Raised-bed gardening.

Planters are raised to a height so that someone in a wheelchair can easily reach them. This can provide easy outdoor activities all Spring, Summer, and Fall, even for the elderly who require senior care.

Short Trips

Most malls, fairgrounds, farmers’ markets and other places now have wheelchairs or scooters you can rent for the day if necessary.

Local State Park with a Fishing Area

Fish from a handicap ramp or pier. Eat hot dogs and hamburgers cooked on a grill.

Call ahead and talk to the park employees. They can tell you where the wheelchair accessible area of the park is. Reserve it in advance.

Easy Projects

You can find all kinds of easy crafts for seniors for the aging parent who is creative. There are websites everywhere that give directions for crafts that older seniors can do.

Those who have a tough time holding things with their hands might do best with crafts that use large pieces or where painting is the main activity.

What about the Wii?

You may have heard your own children or grandchildren talking about the new game called Wii. This is a device that mimics a sport, such as bowling, tennis, etc., without actually using the sport’s equipment. They’re fun and good for keeping fit in any age.

Have a Singer in the Family?

Many towns have senior clubs, senior centers and gatherings…some of them include senior groups who get together just to sing!

Summary

Even though your aging parents may be requiring senior care, keeping them active physically and mentally is really important for quality of life. Anyone in the home who is providing senior care on a regular basis can easily incorporate a few of these activities into their weekly regimen.

What kinds of activities can you think of that are appropriate for aging adults who are requiring senior care?

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 finest way to know specifically just how much home care services will fee is to speak with one of our professionals. All together you can come up with a plan of care and a number of hours that are not only budget friendly, but keeps 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: (847) 986-5006

If you use a friend or family member giving In-home care for a loved one, you should certainly have a look at finding her a unique gift idea for Valentine’s Day. In-home caregivers empower clients to have fun with cheerful, healthier lives in the ease and comfort of their own place. While they provide exclusive management to your loved ones, the holidays are the fantastic time period to show them how unique they are by showering them with a selection of gift items to demonstrate how much they are cherished.

Massage
Select a gift certificate for a massage for the caregiver. Thirty minute and One hour massages are obtainable to alleviate tension, stress and fears. Try to find nearby massage salons in your vicinity and find a reliable place to direct the caregiver. A very good intensive, hands-on massage may possibly encourage them to make it portion of their month-to-month habit.

Gift Basket
You can buy pre-packed gift baskets at various stores, online and florists. If you know the caregiver, you can get the basket yourself by including some of her most desired issues. For example, if you know she likes to garden, load 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 stuff 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 eat or to the movie theater. Try to find out some of the caregiver’s favorite places to eat and get a certificate to that certain place. Buy movies tickets online so they will not become expired and the caregiver can use them at any moment.

Spa Treatments
Female caregivers will love a spa day or spa treatments. Deliver her a gift certificate to a nearby spa. Certain spas provide you with half day and full day amenities. Another plan is to get a gift certificate to a hometown 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 large coffee mugs with an array of coffee and a gift card to a qualified coffee shop. For a tea lover, fill large glasses with different bags and boxes of tea.

Overview
In-home care takes a special person with a lot of serenity. 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; however some home care services 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. Occasionally long-term care insurance may cover home care as well. Home health care, however, is medical care that is covered by health insurance or Medicare. To receive home health care, a senior or a patient must be homebound and in need of medical care as decided by a doctor. Medicare might in addition handle non-medical services done by a home health aide, but these services are only covered when various medical cares at home is required. Commonly these non-medical services happen at the same time as medical care visits.

Home care presents non-medical services to seniors and patients getting better from operations. Assistance in bathing and dressing are ordinary home care services. Other jobs home care workers provide include light housekeeping, meal preparation, running errands and transportation. Guidance in walking or exercise and other light assist to make life easier are included by home care professionals. As the population gets older, home care agencies proliferated to meet the needs of the elderly who need to continue to be in their homes, but who might need assistance to do so.

Home healthcare is doctor-prescribed, and is provided by skilled medical personnel such as nurses who can administer medication. Physical and occupational therapists can also be concerned in the health care routine. Home health aides may be allocated to help with activities of daily living. These services will probably be covered by Medicare as long as other medical care is also needed.

Home care workers can provide medication reminders, but cannot administer the medication. Home care workers also assist with daily living activities such as cooking meals, light housekeeping, assisting 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 appeared all over the country. The procedure of hiring an agency starts off with proper investigation and taking the time to examine each agency in order to assess their level of excellent quality, and their nursing staff’s experience, in relation to each family’s individual needs. It’s necessary that each family take the time to make sure the home care agency they employ are up to date in licensing requirements, and that their nursing staff are free of criminal backgrounds. This is especially true if elder care will be carried out when family members are not around to manage when skilled nursing staff comes to visit. A high sense of trust needs to be started between both parties in order to ensure a long-term, helpful, relationship.

