Some psychologists believe that cognitive processes are responsible – in particular, focusing on and remembering positive events and leaving behind negative ones.

Other studies have discovered that as people age, they seek out situations that will lift their moods – for instance, pruning social circles of friends or acquaintances who might bring them down. Still other work finds that older adults learn to let go of loss and disappointment over underachieved goals, and their goals toward greater well-being.

One thing is certain – nearly 90 percent of seniors would rather live in their own homes. Companionship, too, is one way to help seniors maintain their sunny dispositions. Learn more about our Home Instead Senior Care® support services – call us in the Mississauga ON area to ask about our senior home care services at 905- 276-2273.

Source: Psychologicalscience.org

Our local Mississauga Home Instead CAREGivers can help keep seniors healthy, happy and safe at home. For more information on our services call 905- 276-2273.

Home Care Mississauga helping older adults and elderly live independently and safely at home. Please call 905- 276-2273.

A family health history makes sense because:

• Family members share genes,

• Behaviors,

• Lifestyles,

• Environments, which all together may affect their risk of developing health problems.

Most people have a family health history of common chronic diseases (e.g., cancer, heart disease, or diabetes) and other health conditions (e.g., high blood pressure and high cholesterol). A person with a close relative affected by a chronic disease may have a higher risk of developing that disease than a person who does not have an affected relative.

The Surgeon General’s My Family Health Portrait tool could help families collect and organize family health history information they can easily share with their doctor. This information can help a doctor caring for other family members decide which tests and screenings are recommended to assess risks.

Our local Mississauga Home Instead CAREGivers can help keep seniors healthy in spite of their family tree. For more information on our services call 905- 276-2273.

Home Care Mississauga helping older adults and elderly live independently and safely at home. Please call 905- 276-2273.

Capturing and preserving memories for a family member with Alzheimer’s disease or other dementias can happen in a number of ways. It might entail turning on a favorite 1940s big band hit, spreading photos out on the coffee table, intentionally creating a list of questions to ask, and sitting down in the living room together to record the thoughts your loved one shares. Or, reminiscing might occur more spontaneously during a family gathering—make sure you have a notepad or video camera handy!

To accommodate your family member’s cognitive ability level and make sharing memories in any situation a positive, meaningful experience, keep the following considerations in mind:

Do involve other family members; Don’t put the person with Alzheimer’s on the spot.

Do share your own thoughts as they relate to the memories your loved one shares; Don’t monopolize the conversation.

Do ask specific, personal questions; Don’t interrogate.

Do focus on general memories and emotions; Don’t focus on exact facts and details.

For more Alzheimer’s Conversation Tips

The goal is to give your family member with dementia the opportunity to share cherished memories with the people he or she loves. You don’t need to record a precise journalistic account of the person’s life.

Activities to capture and preserve memories with your family member living with Alzheimer’s disease or other dementias should focus on what that person can and wants to remember. You can help to minimize frustration by paying attention to your loved one’s limitations and adapting opportunities for reminiscing accordingly.

Story Starters for a Winning Entry

How has Alzheimer’s impacted you?

How do you and your family cope with Alzheimer’s?

Why are memories important to your family?

Why do you deserve to win this family reunion?

Enter to win at Help for Alzheimer’s Families

Home Care Mississauga helping older adults and elderly live independently and safely at home. Please call 905- 276-2273.

1. A recent survey has revealed that 69% of Canadians between the ages of 43 and 63 have a living parent and one third of these people are providing care to them.
2. While having multiple responsibilities may seem overwhelming, there are ways for caregivers to effectively manage their responsibilities. Identifying how others can help with care and assigning different responsibilities to other family members can be helpful.
3. Social service support is also available. This will help the caregiver and will allow them to have more time to spend with their own children while still ensuring the well being of the aging parent.
4. When the caregiving is done in your own home, things can get overwhelming, however, having other family members in the home can be beneficial because they can also help with the care, even the children can be involved in caring for Grandma.

