May is Older Americans Month, a terrific occasion to exhibit our  admiration for the older adults in our neighborhoods.

Since 1963, neighborhoods across the country have come together to celebrate Older Americans Month—a very proud tradition that displays our country’s loyalty to acknowledging the influences and successes of older Americans.

The topic for Older Americans Month 2012, “Never Too Old to Play…”
inspires older Americans to continue to be involved, active and involved in their own lives and in their communities.

Here are some creative ideas for Older American’s Month

Brain Activities

Older adults may experience multiple changes in the structure and activity of the brain that can affect how we move and think. But developing studies show that specific actions can teach and spark the brain, bettering its efficiency and potentially even decreasing the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. While we do not know which specific daily activities may be of benefit, the ones mentioned below are fun ways to engage your brain.

Consider offering some of these events for Older Americans Month:

- Trivia competition. You’re never too old to play trivia! It’s a great way to bring together older adults and their younger friends and neighbors for a couple of hours of fun and discovery. As a featured activity for Older Americans Month 2012, AoA has developed a team trivia game for your Day of Play. Players will exercise their minds in a 90-minute competition, where intergenerational groups of four to six people gather to answer trivia questions about culture, major events, and sports.

-Crossword puzzles. Crossword puzzles are excellent mental exercises. In the spirit of Older Americans Month, AoA has developed a series of crossword puzzles that you can print and distribute to Day of Play participants.

-Traditional games. Games like Scrabble, bridge, and pokeno are timeless classics and have the potential to be fun intergenerational games. Hold a game night and invite participants to form teams to play these traditional games. Provide a venue, a few decks of cards, a handful of board games, and let the good times roll!

-Continuing education/speaker series. Talk to the older adults you work with and find out what topics interest them. A speaker series as part of your Day of Play might include local professors, authors or others expert in their fields giving presentations on the topics of greatest interest.
To learn more about brain health, please visit:

National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Aging Memory/Cognitive Health

Alzheimer’s Association: Brain Health

Take care of the seniors in your life and celebrate National Older American’s Month.

There’s no place like home. And for some, home is the ideal place to age.

Home health nurses can be an invaluable resource for many families, providing aging loved ones with skilled, home-based services that include:

• patient assessments;

• disease treatment, education and prevention;

• injections, intravenous therapy and wound care.

And all of this is administered in the comfort of your loved one’s home and in a way that is designed to minimize hospital visits.

When choosing a home health care provider, there are several important questions to consider:

• How long has the home health agency been in business? Working with an established agency will allow you to investigate its reputation and evaluate its track record.

• Is the agency licensed and certified? You can review home health licensure information at www.medicare.gov. Understanding these credentials is critical because Medicare will only cover home health services if the agency is Medicare certified.

• Is the agency staff specially trained? The staff should specialize in the unique needs of older adults and utilize outcome-based care programs.

• Does the agency create a personalized plan for each patient? By providing individual plans, a home health care provider is less likely to overlook important aspects of the patient’s needs.

For information on home health services or to find a home health agency in your area, visit www.liftcaregiving.com.

Throughout the United States, registered nurses are being honored.

To honor the dedication, commitment, and tireless commitment of the nearly 3.1 million registered nurses nationally to increase and care for the health and wellbeing of the US, the American Nurses Association is elated to acknowledge registered nurses in all places on this selected day for the caregiving and top quality work they provide seven days a week, 365 days a year.

In tribute to Nursing: Advocating, Leading, Caring, all registered nurses in America are encouraged to proudly wear the official ANA “RN” pin or any other pin that plainly recognizes them as registered nurses, and/or their nurses uniform on May 6, 2012.

Nurses: Advocating, Leading, Caring

Often identified as an art and a science, nursing is a job that embraces committed individuals with distinct pursuits, skills and loves because of the many choices the profession has. Nurses are caregivers, work in emergency rooms, school based clinics, and homeless shelters, among others. They have many assignments – from staff nurse to educator to nurse practitioner and nurse researcher – and perform all of them with excitement for the industry and with a strong commitment to patient safety.

National Nurses Week History

National Nurses Week starts off yearly on May 6th and ends on May 12th, Florence Nightingale’s birthday.

