parent is often back to a normal pattern of life. Keeping all of the prescriptions at one pharmacy can also help.

As people age, they generally have more health issues than when they were younger. This often means more doctors become involved in their care, which can mean more prescriptions.

Unfortunately, if the elder sees different doctors, especially those at different clinics and hospitals, prescriptions are not always tracked efficiently. This can lead not only to over-prescribing, but interacting drugs and increased side effects, where doctors are unknowingly prescribing one drug to counteract the side effects of another drug. Add to this the fact that the aging body often is generally less tolerant of drugs than the younger body and there is the potential for serious negative results.

More than once I’ve had someone talk to me about their parent’s balance problems or their “foggy brain.” The adult children chatting with me about these issues are often the out-of-town siblings of the in-town caregivers. The families are generally close, and there is typically one person who keeps an eye on mom and dad because they live in or near the parents’ home town.

The in-town caregivers see their parents regularly, and the changes are often gradual, so they aren’t always aware of the more subtle changes in their parents’ health.

Elder Care and Prescriptions: A Fresh Set of Eyes

Then the sibling who hasn’t been home for a year shows up and is appalled. She notices Dad is hanging onto whatever he can grab when he gets up from a chair and sees that he is uncertain when he walks. He wasn’t like that last year. The visiting sibling also notices Mom has gotten forgetful and that everyone around seems to automatically cover for her.

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For more information about how the caregivers at Andelcare can help your family with your home care needs, call 888-788-3051. We are a home care agency providing quality and affordable in home care in Seattle WA and the surrounding communities.

You vs. Flu: 5 Things You May Not Know

(ARA) – Flu season is here, and there are simple, everyday actions you can take to help you and your family stay healthy.

Wash your hands frequently with soap and water, cover your nose and mouth with a tissue or your sleeve when you sneeze, and avoid contact with those who are sick. But the most important thing you can do to prevent the flu is get vaccinated each year.

CVS pharmacist Shirley Scott offers five things you may not know about flu vaccination.

1. Even if you were vaccinated last year or early in 2011, you still need to get a flu shot this year.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that anyone ages 6 months or older should get a flu shot, including those who were vaccinated last season. The flu vaccine’s ability to help protect you declines from one year to the next. So even though the vaccine has the same ingredients as last season, you still need to get a flu shot. Remember that vaccination is your first line of defense against the flu.

2. You should get a flu shot as early as possible.

It takes about two weeks for your body to develop full protection against flu symptoms. Seasonal flu can be unpredictable, and even healthy people can get seriously ill from the flu. For best protection, it’s important to get a flu shot as soon as it is available.

3. Flu vaccinations are easier than ever to obtain.

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Andelcare provides premier home care in Seattle, Bellevue and surrounding areas. For information about how the caregivers at Andelcare can help your family care for a loved one, call 888-788-3051.We provide companionship, homemaking and personal home care services for many seniors, veterans and disabled in our community.

Caring For Aging Parents
Adult children should discuss care ahead of time
Written by, Barb Berggoetz

It’s 3 a.m., and your phone startles you out of a sound sleep.

Your 70-year-old mother has suffered a stroke. You rush to her house nearby to take her to the hospital.

But you’re not prepared. She’s incoherent. You forget the name of her primary care doctor and don’t know what medications she’s taking.

This may be an all-too-common scenario, as adult children struggle to take care of aging parents, and sometimes grandparents, and their often-complex medical needs.

Being a caregiver, even if it’s only part-time or for emergencies, is challenging.

When do you step in? How do you offer advice without being bossy? What can you do to help prevent emergencies? How do you best handle them when they happen?

“Preparing in advance really helps because it helps you to stay calm,” said Tamara Wolske, director of the Center for Aging and Community at the University of Indianapolis. “The more you prepare, the easier it will be to make things simple for yourself and your loved one in a crisis.”

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Andelcare provides premier home care in Seattle, Bellevue and surrounding areas. For information about how the caregivers at Andelcare can help your family care for a loved one, call 888-788-3051. We provide companionship, homemaking and personal home care services for many seniors, veterans and disabled in our community.

Avoiding Slips And Falls By Using Home Care Services

When it comes to preventing falls in the home, you want to make sure that you take all necessary precautions to ensure that the person you’re caring for. The fear of having someone or yourself fall is something that you might think comes with aging, but it is not. Learn how home care can help protect your loved one.

More than 1 in 3 people fall each year that are age 65 or older, and the falling risk is greater for women than men. When the body ages, it decreases the bone density which contributes to these falls and can result in serious injuries if not properly prevented or cared for when it comes to senior care. Elders who fail to exercise regularly is one of the leading contributions since this brings about loss of bone mass and flexibility and a decrease in muscle tone and strength. If you work in home care, or are a home caregiver, preventing falls should be one of the highest priorities on your list.

Factors to Consider to Prevent Falls in the home

• Are medications causing dizziness on a day to day basis? Are they sleeping medications?
• Do they get up in the middle of the night to get a drink of water or perhaps use the bathroom without supervision or help?
• Do they feel off balance throughout the day from time to time or regularly?
• Have they fallen before, or almost fallen before?
• Do they grip and hold onto items as they walk around the home?

