EXPLORE CAREERS

Holiday Gifts for a Michigan Family Caregiver

by | Nov 26, 2016 | Caregiving, Uncategorized

Anyone who has watched a family caregiver struggle to manage all of their roles and responsibilities knows just how exhausting the job can be. It often leaves people worn out and stressed out.

Caregiving can also have an impact on the caregiver’s own family finances. It isn’t uncommon for them to have to cut back on their hours at work. This loss of income can be especially difficult because family caregivers incur additional expenses related to caring for their loved one.

The holidays can be a great time to show the caregiver in your life that you are thinking of them.

2016 Gift Guide for Michigan Family Caregivers

Here are a few suggestions for holiday gifts for the family caregiver you love:

  1. Maid Service: A great holiday gift for the caregiver in your life might be maid service. Because they are so busy caring for everyone else, their own home may be neglected. Whether you buy them a one day deep cleaning package or a monthly cleaning, it will no doubt be appreciated.
  2. Home Delivered Meals: Healthy, home delivered meals are probably a caregivers dream. If there isn’t a local option near the caregiver’s home, a variety of national meal services are available. Hello Fresh and Blue Apron are just a few.
  3. Day of Pampering: Time and money are often in short supply for a family caregiver. This is why they might really enjoy spending time being pampered with a friend. Whether it is at one of Michigan’s Spa Resorts or just a few hours at a local salon, the caregiver will benefit from a little bit of rest and relaxation. You might need to explore respite care services so your friend doesn’t have to worry about their loved one when they are taking a break.
  4. Gift of Time. For caregivers, there are never enough hours in the day. A gift idea they will truly appreciate is a coupon book full of vouchers they can use when they need a helping hand. Having a coupon to trade in might make it easier for them to ask for help. Create coupons for things like picking up prescriptions, preparing a home cooked meal, dropping their kids off at volleyball practice or picking up a few groceries. The gift of time is sure to be a hit with a family caregiver.

The bottom line is the best holiday gifts for caregivers are usually those that allow them time to slow down and enjoy themselves!

 

5 Bathroom Safety Tips for Michigan Seniors

by | Oct 26, 2016 | Caregiving, Uncategorized

If you are the adult child of a senior who lives alone, safety is probably an on-going concern. For older adults, the bathroom can be especially dangerous. More accidents take place in the bathroom than any other room in a senior’s home.

From slippery flooring to poor lighting, it’s important to learn how to create a safer bathroom for a senior you love.

5 Tips for a Senior-Friendly Bathroom

Here’s what adult children and family caregivers can do to create a senior-friendly bathroom:

  1. Raised Toilet Seat: 85% of injuries in adults age 85 and older happen near the toilet. Make this area safer by taking down towel bars your loved one might be using to pull themselves up and around. Towel bars aren’t designed to support this type of pressure and may come loose causing your loved one to fall. Replace them with sturdy grab bars on both sides of the toilet. It also helps to install a raised toilet seat so the older adult is less likely to lose their balance transferring on to and off of the toilet.
  2. Install Good Lighting: Another safety feature you can easily add to your senior loved one’s bathroom is improved lighting. Good lighting helps older adults better distinguish objects around them. This helps the older adult avoid running in to things or tripping over objects.
  3. Step-free Shower: Seniors are also at higher risk for a fall when they are climbing in to and out of the bathtub. Even stepping over the side of it to take a shower can be dangerous. Have their current bathroom modified to create a step-free shower with grab bars on both sides. Purchasing a sturdy tub chair from a medical supply company can also help keep your loved one safer.
  4. Easy to Reach Supplies: Work with your senior loved one to store the supplies they use most often in easy-to-access locations. Try to avoid storing items in spots that require them to climb up on a step stool or get down on the floor to reach them. For people with strength or balance problems, these are activities that can increase the odds for a fall.

Our final suggestion is to purchase a medical alert pendant or bracelet your family member. While they aren’t always popular with seniors, they can be life-saving. And many newer models are smaller and less obvious than older ones.

Consider a Michigan Senior Living Community

If you are concerned that a Michigan senior you love is at risk for a fall, a senior living community might be an ideal solution. Heritage Seniors Communities are designed to help older adults stay active and healthy. We invite you to call the community nearest you to schedule a private tour.

 

Conducting a Safety Assessment of a Michigan Senior’s Home

by | Oct 22, 2016 | Caregiving, Uncategorized

When an aging parent lives alone, it isn’t uncommon for their adult children to spend a great deal of time wondering and worrying about their safety. This is especially true if the senior lives in an older home. Houses built many years ago typically weren’t designed with seniors in mind.

Older houses often have stairs to climb up and down, a laundry room located in the basement, and bathrooms with tubs instead of walk-in showers.

Conducting a safety assessment of your aging parent’s house is one of the best ways to identify potential hazards and come up with a plan to fix them before a crisis occurs.

