Photos in top banner: Our dear friend Gloria on her 89th birthday, looking lovelier than ever!!; Kelly and Max, mini therapy dog enjoying happy hour flanked by her friends Marilyn left and Rosemarie; Bella, Jessica's daughter as JoJo.
|
|
Join Our List
|
 |
|
|
|
Regina McNamara RN, MSN President & Kelly McNamara, Chief Operating Officer
Here at Always There Home Care, we are grateful you are slowing down to read our newsletter full of items that relate to home care, home health care, aging and eldercare, as well as some useful tips for daily living. Please enjoy in the spirit of community and cooperation in which this newsletter was sent.
____________________________________
|
Also, see our beautiful new video,
here!!!
____________________________
|
FEATURE ARTICLE:
Afraid of making the
Wrong CareGiver Moves?
Behind every good caregiving intention is usually a fair
amount of love and caring.
By: Paula Spencer Scott, Alzheimer's Reading Room
Are you sometimes nagged by the question,
Am I getting this right?
Few of us cast into the role of Alzheimer's caregiver have training or experience in dealing with the many difficult decision we face each day.
* Should Dad stay on the combination of Aricept and Namenda?
* Which child's house would be best for him to live in?
* Is it better for him if we don't bring him on vacation with us?
* Do we go ahead with the invasive test, or let it be?
Those examples are from my list. I'm sure you have your own.
Decision-making often felt hard for my siblings and I because we wanted to do right by a father we loved who needed our help.
We feared making a mistake that would make things worse.
|
Alan Weiss on the Las Vegas shooting
If you have a brain and a heart you can't be anything but horrified and saddened by the tragic carnage in Las Vegas. It should also be noted that this year, as of today, 530 people have been murdered in Chicago, alone.
I've noted before that while we're appalled at suicide, we seem to ignore people who throw their lives away by bit and piecemeal, a little every day. Similarly, we should be horrified by murders that occur one by one, on a daily basis.
Our sensitivity, our sense of outrage, shouldn't be guided by quantity, but rather by the quality of every life. We should be repelled by senseless violence no matter where it is, who carries it out, or how many people are affected. That takes a brain, and a heart-and the will. ■
|
KUDOS
from Kelly
By Kelly McNamara
Bernice Addo and Brenda Ortiz
: Bernice and Brenda are the able live in team who care for one of our favorite clients Dr. P. His interests are varied from detailed discussion of medicine and health issues especially cardiology, recent movies that held his interest and most notably shooting pool. Lucky for him, his caregiver Brenda is quite the pool shark and is able to keep up with him and even occasionally win a few games. He and his caregivers enjoy walks in his beautiful neighborhood with his adorable dog Abby who always appreciates the company though she often snoozes through pool games. Bernice brings wonderful cooking talents to Dr. P and his family as well who often join the fun in sharing the meals she prepares for the family. Bernice is a superb gospel singer of some renown who has sold CDs of her beautiful voice in her native Ghana. Her husband Charles, also one of our caregivers enjoys chatting with Dr. P in French since Dr. P is currently taking French lessons.
Dr. P a vibrant, brilliant charming 90 something is fortunate to be able to enjoy the comforts of his beautiful home with the attentive care of his two special caregivers Brenda and Bernice.
All caregivers mentioned in this column will receive a gift card and our sincere appreciation! Many many thanks to all of you for once again extending yourselves to ensure that we are of course
Always There...!! ■
|
Paraprosdokians
Winston Churchill loved paraprosdokians; figures of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected.
- Where there's a will, I want to be in it.
- The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it's still on my list.
- Since light travels faster than sound, some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
- If I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong.
- War does not determine who is right - only who is left.
- Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
- They begin the evening news with 'Good Evening,' then proceed to tell you why it isn't.
- In filling out an application, where it says, 'In case of emergency, notify:' I put "DOCTOR."
- Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street...with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy.
- Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.
- Finally: I'm supposed to respect my elders, but now it's getting harder and harder for me to find one. ■
|
|
Dog Gone? Maybe Not.
By Rickhiker, posted Sep 21, 2017
Hiking in the mountains I met a young lady who wanted to pet my dog. While she coddled over him I said, "Do you have a dog of your own?" "He just died." she said. She explained that as a child she got a puppy. They grew up together, went everywhere together and were best of buddies. She even took him to college though he was very old and couldn't get around well. And as he got worse she stayed by him day and night thinking they would always be together.