These solid dates improve planning and positions National Nurses Week as an organized recognition event. As of 1998, May 8 was designated as National Student Nurses Day, to be recognized each year. And as of 2003, National School Nurse Day is celebrated on the Wednesday within National Nurses Week (May 6-12) each year.

The nursing business has been backed and publicized by the American Nurses Association (ANA) since 1896.

Each of ANA’s state and territorial nurses associations promotes the nursing profession at the state and regional levels. Each conducts celebrations on these dates to recognize the contributions that nurses and nursing make to the community.

If you know a registered nurse, be sure to thank him or her for their service during National Nurses Week 2012.

News today is often about conflict in the world, how congress can’t work together, our struggling education system and declining economy. The stories are dramatic and we take whatever time we need to read them, and then we move on.

But have you ever read the obituaries? Here you find a story that is about a lifetime; about a meaningful, connected and productive life.

Today’s elderly are living longer, adding to their already storied life. And those of us who provide home care services get to learn about history through those we serve. We learn about life during different decades, eras and fads. We learn about our client’s personal life, family life, and what it takes to get as far as he or she has. We go right into our clients homes and see pictures, furnishings, what they eat, where they sleep, and who comes to visit or not.

The people we have the good fortune of serving inspire us. Did you see the human spirit in the woman in the wheelchair at a recent senior dance? There was a lot more left than a tired body.

What did it take to get through the Holocaust, a world war, the Depression? Coming into this country as an immigrant, having nine children, being a devoted spouse, being one of the first women allowed to be in active duty in the military, a dedicated educator, an inventor, a factory worker, or builder of tall buildings?

Home care workers see it all in diminished bodies but still vibrant souls with a lot to offer through their stories told, in the sparkle of their eye and in their smile.

We now get to carry the laundry basket, make the bed, drive the car, wipe the tears, help plant the garden, assist in getting washed up and dressed, navigate the curb, call the oil company, talk to the daughter and wheel around Wal-Mart together.

Life is rich, people are strong, and the message our seniors give the younger generation is, “We can do this!”

An ancient American Indian proverb is etched on the grounds of the U.N. Plaza building in San Francisco. It states: “We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children.”

Earth Day was introduced by John McDonnell in 1969 at a UNESCO Conference on the Environment. The United Nations started to recognize Earth Day on the March equinox but has since moved it to April 22 of each year. Earth Day is intended for all of us to recognize how we influence the use of our limited resources on the planet.

Recycling paper, cans, bottles, home goods and clothing is an easy way to help limit our impact on our environment. Seniors can set a good example for younger generations by reducing the use of unnecessary stuff and recycling the things we do use.

Did you know that every adult in the nation gets about 40 pounds of junk mail each year? Unsolicited letters, credit card offers, fliers and catalogs are not only a nuisance, they are impacting our wallets and the environment.

We do a good thing when we throw junk mail into the blue cart, but it is not enough. The advertisers continue to blanket the market with tons of paper and are content to get less than a 0.25 percent response rate. Printed matter is made from pulp, and pulp is made from trees. It takes 24 trees to make a ton of paper. More than 100 million trees are harvested each year to produce junk mail, according to the Native Forest Network. Transporting the mail uses fuel, and we all know that demand for gas helps raise the price we pay at the pump. Producing paper also uses a lot of water, another precious resource.

Why not take a few simple steps to reduce the amount of junk mail that gets to your mail box in the first place? You could call each company and request that your name be removed from its mailing list, however that takes a lot of time and effort. It can take months to see results because your name is on marketing lists are sold again and again. Your profile is worth anywhere from 3 to 20 cents each time it is sold.

If you do not have the time or inclination to contact each company, here are some of the organizations that will do it for you:

Consumer credit reporting companies can prevent you from getting credit and insurance company offers. Go to www.optoutprescreen.com or call 888-567-8688.

The Direct Marketing Association’s Mail Preference Service lets you opt out of receiving unsolicited commercial mail from many national companies for five years by registering at www.dmachoice.org or mailing to PO Box 543, Carmel N.Y. 10512 and enclosing a $1 processing fee.

You can choose which phone book you want to receive by visiting www.yellowpagesoptout.com.

To eliminate getting unsolicited mail when ordering any item or when providing your name and address, look for and check the box next to “I do not want my name shared” or write it on your order form.