Conducting a Safety Assessment of a Senior Loved One’s Home

Here are a few items to make sure you don’t overlook when you are assessing an aging loved one’s home for safety:

  1. Bathroom Hazards: More accidents occur in the bathroom than any other room in the house. Start by removing any towel bars your parent might be using or tempted to use to pull themselves up with. Towel bars are not safe or designed for this purpose. They can break away from the wall causing the senior to fall. Replace the towel bars with sturdy grab bars near the tub and toilet. It also helps minimize their risk for an accident if you reorganize the bathroom so the items used most frequently are stored within easy reach. Your goal should be to prevent your loved one from climbing on a stool or getting down on the floor to find supplies. It might also be necessary to renovate one bathroom to accommodate a step-free shower stall.
  2. Flooring Assessment: An often overlooked hazard in a senior’s house is the flooring. Older carpeting is more likely to have rips and wrinkles which create fall hazards. Thresholds between rooms can also be a concern. Make sure the flooring in every room is level and in good repair to prevent your loved one from tripping.
  3. Good Attention to Lighting: Vision problems are more common as we age. It’s one reason why good lighting is so important. Walk through your family member’s home room by room to evaluate their lighting. Pay close attention to lights at the top and bottom of stairways, in long hallways and in the rooms used most often.
  4. Fire Safety: Seniors are much more likely to be injured or lose their life in a fire. Many times it’s because their smoke detector doesn’t work or they have hearing loss and can’t hear the smoke alarms go off. Fire prevention experts say you should test smoke alarms each month and change the batteries twice a year. If you don’t live near your loved one, call their local fire department. Some offer this service at no charge to older adults. You might also want to invest in smoke detectors that vibrate and/or turn on a strobe light in the event of a fire.
  5. Exterior Assessment: Don’t forget to look for potential risks outside your loved one’s home and in their garage. Be sure the railings on outside stairs are in good shape and strong enough to hold the senior’s weight when they pull against it. Look for cracks in walkways and stairways. Also make sure there is a motion-activated light to illuminate the garage and path the senior takes after dark.

The Facts About Falls and Seniors

The statistics on falls among older adults are alarming. One in three adults over the age of 65 experiences a fall each year. These falls are the leading cause of disability among seniors. It’s why paying close attention to your loved one’s environment is so important.

If you think it’s time for the aging parent or senior family member in your life to consider a move to a safer location, Heritage Senior Communities invites you to stop by for a tour at your convenience.

Coping with Sibling Rivalry While Caring for an Aging Parent

Coping with Sibling Rivalry While Caring for an Aging Parent

by | Sep 12, 2016 | Caregiving, Uncategorized

When an aging parent’s health begins to decline, it can be emotionally difficult for their adult children. The stress and tension it creates can increase the likelihood for conflict between adult children who often have differing ideas about what type of care an aging parent s needs.

One person may want to take a proactive approach and begin searching for senior living communities, while another child might be in denial that their parent is struggling. The situation often brings long forgotten childhood squabbles to the surface again.

Finding ways to manage these conflicts and create a plan for care that keeps an aging parent safe becomes even more challenging.

5 Ways Prevent Family Feuds over an Aging Parent’s Care

Here are a few tips you can use to avoid a family feud:

  1. Put Your Parent First: If your loved one is able, ask them to share their wishes for future care with all of you. Don’t make assumptions about what he or she would want. Whenever possible, include your parent in the decision-making process.
  2. Divide Up Responsibilities: Create a comprehensive list of tasks and activities your older loved one needs help with. Assign each task to a family member. If one sibling lives far away and can’t pitch in, ask if they are willing to contribute financially to the plan. They might be willing to hire a cleaning service to come a few times a month or for a few hours of care from in-home caregiver.
  3. Communicate Frequently: As with all things in life, good communication is important. Make an extra effort to stay in touch with one another and to share updates and changes in a parent’s condition. Don’t put the burden of communication on the primary caregiver though. He or she is probably already overwhelmed. Instead, designate one sibling to call the sibling who is handling most of the responsibilities to obtain updates. Then have them communicate those updates to the rest of the family. It can even be done using an app like Care Zone or a private group on Facebook.
  4. Exercise Patience and Respect: Aging services providers see every day how family squabbles can lead to permanent rifts among loved ones. It can be tough not to let your emotions get the best of you when you are worried about a loved one. Remind yourself to be patient and respectful of one another. The old practice of taking a deep breath and counting to ten before you say or do something you will regret later is one to remember and adopt.
  5. Hire a Mediator: Sometimes families just can’t work together. If you feel like your family has reached an impasse, consider hiring an elder care attorney or an elder care mediator. These trained professionals provide unbiased guidance about senior care solutions and can make recommendations for moving forward.

If you have questions about senior living in Michigan or how to tell what type of care your parent might need, please call the Heritage Senior community nearest to you. We will be happy to answer your questions and point you in the right direction for help!