Please Call Home Instead Senior Care in Mississauga, if you need extra elder care help at home. Call 905-276.2273.

Home Care Mississauga helping older adults and elderly live independently and safely at home. Please call 905- 276-2273.

In response, Home Instead Senior Care has announced the launch of Salute to Senior Service(SM) program (www.SalutetoSeniorService.com) to honour the many volunteer contributions that older adults make to this nation. This program, which launched on January 15, 2012, includes a search for the country’s most outstanding Senior Hero(SM) in each state and culminates with the selection of a national Salute to Senior Service winner during Older Americans Month in May. State Senior Hero(SM) winners will receive plaques and their stories on the www.SalutetoSeniorService.com site. In addition, $5,000 will be donated to the national winner’s nonprofit charity of choice.

Between January 15 and March 12, 2012, entries can be submitted to nominate seniors 65 and older who volunteer at least 15 hours a month, making a positive impact on their communities through volunteerism. Stories can be submitted online at www.SalutetoSeniorService.com.

“Not only are senior volunteers changing their communities, but they are also changing the face of aging,” said Jeff Huber, President and Chief Operating Officer of Home Instead Senior Care. “Volunteer opportunities for older adults should not diminish because of age and, by all accounts, don’t. Home Instead is thrilled to be able to take this opportunity to recognize and showcase their important contributions.”

About half of U.S. seniors (52 percent) volunteer their time through unpaid community service, according to research conducted by the Home Instead Senior Care network. Nearly 20 percent (one in five) of senior volunteers surveyed started volunteering when they reached the traditional age of retirement – 65 or older. Furthermore, 20 percent of seniors who volunteer say that their community service is the most important thing they do. Seniors who volunteer give an average of 15 hours a month in unpaid service.

Seven in 10 seniors (70 percent) who volunteer indicate they plan on volunteering “forever.” This percentage is slightly higher for senior volunteers who suffer from chronic health problems. In fact, managing chronic conditions and maintaining health are important motivations. Three-fourths of senior volunteers surveyed (75 percent) who have chronic conditions say that staying active through volunteering helps them manage these conditions. But the benefits go much deeper. According to Home Instead Senior Care network research, 95 percent of senior volunteers feel that seniors who volunteer are healthier and happier than seniors who do not. Volunteering enables seniors to develop and maintain important social connections, learn more skills, and pursue new interests.

“We know from our work with seniors that the more active an individual the more likely that he or she will continue to remain independent while aging. Those who find a way to give back, even if they have their own aches and pains and need help, realize many benefits,” shared Huber.

Home Care Mississauga helping older adults and elderly live independently and safely at home. Please call 905- 276-2273.

It makes sense. Seniors who stay healthy live longer. But how can you help seniors maintain good health when the odds of developing dementia, diabetes, heart disease, some form of cancer, or a host of other ailments are against them? Some answers might come from the Greek island of Ikaria where a remarkable one in three natives reach 90 years of age.

According to an AARP The Magazine article called “Live More Good Years,” researchers discovered that, compared to Americans over 90, Ikaria’s 90-plus population experienced 20 percent fewer incidents of cancer, half the rate of heart disease, one-ninth the rate of diabetes and virtually no Alzheimer’s disease or other dementia.

To encourage similar habits to help North American older adults add years to their life. Advise seniors to eat meals incorporating whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, olive oil, fish, and herbal teas to add important vitamins, antioxidants and complex carbohydrates to their diets. Seniors will also benefit from scheduling walks or daily exercises, naps, and opportunities for social interaction and religious practices into their day. Adopting a carefree attitude about time may not translate as well to our culture of hectic schedules and tight deadlines, but look for ways to reduce stress by demonstrating patience with seniors who might take longer to complete tasks.