There are other ways you can do things to minimize your impact on the environment. Limit the purchase of bottled water. Get a reusable bottle and refill it yourself. Take a look at product packaging and select those items that use less plastic and other wrapping. Keep reusable grocery bags visible in your car so that you will remember to bring them into the store. Keep your tires inflated, your car tuned, and plan your routes when you travel to minimize fuel consumption.

By reducing your consumption of unnecessary stuff and recycling the things you need to use, you will help to leave a better place for your grandchildren, and for generations to come.

Here are some options on how to to spread the spirit of gardening in your neighborhood.

Plant a Row for the Hungry at a Local Community Garden

In this land of great quantity it’s hard to picture not having access to good food at a affordable cost. Even so, for millions of Americans, getting a healthy meal is not always easy. It’s estimated almost 33 million people, including 13 million children, end up with emergency food because they cannot afford the food they need.

Host a Plant Swap at a Neighborhood Church

The greatest plants aren’t always from your community garden center or seed catalog. As a substitute they are gathered through quick cuttings or by gathering seeds from the garden of a friend or family member. These “pass-along plants” supply both grace and affection to your garden.

Have a Spring Cleaning Green Up Day at a Senior’s Home

Spring cleaning — indoors and out — is a ritual that marks the end of winter and the start of a new season, and similar to many things to do, it’s more fun when you share it. A senior’s home, your street, neighborhood, town park, and any other public space could use some greening up; it just takes someone to organize a small group.

Yard Sale Philanthropy

The coming of spring, coupled with longer days and higher temperatures, gives you dreams of green oases teeming with tomatoes and brimming with beans. Spring is also a time for cleaning out. This year, celebrate National Garden Month in an unexpected way-by visiting yard sales in search of second-hand stuff that every senior’s garden needs.

Organize a Garden Visit with Senior Friends, Over Tea!

Gardeners grow more than plants – every one of us has stories to share. For a change, why not share them in over tea? Socialization and admiration of another person’s garden brings joy to everyone.

Other tips for having fun with seniors in your local community:

-Organize or play a role in a town beautification day.

-Visit your regional farmers’ market.

-Flatter a neighbor on his or her garden.

-Gather with neighbors to purchase compost and mulch in bulk quantities.

-Volunteer to plant and sustain a garden at your area library.

-Publish a gardening article or essay to your neighborhood paper.

-Arrange to Talk With an elder to learn what foods his or her family grew when he or she was a child.

-Search for neighbors from numerousethnic groups to learn about their native cuisine and gardening techniques.

-Green up your street or a local park by picking up trash.

-Share a cutting of one of your favorite landscape or houseplants with a senior neighbor.

-Inventory your gardening gear (e.g., pots, seeds, stakes) and gift the excess to a community gardening program, assisted living facility or school garden.

-Celebrate other important “green” holidays: Earth Day (April 22) and National Arbor Day (April 26).

-Volunteer at your local school’s garden.

-Volunteer at a local senior center’s garden.

-Start a neighborhood garden club.

-Share your garden’s bounty with a senior neighbor.

-Have fun doing a gardening project with a senior.

-Deliver houseplants or flowers to a nursing home, assisted living or children’s hospital.

-Donate past issues of gardening magazines to your library, or buy the library a gift subscription.

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is comparable to a group of issues called motor system disorders, which are the final result of the loss in dopamine-producing brain cells.

The four primary symptoms of PD are tremor, or trembling in hands, arms, legs, jaw, and face; rigidity, or stiffness of the limbs and trunk; bradykinesia, or slowness of movement; and postural instability, or weakened balance and coordination.

As these warning signs come to be more obvious, patients may have difficulty walking, talking, or completing other simple chores.

PD usually impacts people over the age of 50.  Early indications of Parkinson’s disease are faint and occur steadily.  In some people the disease moves forward faster than in others.

As the disease progresses, the shaking, or tremor, which affects the majority of PD patients may begin to hamper with routine.  Other signs and symptoms may include depression and other emotional changes; difficulty in swallowing, chewing, and speaking; urinary problems or constipation; skin problems; and sleep disruptions.

There are currently no blood or laboratory tests that have been proved to support in diagnosing sporadic Parkinson’s disease.  For this reason the diagnosis is based on medical history and a neurological examination.