Common Summer Scams That Target Seniors

by | Aug 20, 2016 | Caregiving, Uncategorized

Summer typically means taking time to enjoy a vacation. One group of people you can be sure isn’t taking a vacation is the scam artists who prey on Michigan’s seniors. In fact, scams against older adults increase right along with the temperature.

Older Adults are Targets for Scams

Criminals believe seniors are an easy source of cash. They think older adults are more likely to be financially stable and less likely to report it if they fall victim to a scam because of embarrassment.

Older adults who have physical or mental impairments that affect their judgment or their ability to manage finances are especially vulnerable. Even those who are capable are often too trusting and polite to hang up the phone on a scammer or close the door on an in-person solicitation.

Michigan caregivers can help protect a senior loved one by knowing what scams they are most likely to fall victim to this summer.

Most Common Types of Summer Scams that Target Seniors

Here are a few of the most common summer scams:

  • Home Maintenance: A frequent summer scam occurs when someone comes to the door offering their services for home repairs in exchange for cash. They often claim to be offering special pricing because they are already in the area working on a neighbor’s home. Among the most common types of services they promote are paving and roofing. They often use high pressure tactics to intimidate seniors in to making a fast decision and turning over cash.
  • Fake Magazine Sales: A door-to-door salesperson —sometimes even children— knocks on the door offering low prices on magazine subscriptions. Some claim to be working to earn money for school tuition. The senior is required to pay up front but the magazine never arrives.
  • Door-to-Door Teams of Thieves: Working in teams of two, these summer scammers can rob a senior blind. While one person distracts the unsuspecting older adult with a sales pitch of some kind or even a religious offering, their partner sneaks into the home and cleans out a wallet, purse, jewelry box or other valuables.

Protecting Michigan Seniors from Crime

Here are a few steps Michigan caregivers can take to protect a family member:

  • Educate your Senior Loved One: Keep an eye on the local news and follow your community’s law enforcement agency on Facebook to stay up-to-date on scams targeting seniors. Then make time to share this information with your senior loved one. Knowledge is power when it comes to keeping our elders safe.
  • Reminder Notes: Post notes near your senior loved one’s telephone and front door reminding them never to give out sensitive information or make purchases without talking with you first. This may help keep them from falling victim to a crime.
  • Lock Up Valuables: Purchase a safe that your senor loved one can keep hidden in the home. This safety measure can help if a thief manages to talk their way in to a senior loved one’s home.

A final tip is to remember to take steps all year around to protect your loved one from falling victim to identify theft.  The Michigan Attorney General’s office has a variety of resources to help make that easier.

Let’s Keep in Touch

To receive updates on the latest news and information for family caregivers, we invite you to subscribe to the Heritage Senior Communities’ blog. We promise never to share your information and to only send you helpful resources that will assist you in your role as caregiver.

 

Finding an Assisted Living Community During a Crisis

by | Aug 14, 2016 | Caregiving, Uncategorized

Determining where a Michigan senior loved one should live when they need a little extra help is often something families do together. Making an informed decision usually means taking the time to explore all of the options from stand alone villas to assisted living apartments or suites.

But what happens if there is no time? If the older adult you love is hospitalized and their doctor says they aren’t safe returning to their home alone?

When a move to an assisted living community must be made amidst a crisis, the added stress it creates for families can be overwhelming. It’s why we pulled together a few tips to help you make this decision.

4 Tips for Finding an Assisted Living amidst a Crisis

  1. Establish a budget

For some families, this will be the first time they’ve discussed finances with a parent. But getting an idea about how much they can afford to pay each month is important. The median monthly cost for a one-bedroom assisted living apartment in Michigan was $3,250 in 2015. But some areas of the state are substantially higher.

  1. Investigate financial options

In your haste to find a senior living community, don’t overlook resources that might help you finance care. If your parent was a veteran or is the surviving spouse of a veteran, they may qualify for special benefits through the Veteran’s administration. Many long-term care insurance policies also include benefits for assisted living communities. The staff at the communities you visit can help you explore your options.

  1. Research from home

You can do some of your preliminary research from home or on your smartphone in your senior loved one’s hospital room. Conduct a Google search to see what communities are located in your desired area. Visit each of their websites and Facebook pages to learn more about them.

Let friends and colleagues know you are searching and ask if they have any recommendations. Your physician might also have suggestions.

Once you have a list together, begin by making personal calls to each of them. The Assisted Living Federation of America has a helpful assisted living visit checklist you can download to better understand what to look for and what to ask.

  1. Schedule Personal Visits

While it may seem difficult to do on a tight schedule, a personal visit is one of the most steps in making the right choice. Make sure you allow yourself enough time for a good tour of the community and to ask any questions you have. Be certain to ask for a copy of any contracts or documents you or your senior loved one would be required to sign. You will want to take your time reviewing them and even consider having an elder law attorney or trusted advisor peruse them as well.

Choosing an assisted living partner during a crisis is never easy. But with a methodical approach to exploring and learning more about each option, you will be able to make the best choice possible for your senior loved one.