Another approach to increasing lifespan takes into consideration not only the good behaviors to adopt, but also which behaviors to avoid. A recent CDC report boils the secret to longevity down into four key habits:

•Do exercise regularly
•Do eat a healthy diet
•Don’t smoke
•Don’t drink alcohol excessively

If your loved one needs help and assistance in maintaining a healthy lifestyle, call Mississauga Home Instead Senior Care at 905- 276-2273. Our CAREGivers are available to help your senior stay healthy.

Visit Caregiverstress.com for more information on healthy aging.

Home Care Mississauga helping older adults and elderly live independently and safely at home. Please call 905- 276-2273.

Submit a story in either written or video format about your experience with a family member living with Alzheimer’s disease or other dementias for a chance to win a family reunion – go to Remember for Alzheimer’s.

Essays and videos need to:

Share how Alzheimer’s has impacted your life.

Talk about the role that memories and remembering have played in your family, especially with regard to your family member who now has or had Alzheimer’s.

Share specific stories or examples of how you and your family members cope or coped with challenges of Alzheimer’s disease.

Tell why you deserve to win this family reunion.

Entries must be submitted by 11:59 p.m. EST Jan. 31, 2012. Three finalists will be notified by a judge’s panel by Feb. 15, 2012. Online voting to select the grand prize winner will occur from March 28 through June 30, 2012.

The Mississauga local Home Instead Senior Care office can provide valuable information about Alzheimer’s disease or dementia, and support to seniors – call us at 905- 276-2273.

Home Care Mississauga helping older adults and elderly live independently and safely at home. Please call 905- 276-2273.

Other benefits that the senior volunteer survey respondents identified include:

I want to help others – 99 percent

I want to make a difference in my community – 99 percent

I want to provide assistance to causes I care about – 99 percent

I feel like my volunteer contributions are appreciated – 98 percent

I enjoy volunteering with my friends – 93 percent I want to socialize and meet new people – 92 percent

I want to share my talents, skills and experience – 90 percent

I enjoy learning new skills – 89 percent I have more time now – 86 percent I want to occupy my free time – 84 percent

Home Instead CAREGivers in Mississauga are available to help your senior loved ones continue to pursue their passions by providing non-medical assistance at home – call us for more information 905- 276-2273.

Home Care Mississauga helping older adults and elderly live independently and safely at home. Please call 905- 276-2273.

• As seniors’ lifestyles and longevity have evolved over time so, too, is the desire for new kinds of volunteer activities, Dr. Tan said. In a highly technological world, the “new senior” has different interests than those of the past. Seniors are being encouraged to volunteer for a cause or an activity in which they are interested or for which they feel passionate.

• According to Home Instead Senior Care network research, 95 percent of senior volunteers feel that seniors who volunteer are healthier and happier than those seniors who do not.

• Check out more benefits from volunteering opportunities as well as information about how to make a deserving senior 65 and older who volunteers at least 15 hours a month a Senior Hero – SalutetoSeniorService.com.

• State and Canadian provincial (except Quebec) winners will receive plaques and their story on the SalutetoSeniorService.com website. A gift of $5,000 will be donated to the national winner’s favorite nonprofit charity.

Help us recognize outstanding senior volunteers who make a difference in their community. Nominees have a chance to win $5,000 for their favorite volunteer organization. Please share volunteer stories from your community and nominate a senior for Salute to Senior Service.

Home Care Mississauga helping older adults and elderly live independently and safely at home. Please call 905- 276-2273.

Four medications, used alone or together, accounted for two-thirds of the emergency hospitalizations:

33 percent, or 33,171 emergency hospitalizations, involved warfarin, a medication used to prevent blood clots.

14 percent involved insulins. Insulin injections are used to control blood sugar in people who have diabetes.

13 percent involved antiplatelet drugs, such as aspirin or clopidogrel, which prevent platelets, or pieces of blood cells from clumping together to start a clot.

11 percent involved diabetes medications that are taken by mouth, called oral hypoglycemic agents.

Our CAREGivers at Home Instead Senior Care in Mississauga ON can serve as a second set of eyes and ears for your senior loved one(s) while providing non-medical services that can help track medications and doctors’ appointments. Contact us at 905- 276-2273.

