Caring for an elderly spouse may be becoming too risky for you November 11, 2009
Posted by columbiaagedcare in articles.Tags: aged care, Aged Care Australia, care giving, Columbia Aged Care Services, elderly, elderly spouse, elderly spouse care, spousal caregiving, stress
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Caring for elderly spouse presents difficult challenges. It is extremely important to ensure your loved one is properly cared for, but it is equally important to look after yourself.
Looking after a loved one is a stressful and strenuous process and sometimes it can all become too much. It is important to constantly evaluate your situation and assess if the current situation is best for the both of you. Care giver stress have provided some hints to help you gauge if spousal caregiving has become too risky for you:
- Missing or delaying your own doctor appointments
- Ignoring your own health problems or symptoms
- Not eating a healthy diet for lack of time Overusing tobacco and alcohol when you feel stressed
- Giving up exercise habits for lack of time
- Losing sleep Losing connections with friends for lack of time to socialize
- Bottling up feelings of anger and frustration and then being surprised by angry, even violent, outbursts directed at your spouse, other family members, co-workers – even strangers
- Feeling sad, down, depressed or hopeless
- Loss of energy
- Lacking interest in things that used to give you (and your spouse) pleasure
- Feeling resentful toward your spouse
- Blaming your spouse for the situation
- Feeling that people ask more of you than they should
- Feeling like caregiving has affected family relationships in a negative way
- Feeling annoyed by other family members who don’t help out or who criticize your care
If you are experiencing a number of these signs, it is important to get support. Sometimes even the most resourceful person needs to ask for help from other family members or outside professionals or sources. It is important to take care of yourself, while taking care of someone else.
Gardens Brighten Seniors’ Lives November 4, 2009
Posted by columbiaagedcare in articles.Tags: aged care, Aged Care Australia, Columbia Aged Care Services, Gardening, Gardening for the elderly, Senior Gardening, Seniors Activities
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Home Instead Senior Care and Rebecca Kolls, star of television show Rebecca’s Garden have provided some helpful hints to help seniors continue to enjoy gardening.
This dual-effort public-education campaign has sought to bring back gardening joys to seniors who have difficulty maintaining gardens, or who have given up gardening altogether due to health or age concerns. The initiative’s primary feature, a four-color gardening guide, includes lots of helpful tips and several fun, simple projects seniors can easily complete – either independently or with their families or caregivers.
Kolls, whose grandparents originally inspired her interest in gardening, credits gardens with supplying not only food and beauty, but also improved mental and physical well-being.
“There’s a nurturing aspect in gardening where you take a seed and coddle it,” Kolls said. “Seniors have given up child rearing, so gardening gives them baby plants and seedlings again. It’s a new way of caring for something.”
“We often hear our CAREGivers speak of their clients who love to care for plants and flowers, and how they see it enriching those clients’ lives,” said Home Instead Senior Care CEO Paul Hogan. “Many of our CAREGivers enjoy gardening as well, and are thrilled to help seniors enjoy gardening and plant projects.”
Another great thing about gardening as a senior activity is that it is timeless. “The beauty of the garden, if done well, will provide four seasons of color. While seniors in warmer climates can garden year-round, those in cold-weather climates should not despair,” Kolls said. “In the winter, snow catches in seed heads, and birds find refuge in shrubbery and feed off seeds from the cone flowers. So no matter where you live, there’s alwayssomething growing in the garden.”
One Container; Many Opportunities
A little creative thinking and some assistance from families or caregivers helps ensure that seniors can continue to enjoy the types of gardening they love. “Imagine growing almost everything for a recipe in one container,” Kolls said. “What a great gift idea!”
She suggests the following projects to get you started:
- Try a pizza garden! (If your senior isn’t a pizza fan, he or she might enjoy growing one for grandchildren.) Whiskey barrels work well for growing tomatoes, but can be expensive. A plastic laundry basket with holes cut in the bottom for drainage will work just as well. Plant a Roma tomato in the center, onions along the sides of the tomato and basil around the edge of the container.
- A twist on the pizza garden concept: a fresh salsa garden! It’s similar to a pizza garden, only with tomatoes, onions, hot peppers and cilantro.
- A one-pot vegetable garden is always a hit! Take three bamboo poles and make a teepee in the center of the pot. Plant beans at the base of each bamboo pole, and fill the horizontal space around the pot with carrots, beets or other favorite root vegetables (make sure your pot is at least 10 to 12 inches deep.)
Rebecca’s Senior Gardening Tips
Check out these handy tidbits on how to help the seniors achieve gardening success:
- Herbs grow anywhere and are great for seasoning. Kitchen herb gardens are wonderful for seniors. The more you pinch and pick the herbs, such as basil, parsley and chives, the more vigorous they grow.
- Think height, filler and spiller. When you’re creating flowerpots, consider height, filler and spiller. Plant a variety that will grow at least twice as tall as the container; fill in with plants that will grow to no more than half of the height of the taller plants, and then plant a variety that will cascade over the pot.