But one day, while petting him, he growled and bit her hand. She was startled. He never did that. How could he turn on her? Friends convinced her to put him to sleep. Reluctantly she did, but confessed that she hated herself ever since. "How could I kill my lifetime friend?" she sobbed.
|
 The Right Place
A mother and a baby camel were lying around under a tree.
Then the baby camel asked, "Why do camels have humps?"
The mother camel considered this and said, "We are desert animals so we have the humps to store water so we can survive with very little water."
The baby camel thought for a moment then said, "Ok...why are our legs long and our feet rounded?"
The mama replied, "They are meant for walking in the desert."
The baby paused. After a beat, the camel asked, "Why are our eyelashes long? Sometimes they get in my way."
The mama responded, "Those long thick eyelashes protect your eyes from the desert sand when it blows in the wind.
The baby thought and thought. Then he said, "I see. So the hump is to store water when we are in the desert, the legs are for walking through the desert and these eye lashes protect my eyes from the desert then why are we in the Zoo?"
The Lesson: Skills and abilities are only useful if you are in the right place at the right time. Otherwise they go to waste.
Thanks to our friends at Simeone Healhtcare Consultants ■
|
Dementia by Day: A Blog
By Rachael Wonderlin
I met a woman last week with an amazing story about how she got her husband to attend a local adult day care center. I hope she won't mind that I've adapted it for my blog-but I think that it's worth sharing.
She knew that she'd have a hard time getting her husband, Ben, into adult day care. Ben loved working, and now that he was retired and had dementia, he still liked to find projects to do. Convincing him that he could benefit from adult day care certainly wasn't going to work (and doing this with anyone with dementia is not advisable.)
Instead of arguing with him, she spent a couple weeks getting Ben excited about the opportunity. "There's this new program," she told him. "They need more people to work there, but it's really tough to get in." A couple weeks into repeating this idea, she finally said that she'd gotten good news. "It turns out they have an opening!" she told Ben.
|
Providers We Love
We are privileged to have received referrals from and be able to coordinate care with many Assisted Living facilities, rehab facilities, and Medicare Home Care and Hospice agencies. Our growth is in large part due to the trust the staff in these organizations have put in our caregivers. We are likewise impressed with them and we are committed to referring to them on a regular basis
Masonicare Home Health and Hospice
Wallingford, Newtown, East Hartford, New Haven, Mystic
Masonicare provides comprehensive home health services to support aging gracefully at home. Their range of services includes skilled nursing care, physical and occupational therapy, wound care, telehelath, in home monitoring and complementary therapies. Their hospice program provides comfort to those near end of life allowing them to remain in their homes among family members. Across Connecticut, Masonicare is dedicated to providing excellent and compassionate care in any setting an elderly or disabled person and his/her loved ones call "home," be it a house, apartment, assisted living or nursing home community.
They can be reached at 888-679-9997
|
|
|
About Always There Home Care
Always There Home Care provides compassionate, dependable and professional one-on-one care for seniors who need assistance in the comfort of their homes or residential care communities. Services from highly qualified and trained caregivers range from companionship, meal preparation and incidental transportation to personal care, medication management and RN-directed case management. Available 7 days a week, services range from a few hours a day to 24-hour care.
Always There Home Care understands that every situation is unique and creates individualized care plans to help improve a client's quality of life.
Our Caregivers
Our caregivers are totally committed, highly qualified and carefully selected individuals who are personally and thoroughly screened, bonded and insured. Most are Certified Nurse Assistants or Home Health Aides. Most importantly our caregivers are dependable and extraordinarily caring of others. In addition to their previous experience, our caregivers receive continuous training that includes dementia, hospice care, home safety, nutrition and other topics related to seniors. These highly qualified and trained caregivers are ready to help you and your loved ones with a variety of daily activities such as:
Personal care
/
Meal planning and preparation
Transportation to doctor appointments and other errands
Caring companionship
/ Light housekeeping
Medication reminders /
Information and referral services
Our personalized, nurse- supervised services are available 7 days a week and
can range from a few hours a day to 24 hours and live in care.
For more information or service needs, call 24 hours a day at:
800.348.0485 or visit www.AlwaysThereHomeCare-CT.com.
We are Always There!
 |
|
|
| |
|
