Daughters and Sons as #Caregivers

An interesting – but not surprising – article in AgingCare.com starts with the headline, “Daughters Care Twice as Much for Their Parents, Compared to Sons“. I am sure that title did not refer to emotional attachment, but to the level … Continue reading →

It Just Keeps Getting Better

I have written several posts recently about our experience applying the Music & Memory program to our home care services at Support For Home In-Home Care. I continue to smile and appreciate what our Home Care Aides are doing with … Continue reading →

More Music, More Memory

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A few days ago I posted an article on why Support For Home In-Home Care became certified in the Music & Memory program. We have been rolling it out to a number of our home care clients and continue to be … Continue reading →

Why We Do Music & Memory!

I wrote a bit ago about the fact that Support For Home In-Home Care is certified by the Music & Memory organization – and we are delighted by that. The program was designed for use in facilities, and it is rather more complex to implement and administer in multiple home care settings, which is one reason we are among only a few home care agencies to be certified.

However, the benefits of Music & Memory, as part of the skillset of a trained caregiver, is truly amazing.

We introduced the program in the home of one of our clients recently, and, yesterday, we received the first detailed report from one of her Support For Home caregivers. This client has dementia, which is the “target” population for Music & Memory.

We have had some difficulty getting this client to be more social and accepting of home care, until recently. We have made a few breakthroughs, but we were really hoping Music & Memory would open her up to more reflection and communication. Well, as reported by our Home Care Aide, it worked! 🙂

Here are some of the songs they listed to, and the results:

• “Love Me Tender” – “She was able to explain to me the details of how she would work for money to buy Elvis’ records. She even told me about the bright design in the record store.”
• “I’m Gettin’ Smitten” – She explained to me how she would get her girlfriends and practice dancing. They practiced almost twice a week, so that they would be able to dance properly at the neighborhood dance.”
• “God Bless America” – “As soon as it played she was able to remember the artist and the song’s name. She told me about how she and her friends would save up 10 cents to be able to see her at the theatre. She also explained how she was very popular with adults and young adults. This brought her to remember that you could only ever hear orchestras in church, which was why her music was so popular.”
• “Can’t Help Lovin'” – “She began to sing the lyrics to the song. She said she remembers hearing it on the radio from 1930 to 1940. She kept listening to it on the radio until they got a TV.”
• “I’ll Be Seeing You” – “She said she can still hear her mother singing that song. It was one of her favorites, although her father hated it. She laughed when she told me how her mother would sing it and her father would make faces.”

There is more – and there will be much, much more Music & Memory in our client’s life. It is absolutely amazing. The program has all of us in the office creating our own playlists for our own future caregivers to use! 🙂

Best wishes. Bert

Caregiver Guilt

Dementia Today is a pretty darn good blog side for folks in our industry – and for families – to check out now and then. In a recent posting, they talk about some research out of the Mayo Clinic, involving issues of guilt felt by caregivers caring for folks with dementia. The gist of the research is that such caregivers are carrying around a whole lot of guilt that they should not feel. Of course, “should” and “should not” are the two most useless examples of advice in the history of humankind. We should not use them! 🙂

The fact is, what we feel, as caregivers, is real. The old cliche that “Perception is reality” is all too true about this issue. Here are some of the types of guilt that dementia caregivers are carrying around:

• Guilt over realizing how they treated or judged the person with dementia before knowing what was going on (before diagnosis)
• Guilt that somehow they are not caregiving as well as they should, or that others do a better job
• Guilt over feeling resentful, trapped, unloving, or a host of other negative thoughts
• Guilt for wanting time for themselves, for using respite care so they can have a break
• Guilt for doing things without their loved one that they once enjoyed together
• Guilt for not visiting enough
• Guilt for wishing it was over
• And there’s at least one more I must mention, caregivers may feel guilty for not feeling guilty.

Some of these issues hold great value as teachable moments for all of us. The very first one is a great example. How many families have just wanted (or told) Mom or Dad to just act normal, and then learned that it was Alzheimer’s or Vascular Dementia or Dementia with Lewy Bodies that was the real issue – and that Mom or Dad was never again going to be the same person who raised them.

Every family needs to study the aging experience, including the issues of dementia and other diseases associated with unhealthy aging. Preparation is vital.

In the meantime, families facing the issues of caring for a dementia sufferer need to move beyond wishing and guilt to getting support and taking action. We at Support For Home and other high quality, high integrity elder care agencies can be a big help in that effort.

Your experiences are welcome.

Best wishes. Bert

Affordable Care Act and Home Care

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Each year, Support For Home In-Home Care participates in the Private Duty Benchmarking Study, conducted by Home Care Pulse. These studies cover a wide range of topics and are quite valuable to home care agencies – and to the clients … Continue reading →

Elders and Healthcare Followup

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Yesterday I wrote about an article in USA Today about the incredible financial cost of healthcare for our country’s medically complex elders. As I mentioned, that cost is not just to our clinical healthcare system, including Medicare. It also hits … Continue reading →

Elders Impacting Health Care

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USA Today published a story titled, “Nation’s sickest seniors reshape health care”. The subtitle is, “10,000 SENIORS COST MEDICARE $1 BILLION”. That comes out to $100,000 for each of those seniors. That is an annual figure. As USA Today indicates, The … Continue reading →

Elders, Doctors and Driving

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I recently read a depressing article on agingcare.com, entitled, “Why Doctors Don’t Like to Discuss Driving with Older Patients“. It is depressing to me and to those of us at Support For Home In-Home Care because we have seen it … Continue reading →

Harvey-Pete is Smarter Than I Am

I came across a great piece on the Alzheimer’s Reading Room, entitled “The Best Alzheimer’s Caregiver Tool of Them All, Harvey“. I hope you will check it out. Frankly, the creativity and imagination of caregivers, especially those caring for folks with various forms of dementia, continues to amaze and delight me. In this instance, it is the imagination of Bob DeMarco that makes me shake my head and smile.

Alzheimer’s Caregiver!

It continues to amaze me how many simple but marvelous tools we have to make the lives of those suffering from dementia significantly better – and make the lives of the caregivers better and easier, as well.

Whether it is a simple, straightforward approach, like Habilitation Therapy, or the marvelous Music and Memory program that we have adopted at Support For Home In-Home Care, or any number of other inventive approaches, we are lucky to have so many bright people focused on the problems of dementia care and able to share their ideas through social media, around the world.

What are the best ideas you have found – techniques, props, whatever – to help you as a dementia caregiver?

Best wishes. Bert