Safety Factors to Prevent Falls

Improve the lighting in the home. There should be enough lighting throughout the house so when it is dark, and they need to get up to use the bathroom or get water, they can easily access a light. This includes adding railings to stairwells that they might have to go down during the middle of the night. Nightlights are a perfect addition throughout the home that can provide an adequate amount of light.

Install handrails and grab bars throughout the home where necessary, such as by stairs or in the shower.

Move any and all items from top shelves so they are easier to access. Use non skid floor mats and rugs on the floors to create slip resistant areas to walk on, and try not to wax the floors. Remove any rugs or mats that are in direct walkways throughout the home.

Put the thresholds down lower in the doorways to prevent any trips or falls that might occur. Use low and thin piled carpeting throughout the home. You do not want the person to trip and fall on the carpets because they were too thick and make sure they are not worn out or torn up.

Any and all cords and wires should be off the floor since these can cause anyone to trip, not just a person in senior care. They shouldn’t even be placed under rugs since this creates a roll in the rug.

Chairs and furniture around the home should be easy to get up out of, and into without a lot of effort. They should not propose a risk because they are too deep or too low to get in and out of.

Remove clutter to avoid blocking passage ways throughout the home. Have a phone in each and every room with emergency numbers by them or programmed just in case something was to happen.

It does take some effort to make one’s home safe for an aging loved one, but it is worth it.

If you or someone you love needs help with in home care in Seattle or the surrounding area, please contact the caregivers at Andelcare. We are a home care agency providing care and assistance to seniors, veterans and the disabled. Call us at 888-788-3051.

Caregivers In Need of Some Care
By Michelle Singletary

WASHINGTON – America is facing a crisis that will make the federal budget deficit look like a simple bank overdraft fee.

If we don’t figure out how to provide financial support to the millions of family members taking care of seniors with chronic conditions or disabilities, we will have caregivers so overwhelmed that they will be forced to stop helping their elderly relatives. That cost of care will then transfer to the government, and this would mean astronomically higher health care costs or more people being placed in nursing homes, according to a new report from AARP’s Public Policy Institute.

In 2009, about 42.1 million family caregivers provided assistance to an adult with limitations in daily activities such as going to the bathroom, preparing meals or making it to a doctor’s appointment. The AARP report estimates the economic value of family caregiving at $450 billion in 2009, based on those 42.1 million caregivers age 18 or older providing an average of 18.4 hours of care per week at an average value of $11.16 per hour.

Just imagine if much of this voluntary care were gone.

Historically, providing care to the elderly wasn’t such a dire public policy issue.

People didn’t live as long as they do now. But what happens when the need for long-term care goes on for years or decades?

The long-term care needs of many of our elderly are straining families, just as family structures have changed and during one of the worst economies in decades.

There are more women in the workforce, making it harder for them to provide care.

Almost two-thirds of family caregivers are female. More than eight in 10 care for a relative or friend age 50 or older.

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The caregivers at Andelcare are available to talk with you and your family about all of your live-in home care needs. Andelcare is a home care agency providing quality and affordable home care in Seattle and the surrounding areas. Call 888-788-3051 for more information.
 

Medications May Be Damaged By Storage Mistakes
By WALECIA KONRAD

What does extreme heat do to medications? I found out while we were sweating out the recent heat wave in a lake cabin in New Hampshire and my 10-year-old son’s allergies kicked up.

I gave him a dose of over-the-counter medicine that usually brings quick relief. But this time the drug had no effect. The same thing happened the next day, and the next.

When I returned home, I asked a pharmacist about it. Was my son becoming immune to this particular medicine? Were his allergies getting worse?

The pharmacist asked where I had stored his pills as the temperatures soared. On the bathroom shelf in the cabin, I said. And on the sweltering six-hour drive to the lake? The medicine was in my suitcase in the trunk of the car.

And that’s when I learned this: No drug should be exposed to temperatures higher than 86 degrees. Some days the bathroom at our vacation house and certainly the trunk of the car were well above that mark.

Extreme temperatures can have a big effect on both prescription and over-the-counter drugs.
Pharmaceutical manufacturers recommend most of their products be stored at a controlled room temperature of 68 to 77 degrees, said Skye McKennon, clinical assistant professor at the University of Washington School of Pharmacy. In truth, that is the range in which manufacturers guarantee product integrity. Anywhere from 58 to 86 degrees is still fine, she said.

“During heat waves and cold spells, storage locations can go above or below those ranges, causing medicines to physically change, lose potency or even threaten your health,” McKennon said.

For patients with such chronic illnesses as diabetes or heart disease, a damaged dose of a crucial medicine, like insulin or nitroglycerin, can be life-threatening. But even common medicines can break down with potentially harmful effects, and you can’t always tell by looking at the pill or liquid that a problem has occurred, said Janet Engle, a pharmacist and past president of the American Pharmacists Association.

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Andelcare caregivers are available to answer all of your home care questions. We are an elder care agency providing live in home care in Seattle WA and the surrounding areas. Call us at 888-788-3051.