Paula Span, in the New York Times “The New Old Age” section brings our attention to the phenomena of retirees leaving home to go to sunny Florida. A new film about a Florida retirement complex poses some difficult questions. The film is playing at the Jewish Film festival in San Francisco this week. The filmmaker, Sari Gilman, the granddaughter of a New Yorker couple of retirees, who shot the film in Kings Point, Florida, says: “The benefits of the age-segregated community seemed, in the end, to be a liability,” . As she spent time shooting at Kings Point, she learned that “there was a bit of a Darwinian bent to social life there. If you had your health, you were popular. If your health started to fail, there were whispers around the pool: ‘Ida’s going down.’ ” Read the article
Posts Tagged ‘Aging well’
New Devices Help Seniors Stay Longer in Their Own Homes.
An article supporting Living Well’s high-tech – high touch approach, was published by Health Day: News for Healthier Living on January 18 by Dennis Thompson. The article stresses the importance of using technology to keep seniors for longer and safer: ” Seniors who want to remain in their homes despite illness and infirmity can get a high-tech assist these days. So can their children who might worry about…Sensors, GPS and more are being used to track aging parents’ movements… So can their children who might worry about an elderly parent living alone, often far from family members.
The 1980s-era medical alert pendants made famous by their television advertising (“I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up!”) are now among a wide array of devices that can help keep an eye on aging parents and get them help when they need it.
Available technologies include:
- Sensors in the home to track an older person’s movement, from the front door to the medicine cabinet to the refrigerator to the stove. The sensors are linked with computers that can issue alerts when people deviate from their routine.
- Global positioning system devices, using the GPS technology that’s become so common in cars, that can help locate someone with dementia who’s wandered from home.
- Computerized pillboxes that track whether medication is being taken on time.
Technologies Help Adult Children Monitor Aging Parents
89% of Americans do not want to leave their homes when they age. Most of these people will be live alone and receive support from a variety of health and community-based providers, family caregivers. How will the long-term care system provide care to a growing number of seniors living in increasingly scattered locations? And more importantly, how can that system continue to provide quality care in the face of workforce shortages, rising care costs and decreasing resources? Technology has the potential to play a critical role in launching a new model of geriatric care that allows older people to live independently for as long as possible, supports family caregivers in the important work they do and gives health care providers the tools they need to deliver high-quality care at a reasonable cost. The just released article Technologies Help Adult Children Monitor Aging Parents on The New York Times, states that these technologies “…are godsends for families. But, as with any parent-child relationship, all loving intentions can be tempered by issues of control, role-reversal, guilt and a little deception — enough loaded stuff to fill a psychology syllabus. For just as the current population of adults in their 30s and 40s have built a reputation for being a generation of hyper-involved, hovering parents to their own children, they now have the tools to micro-manage their aging mothers and fathers as well…”
We, at Living Well Assisted Living at Home, believe the provide a safety net for the elders, an option to stay at home while providing peace of mind to the adult children and family members.
Living Well Independently: 7 Ways To Talk To Your Parents About Getting Help At Home
Shannon Martin and Alex Chamberlain affirm how difficult it can be to acknowledge the fact that your parent needs some help with day-to-day activities, let alone introducing to them the idea of hiring a professional caregiver for help. They give us nice and easy to follow advice on how to go about it. Their article on parentgiving 7 Ways To Talk To Your Parents About Getting Help At Home proposes that “…approaching the subject requires patience and tact. However, there are certain considerations to keep in mind that can help you approach a conversation about in-home care with your parent with greater success…”
Caetano Veloso on aging: at the age of 67, I feel at the “infancy of old age.”
For those, who like me, grew up listening to Caetano Veloso, seeing him getting older is just a reflection of our own aging and the multiple challenges and possibilities to unfold wellness, live well, and have a creative life into old age
Baby Boomers know well these challenges and also know well this poet of the Brazilian music. Caetano Veloso has been called the Bob Dylan of Brazil — a popular musician who has made staggering artistic and intellectual contributions to his country. The New York Times recently dubbed him “Brazil’s unofficial poet laureate”.
Veloso is consistently one of the most literate and beguiling forces in music. To see him in person is to see a sinuous, warm and joyous show in which Veloso’s vocals are backed by a young and edgy band. Seeing him aging so gracefully and maintaining his core values is refreshing. For Veloso family is everything and he is very close to another DIVA of Brazilian music, his sister Maria Bethania, both always look for young band players who bring new styles to old rhythms reminding us constantly that old and young play together an important role for a rich community.
Caetano and Maria Bethania, are very close to their mother and they say their love for music comes from her with whom, they love to sing. They do not shy away from politics or for family values. A great way to follow!
See them on a video with their mother
Veloso says, about his own aging: “I’m beginning to be an old man,” Veloso says. “It’s something that can excite you, because you get curious to see how changes go. You lose a lot, but you can gain a lot, too.”
When to Tell Your Parents: They Cannot Drive Any Longer!
Some of the baby boomers who also are “adult children” taking care of an aging parent face many challenges when taking care of this task. bringing awareness to our parents can be a challenging situation full of old and new family dynamics.
In an article for Forbes magazine, Living Well Assisted Living at Home mediator, Carolyn Rosenblat, Esq. calle it a new burden for boomers and states “…Denial is a very common reaction to the early warning signs of an older driver who is becoming dangerous. This denial can occur both among the elderly, who may get frantic at the idea of this privilege being taken from them, and among their adult children, who don’t want to have to deal with the consequences of Mom or Dad becoming a burden when it comes to transportation.
So make sure you start the driving conversation with your parent before he or she is 85–and preferably, when the parent is still safe to drive. My own mother-in-law is 87 and still drives…” Read the article
Combined goal: Moving 37,000 seniors out Nursing Homes!
An article in USA Today, reinforces the concept of Living Well Assisted Living at Home, which supports people aging AT HOME. Although at some point seniors need to “get better” and recover at rehabilitation centers and nursing homes, eventually the final goal is going back home. The article states that even the government is paying for people to get out of nursing homes. The program gives nursing home residents personal and financial help to live on their own or in small group settings, as well as payments for costs such as apartment security deposits, household furniture and alterations to make homes or cars accessible to the handicapped.
This proves that we are right! Read the article
