Aging Solutions Newsletter

October 2006

Caregiver Tip of the Month

— Learn about your loved one's medical affairs —

(very important topic – first published in our May 2004 issue)

As a new caregiver, one of your first tasks will be to learn as much as you can about your loved one's health and medical affairs. Here is some of the information you will need:

Names, phone numbers and addresses of the senior's doctors, dentist and pharmacy (be sure to include complete details about any arrangements the senior has made for discount prescriptions)
Copies of health insurance policies and the front and back of all insurance cards. If your loved one is 65 or older, you will need a copy of his or her Medicare card and, if they have a Medicare Supplement insurance policy, a copy of that insurance card as well. (Medicare has prepared a helpful online booklet; to download it, click on Medicare & You. It includes a summary of Medicare's benefits, rights and protections, answers to the most frequently asked questions about Medicare; and information about Medicare's new prescription drug coverage.)
Make a list of all medications (prescription drugs, over-the-counter drugs such as aspirin, antacids, herbal remedies, nutritional supplements – even daily multi-vitamins), dosage amounts and instructions for taking them (time of day, with food or between meals, etc.). Take this list with you to ALL of your loved one's medical appointments to help avoid dangerous prescription drugs interactions.
Date and results of recent medical tests, including exams, xrays, CT scans and MRIs.
Complete health history (also take this with you to all of your loved one's medical appointments); if possible, include major illness and medical conditions for your loved one's parents, brothers and sisters.

To help you, our sister website, Today's Seniors, has a free booklet where you can write down much of this information. For details, click on Our Family's Health History.

Helpful Tips. How many times have you walked out of your doctor's office and suddenly realized that you forgot to ask your doctor about something. Don't feel bad; it happens to everyone.

But now, you are helping your loved one manage his or her medical care. Or, perhaps, your loved one is no longer able to manager their own medical care. So, before you take them to a doctor, be sure to write down all of the questions you want to ask. If you don't understand the answers, ask the doctor for a further explanation.

If your loved one's doctor prescribes any medications, ask when they should be taken, if they should be taken with food or at a certain time before or after a meal, what side effects might show up and what should you do if they do, and how long the medication should be taken before you see an improvement in your loved one's condition.

Our visitors ask ...

Q. My mother has been diagnosed with an early stage of dementia. What can I expect as her dementia worsens over time?

A. Dementia is a generalized category of conditions that includes Alzheimer's Disease. While various types of dementia have different underlying causes, they produce the same gradual decline in mental abilities. If you click on Stages of Alzheimer's Disease, published by the Alzheimer's Association, you will see a thorough description of each of the seven stages of decline.

You should also be aware that many curable health conditions (Vitamin B12 deficiency, dehydration, depression, etc.) are often misdiagnosed as dementia because it's an easy, convenient diagnosis. Unfortunately, it can condemn a patient to a permanent decline whereas if the true condition were correctly identified, the patient may recover and once again enjoy life. For more information about symptoms of the major medical conditions that affect the elderly, visit our page, Age Dementia Symptoms. As you'll see, we discuss the common symptoms of Dementia and Alzheimer's disease, and much more.

Daily Living Solutions

— products for seniors —

As we grow older, it often becomes difficult to use many everyday products because of arthritis and other conditions. If you or a loved one needs a little help – or a lot – we've selected a group of practical and affordable solutions from our affiliated merchants to help overcome those limitations.

Whether you are looking for yourself, or to help an elderly senior continue living in their own home, you'll find a wide variety of supplies and accessories – raised toilet seats, safety rails, incontinence supplies, large-handle eating utensils, pain relief, diabetic supplies, pill splitters and crushers, big-button telephones, canes, walkers, rollators, wheelchairs – and much more.

Everything is sorted into convenient categories in our Solutions for Seniors section.

Caregiving – Finding the money for care at home

A variety of resources can help pay for care at home. We discuss these resources in some detail in our article 12 tips to help you find money (and free resources) for care at home.

Caregiver Tip #2

— When Mom (or Dad) Goes to the Hospital —

How you can make their stay safer

Because of relentless cost-cutting by hospitals, insurance companies, HMOs, Medicare and Medicaid, hospital nursing nursing staffs have steadily shrunk over the years. Indeed, the ratio of patients to nurses has never been higher. In other words, each nurse has become responsible for an every-increasing number of patients.

As a result, nurses spend more and more time monitoring their patients via electronic hook-ups at the nurses' station than they do via in-room visits. When a patient needs help, whether it is to go to the bathroom or for some other reason, they press their call button ... and wait ... and wait ... and wait. Often, someone at the nurses' station will respond via a speaker at the patient's bedside, but the result is typically the same ... they wait ... and wait ... and wait ... for someone to show up and help them.

This can be particularly troublesome for many patients, especially the elderly, particularly if they are in the early stages of dementia and have lost some of their ability to reason, or if they have been given medications that produce even mild confusion as a side effect. When they need to go to the bathroom and no one responds to their calls for help, they frequently try to get out of bed by themselves, sometimes even if they are catheterized. Far too often, they fall and a broken arm or hip is the result.

If you or another family member cannot stay by your loved one's bedside 24 hours a day, for the duration of their hospital stay (older people typically get up to go to the bathroom at least once during the night) you can hire a home health agency to send home health aides to stay with your loved one when you can't be there. Unfortunately, this option isn't available to everyone because of the expense involved ... it isn't covered by insurance companies, HMOs, Medicare or Medicaid. But, if you or your loved one can afford this additional level of care, you'll have more peace-of-mind knowing that he or she will be safely watched over during their hospital stay.