For more information about how to prepare for an emergency – refer to www.SeniorEmergencyKit.com.

Home Care Mississauga helping older adults and elderly live independently and safely at home. Please call 905- 276-2273.

Rehabilitation After Stroke

Some people do not need rehabilitation after a stroke because the stroke was mild or they have fully recovered. Others may be too disabled to participate. However, many patients can be helped by rehabilitation. Hospital staff will help the patient and family decide about rehabilitation and choose the right services or program.

There are several kinds of rehabilitation programs:

Home Instead Senior Care can provide supplemental CAREGiver services that help stroke patients recover quickly. Our CAREGivers can assist patients in the following programs located in Mississauga ON. We can be reached at 905- 276-2273.

Hospital programs – These programs can be provided by special rehabilitation hospitals or by rehabilitation units in acute care hospitals. Complete rehabilitation services are available. The patient stays in the hospital during rehabilitation. An organized team of specially trained professionals provides the therapy. Hospital programs are usually more intense than other programs and require more effort from the patient.

Nursing facility (nursing home) programs – As in hospital programs, the person stays at the facility during rehabilitation. Nursing facility programs are very different from each other, so it is important to get specific information about each one. Some provide a complete range of rehabilitation services; others provide only limited services.

Outpatient programs – Allow a patient who lives at home to get a full range of services by visiting a hospital outpatient department, outpatient rehabilitation facility, or day hospital program.

Home-based programs – The patient can live at home and receive rehabilitation services from visiting professionals. An important advantage of home programs is that patients learn skills in the same place where they will use them.

Learn more about Choosing Best Stroke Program.

***If you are seeking home care services for loved ones who have had a slight stroke call 905- 276-2273.

Get Your Free Stroke Information Guide.

Home Care Mississauga helping older adults and elderly live independently and safely at home. Please call 905- 276-2273.

Most strokes are ischemic (is-KEE-mic) strokes. These are caused by reduced blood flow to the brain when blood vessels are blocked by a clot or become too narrow for blood to get through. Brain cells in the area die from lack of oxygen. In another type of stroke, called hemorrhagic (hem-or-AJ-ic) stroke, the blood vessel isn’t blocked; it bursts, and blood leaks into the brain, causing damage.

Strokes are more common in older people. Almost three-fourths of all strokes occur in people 65 years of age or over. However, a person of any age can have a stroke.

Recovering From Stroke

The process of recovering from a stroke usually includes treatment, spontaneous recovery, rehabilitation, and the return to community living. Because stroke survivors often have complex rehabilitation needs, progress and recovery are different for each person.

Treatment for stroke begins in a hospital with “acute care.” This first step includes helping the patient survive, preventing another stroke, and taking care of any other medical problems.

Spontaneous recovery happens naturally to most people. Soon after the stroke, some
abilities that have been lost usually start to come back. This process is quickest during the first few weeks, but it sometimes continues for a long time.

Rehabilitation is another part of treatment. It helps the person keep abilities and gain back lost abilities to become more independent. It usually begins while the patient is still in acute care. For many patients, it continues afterward, either as a formal rehabilitation program or as individual rehabilitation services. Many decisions about rehabilitation are made by the patient,
family, and hospital staff before discharge from acute care.

The last stage in stroke recovery begins with the person’s return to community living after acute care or rehabilitation. This stage can last for a lifetime as the stroke survivor and family learn to live with the effects of the stroke. This may include doing common tasks in new ways or making up for damage to or limits of one part of the body by greater activity of another.

Read more on Strokes: How Stroke Affects People

Get a Free Copy of Recovering After a Stroke: A Patient and Family Guide – courtesy of The StrokeCenter.org.

Home Care Mississauga helping older adults and elderly live independently and safely at home. Please call 905- 276-2273.

1.    If mobility is an issue, the layout of the home may have to be altered. This may sound like a huge project, but it can be as simple as rearranging furniture and changing doorways to allow for easy and safe access.