The disease can be tricky to diagnose precisely.   Physicians may typically get brain scans or laboratory tests in order to rule out other diseases.

Is there any treatment method?
At present, there is no cure for PD, but a range of medications deliver extraordinary remedy from the signs and symptoms.

Private Duty Home care and Treatment
Early on, Parkinson’s disease may not greatly interfere with your life. But for a lot of people, the disease gets to be more disabling after a while. Private Duty Home care can aid patients as they become adjusted, and as the disease progresses. This after all, allows them to continue to be independent for as long as possible. The quality of their life may depend in part on their ability to keep on working, take care of a home, care for their family, and remain independent. They may need adaptive devices such as canes or walkers as the disease goes on.

Aspects of Home care that are vital for someone with Parkinson’s Disease include:

•       Changing their activities and their family home, for example improving their day to day activities and shifting the location of furniture so that they can hang on to something as they move around the residence.

•       Eating healthy foods, including plenty of fruits, vegetables, grains, cereals, legumes, poultry, fish, lean meats, and low-fat dairy products.

•       Exercising and doing physical therapy, which has benefits in both early and advanced stages of Parkinson’s disease.

•       Dealing with tremor, which may include putting a little weight on the hand to help reduce tremor and restore control.

•       Improving speech quality by working with a speech therapist (also called a speech-language pathologist).

•       Reducing problems with eating and drooling by changing how and what they eat.

•       Dealing with “freezing” by various means, such as stepping towards a specific target on the ground.

•       Addressing depression. If they are feeling sad or depressed, ask a friend or family member for help. If these feelings don’t go away, or if they get worse, talk to their doctor. He or she may be able to suggest someone for you to talk to or give them medicine that will help.

•       Managing dementia. Dementia is common late in Parkinson’s disease. Symptoms may include confusion and memory loss. If a family member notices that they are confused a lot or have trouble thinking clearly, talk to their doctor. There are medicines that can help dementia in people with Parkinson’s disease.

A new campaign calling itself Caring Across Generations has in mind nothing less than a 180-degree turn in the way that Americans think about themselves, one another, the economy and workers. This group aims to create 2 million quality jobs in the process and put us all on track for a happy, healthy old age too. But first we need to talk, out loud, about care.

A meeting in New York in February kicked off with stories. “Share a personal care story,” coaxed Ai-jen Poo, co-director of Caring Across Generations (CAG) and director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance.

From around the table, the stories came. The story of the grandpa whose homecare worker came to his hospital to brush his hair after he suffered a stroke. The nanny who took the kids to school so Mom could practice law. The lover with disabilities who needs full-time care: “It takes a village, but right now I’m the village,” says the partner, Alejandra, who also uses a wheelchair. Domestic worker Barbara, born overseas, was nervous: “I’ve been a caregiver all my life, and now I’m turning 65. Who’s going to be there to take care of me?”

Funny how storytelling works. Within minutes I’m thinking of the live-in assistants who helped my father, Michael Flanders, perform on Broadway. A star, but also a polio survivor, Dad rolled onto the stage in his wheelchair every evening thanks in part to the help of an assistant in the morning. My grandmother Hope was said to be “independent” because she lived past 100 in her own apartment teaching writing to the end, but her students’ classes and her sense of self got a whole lot of help from Geen Crooks, her live-in aide.

Ask anyone. We all have our “care stories.” What we don’t tend to have is a plan for what we’ll do when someone we love needs care, or when we ourselves turn out not to be invincible. We don’t have a plan, and neither does our government, and yet a crisis looms. The immigrant population grows as the baby boomers age. As of 2010, every eight seconds another American turned 65. The “age wave” is upon us—except it’s not a wave; it’s a tsunami. Just as more families are economically stretched, the number of Americans in long-term care is projected to mushroom, from 13 million in 2000 to 27 million in 2050. More of us want to stay in our homes, where care also happens to be cheaper. (The National Association for Home Care & Hospice reports that one day in a nursing home is four times as expensive as twelve hours of homecare.) But the current homecare workforce—at approximately 2 million workers—is nowhere near large enough to meet the need.