The following 5 points are offered to those who are starting their research into finding care at home for their elderly family members.

1. Referral Sources
Ask friends, family and co-workers for referrals to local companies they are familiar with. Ask 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 web, but if you choose this route, make sure to spend extra time researching each company more thoroughly, as you won’t have particular experience to judge these companies by.

2. Background Checks
Once you’ve focused a short list of companies you wish to investigate further, make sure to ask what types of assessment processes they put their nursing staff through prior to hiring them. Criminal background checks, credit checks, and checking individual references should be ordinary in all companies.

3. Staff Skills & Experience
Find out as to what the minimum credentials 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 demand that their staff have a experience in helping care for the elderly? The more innovative their requirements, the better care will likely be offered.

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

5. Licensing
Ensure that any company you contend with has the proper city, county and state licensing updated and in good standing. Do away with the worry of hiring any company that is not reputable in practice.

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

When researching options for home care agencies in McHenry IL, Home care counselors at Hearts of Gold Home Care Inc. are available to talk with you about your in-home care needs including how to reduce caregiver stress while providing better, affordable care. We are a senior care agency providing Home Care in McHenry.

Home care services may include daily support 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 money each individual will receive is determined by the total paid into the fund during his or her employed years. If a spouse expires, the surviving spouse is entitled to widows or widowers pension. For nearly all of Americans, Social Security benefits will be their big provider of net income when they retire.

Medicare

Medicare is available to the majority of people age 65 and older. Medicare purchases home care services that come under the category of “home healthcare” or “skilled care”. This means that the treatment must be provided by a professional, must be requested by a physician and the care recipient must be homebound in order to receive it. Medicare doesn’t cover companion home care services. It does not cover private duty home care services.

Private Income

For many people, wages from different sources such as income off an active company may have a secure margin in their checking and savings account by which to finance home care services they may need now or eventually. Any CDs joined to these accounts are also an added benefit.

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

Pension plans made available to employees of some companies have provided sufficient income for the retirees to live on and complement other earnings 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 research and planning, home care services for seniors need not be a concern to the adult child. Whether the time is right now or in the future, a seemingly difficult task is actually quite easy to navigate with proper planning.

The great news is that there is an answer that can help. You and your parents should look into Home care. Home care is a great choice for getting extra help 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 render different services and types of care. You and your parents can decide how many hours each day aid is needed and which times of day your parents need the most aid.

You may squander a lot of time being concerned about your parents when you can’t be with them. Your parents may not want to exit their home to go into a nursing home or assisted living facility. The resolution to this issue is in-home care, which will allow your parents to stay in their own home where they are most content and will lessen 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 obligations. The caregiver can guide your parents with basic skills such as bathing and getting dressed each morning. The caregiver can even guide 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 worries by cooking meals and making sure they dine each day. You and your parents can even talk with the caregiver to go over your worries and put together a dietary plan that makes everyone feel better about your parents’ nutritional needs.

If you choose to get in-home care for your aging parents, you can get further guidance in the area of house responsibilities. Chances are that you have been trying to keep your household clean as well as your parents’ home. This can be exceptionally arduous if you work a full time job on top of everything else. When you retain a professional in the field of elder care, that person can help with light house cleaning duties, which include doing the laundry washing.

Perhaps one of the best characteristics of elder care is that your parents will have some amity during the day when you can’t be there. Your aging parents may be feeling lonely, and you may be feeling distressed because you can’t spend the amount of time with your parents that you dream you could. You can stop feeling to blame that you aren’t with your parents and start feeling fantastic about understanding someone is with your parents who takes care. In fact, a caregiver can even take your parents out of the house to doctor’s visits, the food store, the pharmacy, or just about anywhere your parents wants to proceed.

Elder care may be the help you and your parents need. Your parents can live independently, and you can get the supporting help you have to have to make sure your parents’ needs are being met. Just knowing that an individual is there with your parents can ease some of the responsibility from you.

Feeling guilty- Children find it not easy to approach parents about caregiver stress they have been feeling since taking on the assignment. Children often feel remorseful over considering 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 initiate home care. The choice for these scenarios may be to engage respite care to come to the home and aid for a short period of time. This will help test the waters to see how the parent does respond to having in-home care. The parent may with open arms engage in the offer of respite care to aid in daily elder care. This can quite easily rid the children of a guilty feeling that is not necessary in the first place.