2.    Bathrooms often need to be updated or remodeled to help seniors at home. Installing shower handles and grip bars on the walls of the bathroom will help make the room safer. There should also be an anti-slip mat or grips on the bottom of the tub or shower to help prevent falls.

3.    Increase lighting. Falls at home are the leading causes of injuries for seniors. By increasing the amount of light in the home, seniors will be able to see things better and reduce their chances of falling.

4.    Remove all rugs or carpets from stairs and make sure a hand rail is installed.

5.    In addition to the physical safety at home, seniors need to be concerned over emotional safety. If they feel they are being harassed or targeted, there are many crime prevention programs that can help. These programs will monitor the home from the outside and can even offer discounts on security systems.

Please call Home Instead Senior Care in Mississauga for a free in-home care assessment at 905- 276-2273.

Home Care Mississauga helping older adults and elderly live independently and safely at home. Please call 905- 276-2273.

This guide is designed to help adult siblings and their aging parents deal with those sensitive situations that arise among brothers and sisters as their parents age and need assistance. The 50/50 Rule Guide for Family Caregivers.

1. Illness: A senior loved one who becomes ill or faces declining health can leave a family facing all sorts of potentially difficult issues.

2. Money: Money matters often complicate life for seniors as well as their adult children.

3. Inheritance: While some families contend with a lack of funds to provide care for their loved ones, others have the temptation of a family inheritance influencing their decisions.

4. Distance: While absence may make the heart grow fonder, it certainly doesn’t make life easier for a long-distance family caregiver.

5. Stress: Life is stressful and family caregiving oftentimes makes it more so. Adult caregivers who have started a new job, are raising children or caring for their own spouse can soon become overwhelmed when elderly family members need help. Often the primary family caregiver wants or needs more help from siblings, but isn’t getting it.

Home Care Mississauga helping older adults and elderly live independently and safely at home. Home Instead Senior Care in Mississauga knows the stress that our public home care system is under and we can provide the professional care that our aging seniors need. Please call 905- 276-2273.

Call now for your free in-home care consultation: 905-276-2273 or 416-239-2200.

Everyone is home for the holidays. What could be better? Only problem is, sister Elaine can’t understand why Mom’s house isn’t all decked out as it used to be. And brother Bob has found a pile of unopened bills on the dresser. The holidays, when family is all together, are good times to assess if an older adult needs help. But take care not to ruin the fun or cause a family fight.

Don’t get into the topic when everyone is at the dinner table nor when they may have had too much holiday wine, advises Gail Hunt, President and CEO of the U.S.’s National Alliance for Caregiving.

“When talking with your siblings about your concerns for Mom and Dad, go out to lunch to have that discussion rather than right in the middle of the family festivities. Then approach a parent in a non-threatening way. Perhaps you’re in the kitchen making pies with Mom. You might ask, ‘I saw those bills on the dresser. Is there something I can do to help?’”

If you’re home for the holidays, keep an eye out for these red flags that might signal a senior needs help:

• Look in the refrigerator, freezer and pantry. Has food spoiled because Mom can’t get to the grocery store? Does she have difficulty cleaning tight, cluttered places?
• Look over the grocery list. Has Dad’s declining health prompted him to purchase more convenience and junk foods, and neglect proper nutrition? Is he losing weight?
• Look on top of furniture and countertops. Accumulated dust and dirt may be a sign that household cleaning is becoming too difficult for your parents.
• Look up at fans and ceilings. Has the inability to lift her arms and climb stepstools prevented your loved one from cleaning soot and grime from high places? Caution seniors not to climb.
• Look to your parents’ neighbours and other close friends to find out about their daily routine. Are your seniors at home more, watching television and avoiding stimulating conversation and companionship?

Home Care Mississauga helping older adults and elderly live independently and safely at home. Home Instead Senior Care in Mississauga knows the stress that our public home care system is under and we can provide the professional care that our aging seniors need. Please call 905- 276-2273.