- When it comes to annuals, pack them in. When you create flowerpots, pack your annuals in because they will become root-bound and grow up and over the pots. You’ll get drama and a beautiful arrangement, according to Kolls.
- Look for equipment that can make the job easier. There are many wonderful tools available that can make gardening easier for anyone including seniors. According to Kolls, Bud-Eze tools, which can be found on the Internet, are a good option, as are bionic gloves. In addition, the Arthritis Foundation has a product and services directory for senior gardeners and others with mobility problems.
- Garden right outside your front door or back door. Container gardening allows seniors access to flowers or vegetables in one pot and also gives them the height that helps make gardening easier for them.
- Team with others to garden. If a senior can’t garden anymore, enlist the help of others who might enjoy sharing the work and the produce or flowers from the garden.
Dental Care For The Elderly October 28, 2009
Posted by columbiaagedcare in articles.Tags: aged care, Aged Care Australia, Columbia Aged Care Services, dental care for the elderly, dental problems and the elderly, elderly oral health, tips for the elderly
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10 Ways to Improve Life With Arthritis October 6, 2009
Posted by columbiaagedcare in Health, articles.Tags: aged care, Aged Care Australia, Arthritis, Columbia Aged Care Services, Columbia Aged Care Strathdale Centre, Columbia Aged Care Willowood Centre, Improve life with arthritis
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About.com have written an article to help people gain and maintain control over the limitations imposed by arthritis.
People living with arthritis are often dismayed by how much the disease steals from their lives. If you or someone you care for has arthritis, physical limitations caused by chronic pain, chronic fatigue, stress and more can narrow your world and interrupt living a “normal life.”
With arthritis, energy is consumed just trying to accomplish ordinary tasks and usual daily activities. Your focus may be limited to just “getting through the day.”
Arthritis starts to take control of your life, rather than you taking control of the disease.
How can you better manage your illness?
What modifications can you make to your lifestyle to make living with arthritis easier?
What actions can you take to gain and maintain control over the limitations imposed by arthritis?
1 – Stay Positive
Arthritis is an unpredictable disease, as is the future. Accepting new realities and redefining life within the limitations imposed by disease is important for people with arthritis. Positive attributes can help you manage life with chronic arthritis.
2 – Trust Your Doctor
Doctors play an essential role in the treatment of arthritis. Choosing a doctor is one of the most critical decisions you make when it comes to your condition. It is imperative that your needs are being met. Find a compassionate, communicative doctor you can trust.
3 – Accept Your Situation
Don’t fight the fact that you have arthritis or that your condition changes your life. Don’t deny that you have the disease, nor underestimate its impact. Once you accept that you have a chronic illness and that it is a part of your life for the rest of your life, the decisions you make will be better for you and will ultimately improve your life. You must internalize the acceptance — feel it, don’t just say it.
4 – Set Realistic Goals
Set realistic goals for yourself. Through reflection and contemplation, you can assess what you are not happy with and work to change those circumstances. Be sensitive to your innermost feelings. You can focus and begin to make necessary changes in your life.
5 – Be Informed
If you have been diagnosed with arthritis, it’s important to learn all that you can about the disease. The importance of knowledge and understanding your health condition cannot be overstated. Stay informed — subscribe to our newsletter.
6 – Protect Your Joints
Joint protection can reduce stress on arthritic joints and decrease pain. There are several joint protection principles which, if followed, will help to conserve energy and preserve joint function.
7 – Manage Your Medications
When your doctor hands you a new prescription, it becomes your responsibility to know what the medication is for, how to take it, and what possible side effects might occur. Medication errors have many causes, but usually have one thing in common — they could have been prevented.
8 – Keep Active
The benefits of exercise as part of a treatment program for managing arthritis are well-known and documented. Despite the known benefits, many people with arthritis avoid exercising regularly.
9 – Watch Your Weight
Being overweight, even just moderately, impacts weight-bearing joints and can increase joint pain. As you walk, your hips, knees, and ankles bear three to five times your total body weight. For every pound you’re overweight, the equivalent of three to five pounds worth of added pressure is added to each knee as you walk. The flip side of that is good news: losing just 10 pounds causes 30 to 50 pounds of extra stress to be relieved from the joints.
10 – Seek Mutual Support
Arthritis not only affects people who have the disease, it impacts the people around them, especially family and friends. People living with arthritis and those who have loved ones with the disease can gain insight and draw inspiration from others facing similar challenges. You can share your advice and experiences, offer mutual support, ask questions, and encourage others in our online arthritis forum community.
Online resource for carers September 30, 2009
Posted by columbiaagedcare in articles.Tags: aged care, aged care support, carers resource, carers support, Columbia Aged Care Services
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Australian Ageing Agenda has reported that people caring for ageing family members have a new source of information and support with the launch of www.agedcarer.com.au.