Dealing with it Head-On- Beating around the bush when trying to talk to an elderly parent about elder care will conclude in not talking about it at all. Have all the information and facts necessary to explain to the parent what is included and all the points that it is a smart move to hire elder care. The important information gathered should include pricing as well as possible strategies to cover the costs if insurance does not cover it. Many elderly people are on a fixed income and that is another thing that children should consider before actually talking to their parents about respite care. Be soft but blunt when coming near the issue.

Authenticity- The authenticity of a parent in need of an in-home caregiver is vital to stress at the time of the chat. Parents should be reminded that the children work full-time occupations, have young people to care for or nearly anything else that raises caregiver stress levels. Stress causes bad communication skills and ultimately anger and bitterness over having to attempt the extra job of caring for an elderly parent. When children take on the job of caring for an ill parent, the relationship often suffers greatly because of the stress related issues.

Concerns- Be open and truthful with the elderly parent when he or she has issues. The issues might seem like complaints or excuses, but they are real fears that the parent is feeling and should be addressed rapidly. Two of the main concerns the parent might have are cost and having someone in the home who is an unfamiliar person. Do not make pledges that cannot be kept, but provide advice gained by talking to a specialist about it.

Adult children who are looking after of their elderly parents understand early on that it is a daunting undertaking at best. There are duties involved in caring for an elderly parent that are complex to handle. Children and parents should help 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 tackle 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 remedy.

Caregivers in Round Lake, IL at Hearts of Gold Home Care Inc. are available to talk with you about your in-home care needs including how to reduce caregiver stress while providing better, affordable care. We are a senior care agency providing Home Care in Round Lake

For years, when I knew my brother and his wife were going to visit our parents, I’d prepare my sibling for how “bad” Mom and Dad were going to look. Our parents both lived with degenerative diseases, and each had a different type of dementia. It seemed to me, their primary caregiver, that they were fading away. My sister saw them nearly once each week, as well, and she agreed with me. We didn’t want our brother to be shocked by their failing health, so we prepared him. Or so we thought.

It turned out that our parents were so pumped up about their son coming to visit, that he’d arrive and see our elders looking really quite good. I then felt foolish for having over prepared my brother in excess for something he just couldn’t see.

As soon as my brother would leave, like a deflated balloon, our parents would sink back to the level where they were before the visit. One year – and this nearly broke my heart – my mother was so excited about the visit she could talk of nothing else. Then, after my brother left, Mom asked which weekend he was coming. She’d totally forgotten the visit had happened.

Still, the aging parent can only keep up this wellness act for a short time. So, if an adult child coming from a distance can stay a few days, he or she does have a chance to get a fresh look at how the parents are doing. Their input can help the caregiver who sees the parents daily, since a primary caregiver may not notice subtle changes.

Also, we who live close to our elders, or who are primary caregivers, tend to do what needs to be done, so it could be that the elders are losing certain abilities and we haven’t noticed. That’s when someone who only sees the elders occasionally can be really helpful.

Do Mom and Dad “Cover” for Each Other?

Long married couples can often finish each other’s sentences. They can help each other read, eat and do other things so common to daily life that no one stops to notice that they are such a team they are “filling in the gaps” for each other. Often, even they don’t know this is happening. When you visit, try to “separate” the team a bit. See if Dad’s hearing is getting worse, but Mom is hearing for him. See if Mom’s balance is bad in the morning, but Dad is getting her breakfast and making sure she is steady before anyone else sees her. In other words, see if it takes a team for them just to hang on.

Teamwork is wonderful, and it’s beautiful to see long-married couples working seamlessly beside each other. However, if there are health issues that need tending to, this teamwork can be detrimental. Getting each of your parents alone will help you identify strong and weak points.

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Elder care counselors at Hearts of Gold Home Care Inc. are available to talk with you about your in-home care needs including how to reduce caregiver stress while providing better, affordable care. We are a senior care agency providing Home Care in Round Lake.

Caregiving is both mentally and physically stressful, and caregivers are considered to be at increased risk for physical health problems and depression. If you are a caregiver in your senior years, it is even more important that you take care of your own health.

The Health Effects of Caregiving

Whether caring for an ailing spouse or another loved one, many caregivers become so concerned with their care-providing role that they neglect their own health, putting themselves at increased risk of:

    Poor physical health: 16 percent of caregivers say that their health declined after they become caregivers.
    Psychological stress: Approximately half of all people who provide Alzheimer’s care, a common type of elder care, report experiencing distress. The effects of psychological stress can be widespread and may include depression, burnout, alcohol and drug use, and other problems.
    Self-neglect: Caregivers are more likely than non-caregivers to eat poorly, be sleep deprived, not exercise, not rest when ill, and postpone medical appointments.
    Death: Caregivers are at higher risk of dying than the general population.

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