May 15, 2009
Benefitting from Adult Day Care
(HealthDay News- May 1, 2009) — Some seniors become lonely staying home alone all day, particularly if they can no longer drive. And for older people with memory or physical problems, staying home alone can be unsafe.
That’s when adult day care may come in.
Rotary International offers this list of adult day care’s potential benefits:
- It’s a safe, supervised place to be.
- It includes enjoyable activities and an opportunity to learn new things.
- It may allow participants to become mentally and physically healthier.
- It promotes a feeling of staying independent.
- It includes regular, healthier meals and snacks
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**Family Alliancehas been providing Adult Day Health Care services with door-to-door transportation, to northern Illinois since 1981. For more information on Family Alliance visit www.FamilyAllianceInc.org or call (815)338-3590.
May 11, 2009
Pet-Assisted Therapy For Seniors
The Power of Pets: Creating a Connection
By: Barbara Worthington
(AgingWell Magazine- Online Exclusive) Animals can open the lines of communication with older adults, diminish their isolation, and even improve physical conditions.
Americans have long been a society of animal lovers. Animals provide companionship, unconditional love, and lifelong friendship. In 2007, 71.1 million U.S. households owned some type of pet, according to the American Pet Product Manufacturers Association. The study indicates that those housholds owned approximately 73.9 million dogs and 90.5 million cats. These figures reinforce the knowledge that animals hold a special place in our homes and our hearts. Relationships with animals develop into bonds that strengthen significantly over time. Many older adults enjoy memories of pets that lived in their homes as they grew up, others that were family members as they raised their own children, and even pets that served as faithful companions later in life.
But the isolation many older adults experience, resulting from losses they’ve sustained–loss of good health, spouses, and their homes–frequently creates a barrier that diminishes their quality of life.
However, animal-assisted therapy introduced to the lives of many older adults has offered a connection that allows elders to remember, vocalize their recollections, and smile.
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**Family Alliance partners with animal-assisted therapy volunteers to provide this unique therapy to the seniors who take part in our Adult Day Health and Dementia Specific Day Programs.
May 5, 2009
Caring for Your Parents: How to Reclaim the Good Old Times
Illustration: Guy Billout
By: Martha Beck
(O Magazine – May 2009) –Shepherding fragile elders can leave a person lost and overwhelmed. Martha Beck offers a path back toward sanity. I once attended a Navajo blessing ceremony, held in a tepee on the red sand of the Sonoran desert. The tepee was set up with great reverence, since to the Navajo, it symbolized the womb from which we all emerge, and the tent poles were “the bones of our grandmother.” The word grandparents was spoken often and lovingly throughout the ceremony. The groups silver-haired matriarch quietly reigned over the gathering, with everyone else poised to supply her needs. It was a graceful dance of mutual care with the elderly at the center.
By contrast, our First World way of caring for the elderly is a clumsy, exhausting tarantella. It force-partners isolated caregivers (usually middle-aged women) with decline, disease, dementia, and death. As one woman told me, “Having aging parents simultaneously orphaned me, saddled me with two insane strangers, and shoved every nightmare about my own future right into my face.” I heard many such stories as I researched the subject: Polly nearly bankrupted herself caring for her father, who has Alzheimer’s. Brooke has barely slept since her ailing mother-in-law moved in. Jennifer had to testify against her parents in court so they’d be declared “incompetent to drive” before accidentally killing themselves or someone else.
This happens when a society forgets something people like the Navajo teach explicitly–that caring for the elderly is a “blessing path” in which the whole community should participate. Although our culture shows no signs of collectively adopting this perspective, there are ways to regain it on a case-by-case basis. If you’re one of the 34 million or so Americans who are caring for an older relative, I offer my deep respect, and the following suggestions.
Continue reading about Beck’s Practical Coping Strategies and Psychological Coping Strategies for caregiving.
http://www.oprah.com/article/omagazine/200905-omag-beck-eldercare