High-quality long-term caregivers are already in short supply, and it’s no big mystery why. Homecare is a female-dominated world, open to young and first-time workers and immigrants. It’s also unprotected, uncovered by basic wage and overtime laws that apply in nursing homes. At the time the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) was passed in 1938, caregivers were thought of as relatives or friends—or as a way to get the unemployed off welfare. Which leads us to now: in 2010 the national median wage for homecare workers stood at $9.40 per hour. According to a 2011 survey by the Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute (PHI), the mean annual income for these workers in 2009 was $15,611. More than half of all personal care aides live in households that depend on one or more public benefits. Although homecare has become an
$84 billion, largely for-profit industry, the typical care provider can still be hired and fired at will.

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Occupational therapy makes it possible for folks of all ages to enjoy life by supporting them to promote health, prevent—or live better with—injury, illness, or disability. It is a practice that revolves around science and is evidence-based, meaning that the plan designed for each individual is supported by data, experience, and “best practices” that have been developed and proven over time.

If a senior in your life is receiving home care services, you might also consider asking their physician about Occupational Therapy services that are often covered by Medicare.

Occupational therapists and occupational therapy assistants focus on “doing” whatever occupations or activities are meaningful to the individual. It is occupational therapy’s goal to get over challenges to the treatments that guarantee living life to its fullest. These treatments may be adaptations for how to do a task, changes to the surroundings, or helping people to modify their own behaviors.

When working with an occupational therapy practitioner, strategies and modifications are individualized for each particular person to resolve complications, boost function, and help everyday living actions. The aim is to maximize potential. Through these therapeutic approaches, occupational therapy helps folks pattern their lives, develop needed skills, adjust their environments (e,g., home, school, or work) and build health-promoting habits and regimes that will make it easy for them to prosper.

By utilizing the full picture into account—a person’s psychological, physical, emotional, and social makeup as well as their environment—occupational therapy assists clients to do the following:

•       Achieve goals
•       Perform at the best level
•       Emphasis on what matters most to them
•       Preserve or rebuild their self-sufficiency
•       Take part in daily endeavors that they need or want to do.

Founded in 1917, the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) represents the interests and concerns of more than 140,000 occupational therapists, assistants and students nationwide. The Association educates the public and advances the profession of occupational therapy by providing resources, setting standards including accreditations and serving as an advocate to improve health care. Based in Bethesda, Md., AOTA’s major programs and activities are directed toward promoting the professional development of its members and assuring consumer access to quality services so patients can maximize their individual potential. For more information, go to www.aota.org.

Long-term-care insurance: It can make the difference between living out your life the way you want and becoming a burden to your family or a ward of the state.

But it is becoming significantly more expensive, more complicated and harder to get with each passing year.

Average premiums on new policies—which help pay for nursing-home, assisted-living and home care—have risen some 6% to 17% in the past year alone, according to the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance, a trade group. Some insurers have even doubled their premiums on existing policies. The increases come as the industry grapples with low interest rates and policyholders who are living a lot longer than the actuaries said they would.

At the same time, big companies like Prudential Financial and MetLife have stopped selling new policies in the individual market, continuing a trend that began several years ago. Ten of the top 20 writers of individual coverage five years ago have announced their exit, according to Limra International, an industry-funded research firm.

Ken Kacenga, a 65-year-old doctor in Sierra Vista, Ariz., who plans to retire later this year, got hit with a 23% premium increase recently on the long-term-care insurance he and his wife bought several years ago. The couple struggled with whether to drop the coverage, he says, before finally deciding to keep it for another year while shopping around for other options.

“My fear is…it could become unaffordable as I get into the fixed-income stage of my life,” Dr. Kacenga says.

Costs vary widely, even for coverage that is basically identical, according to a March study by the long-term-care insurance group. For example, a $150 daily benefit, lasting three years for a married couple aged 65 in “standard” health, ranges in price from $3,815 a year to $7,129.

That means you could pay nearly twice as much for the same benefits as someone insured by a different carrier.

Unfortunately for consumers, shopping around is difficult. Policies from different carriers are packaged with a proliferating number of bells and whistles. Life-insurance policies and annuities that include long-term-care benefits are introducing more options, but also making the selection process that much more involved.

So how can you figure out how to get the best deal on long-term-care insurance, whether you are buying it for the first time or being hammered with rate increases?

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