The new website enables family carers to access articles, videos and discussion forums covering a broad range of issues associated with the caring role.
It was developed by aged care nurse, Emma Hamilton after she noticed that most people felt confused and isolated when they tried to navigate the aged care system.
“I have seen residents coming in who are very frail and vulnerable and have high-level care needs,” said Ms Hamilton.
“I have also seen so many family members who have provided high level care for a long time and this website is for them.
“It’s not just about helping them find services but it’s also about providing assistance with physical care.
“It explains things like what happens when people become frail, why they get pneumonia and what happens when they fall.”
Drawing on her own expertise and by consulting with industry experts and associations, Ms Hamilton has spent the past two years writing articles and filming videos for the site.
“When I was looking for video material, there was not much Australian content and I felt we needed something representative of Australian families,” she said.
“So I went and talked to carers about what they were doing and had discussions with them about their own experiences. It’s a great way to get information and everyone has something to share.”
The site has a number of community tools that list the services available in different council areas. At the moment, they only cover Sydney’s north but Ms Hamilton expects this is an area of the website that will grow.
She hopes that the suite of services available on the site will empower carers and family members.
“All these issues are universal. Once you start talking to people about dementia or caring for an older family member, you realise that there are so many people doing it,” she said.
“But there is nothing about it in the public media and when it is, it’s usually negative. If people start sharing information and if nursing homes start to be a bit more transparent, it will help prepare carers for what is coming up.
“They need more support and they need to feel valued because a lot of the burden of care is falling on them. Otherwise they will just throw their hands up in the air.”
Seven Tips for Happier Families September 23, 2009
Posted by columbiaagedcare in articles.Tags: aged care, columbia aged care, Columbia Aged Care Services, elderly, elderly living arrangements, elderly parents, multigenerational families
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To take proper care of elderly parents, younger children often decide it is necessary for their parents to move in under the one roof. The initial transition period can be difficult on the children and their family as well as the elderly parents. Home Instead Senior Care have provided seven tips to ensure multigenerational families can live happily together.
1. Take a family partnership perspective. Everyone needs to be informed and to give input into the arrangements.
2. Set expectations right away. People understand it’s not just what they get out of it, but how they fit into the family.
3. Ask for help. Engage your children in responsibilities around the home and make it clear to adult siblings that you expect them to be involved. If extended family members will not help with respite care, arrange for a professional caregiver service.
4. Make family unity key. Routines, rituals and traditions help draw the family unit together. Plan a family movie or game night or take a walk together.
5. Find threads of common interest and build on those to develop deeper relationships. Focus on activities that provide simple ways to generate a common bond, such as ethnic cooking, family history, health or wellness.
6. Keep lines of communication open. Recognise the importance of “my time” and “our time.” Try to take everyone’s needs into account. Visit www.4070talk.com for more information about bridging the communication gap between seniors and their boomer children.
7. Distinguish between private space and shared space. Shared space should be stocked with material inviting for all ages and items that could stimulate discussion, such as a child’s project or “brag book” of photos. Make clear rules regarding the private spaces set aside for each member of the household.
Makeover Tips for Seniors September 16, 2009
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Home Instead Senior Care and actress and skin-care expert Victoria Principal have joined forces in writing an article to help seniors look and feel better from the outside in with a little help from family caregivers.
Principal says, “When you get up in the morning, look in the mirror and don’t like what you see, you can say, ‘You know, I’ve looked better before. What am I going to do about it?’”
She advises that older-adult men and women eat balanced meals, stretch and exercise every day, and remember that attitude is everything.
“How we talk to ourselves is very important. If we’re cruel to ourselves, it’s very difficult to be animated and have fun. And that makes it more difficult to take positive steps,” Principal said.
Check out the following tips for seniors, and for the caregivers who help them, from Principal and Home Instead Senior Care.
Women
- Keep hair healthy with regular cuts or trims at least once a month.
- Use a shampoo that doesn’t strip the hair or scalp. Follow with a leave-in or rinse-out hair rinse that coats the shafts of the hair.
- Base your wardrobe around black, brown and taupe. Think monochromatic (the same color on the top and bottom) because it elongates and slims. Use color around the face. For example, try combining a black jacket and black pants with a pink scarf.
- The skin is the largest organ of the body, so it’s important to treat it with care. Use a cleanser that doesn’t include perfume or create too many suds, but leaves your skin ready for the next step: a quality moisturizer. Remember to moisturize around the eyes, but use only a product that was created for those areas and one that won’t irritate them.
Men
- Your overall image and appearance will be much enhanced by staying clean and maintaining proper hygiene.
- Shave regularly – never using aftershave (it contains alcohol and fragrance, neither of which should be on or near your face.)
- Make sure to get a good-quality haircut at least once a month.
If you can’t manage this on your own it is a good idea to ask for assistance from a friend or caregiver to help keep you looking and feeling good from the outside in.
