In This Issue
FEATURE ARTICLE: Alzheimer's Care, Sitting in The Front Row
Kudos From Kelly
A Child's Point of View
The Human Condition
6 Habits of Highly Grateful People
Providers We Love




Photos in top banner: Bella, initially afraid of dogs, warms up to Darcey; Caregiver Bernice and beloved client Dr. P; Ellen our caregiver and her client Ruth out and about at a Seabury social.


 



























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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.
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Featured Article: Alzheimer's Care,
Sitting in The Front Row 
By: Bob DeMarco  |  Alzheimer's Reading Room

I often use the term "living Alzheimer's from the front row". This term describes caregivers that watch Alzheimer's take its course 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  
 
Once Alzheimer's disease strikes, Alzheimer's caregivers get to witness the craziness that comes with Alzheimer's day in and day out.   
 
If you think it is disconcerting to see someone living with Alzheimer's or a related dementia for a few hours, a few days think about what it might be like - for every hour of every day for years.
 
Most people give up trying to understand Alzheimer's disease. Why? Because Alzheimer's is difficult to think about. Most people sitting in the back rows don't want to think about Alzheimer's. It is too painful. They'll leave the thinking and doing to the person sitting in the front row.
 
The caregiver is responsible for the safety and care of the person living with Alzheimer's. They are also responsible for their own emotional and psychological well being. A dual burden.
 
Alzheimer's kills the brain of the person suffering from Alzheimer's. It will also try and kill the brain of the Alzheimer's caregiver. I doubt that many people know or understand this burden. If they knew or understood they would move up a couple of rows. Get out of the back row - maybe.  
 
Did you ever sit in the back row at a play? Every sit in the front row at a play? The view is very different.
 
Unless you are an Alzheimer's caregiver it is difficult to understand or comprehend what it is like living in the front row. The behavior. The illness. The death sentence. Why are their so many empty seats?
 
In the early days of caring the caregiver deals with a disease that is difficult, sometimes impossible, to understand.


Kudos from Kelly
 KUDOS from Kelly
  By Kelly McNamara 
  
Veronica Cruz: Veronica has been with our company for only a few months.  During that time she has been an enthusiastic and extremely competent caregiver, wiling to take on challenging clients and do an amazing job with them. 

She has proven herself to be indispensable since she is flexible in her ability to work both hourly and live in cases.

She is also a gracious and supportive colleague to her fellow caregivers.  This particular talent is especially useful when we are staffing a 24-hour case by 2 12-hour shifts.  Clients do not generally like to see a new person arrive when it is Veronica's turn to leave.  So she smooths the way by telling the client about the relieving caregiver and her many good qualities, thus putting the client's mind at ease.

Like many of our caregivers, Veronica balances her work as a caregiver with her responsibilities as a mother to her beautiful one year old daughter, Savannah.

We are so grateful that Veronica is a member of our team.  We intend to keep her very busy!!

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 We are Always There...!! ■

A Child's Point of View

Little Mary was attending a wedding for the first time. As she sat in the church, she watched the bride slowly approach the altar. Mary whispered to her mother, "Why is the bride dressed in white?"  
 
"Because white is the color of happiness, and today is the happiest day of her life," her mother tried to explain, keeping it simple.  
 
The child thought about this for a moment, then said....  
 
"So why is the groom wearing black?" ■   

   THE HUMAN CONDITION
  Raising Children   |   By: Alan Weiss
 
A generation, these days, is deemed to be about 70 years. Think about the fact that the great cathedral in Rouen took 400 years to build, or that tapestries hanging in halls of the French aristocracy took 200 years to weave, when generations were perhaps 40 years.

When you choose to have children, you can't help but think generationally. Who will they become? Are our traits passed down? Will they remain close or drift away? What will our family look like?

Personally, I never felt it to be my duty to make my children rich. I felt it was my responsibility to try to help them be successful in their chosen fields, and to impart the values that my wife and I felt were important for growth, societal responsibility, and personal accountability. I think these attributes are important from generation to generation, but money is not. One can always earn money, but will never be able to reclaim a lost day. In many cases, giving money to your kids can ruin them, and the adage is that a first generation founds a business, the second runs it, and the third ruins it.

My kids shocked me recently-they're in their 40s-when they advised me how fortunate they are that my wife and I paid their college tuitions. I felt this was our responsibility. My parents were poor and couldn't pay mine, but I won scholarships, worked part time, and took college loans that required $120 a month to pay off over a couple of years. But many of my kids' friends emerged from college saddled with backbreaking debt.


   6 Habits of Highly Grateful People
  By: Jeremy Adam Smith 
 
Many people are unskilled at expressing gratitude. Most of us usually take far too much for granted.  Our health, our talents, our children, our families.

Gratitude is the mental tool we use to remind ourselves of the good stuff. It helps us to see the things that don't make it onto our lists of problems to be solved. It's a bright red paintbrush we apply to otherwise-invisible blessings, like clean streets or health or enough food to eat.

Gratitude doesn't make problems and threats disappear. The threats are indeed real, but at that moment, they exist only in memory or imagination. I am the threat; it is me who is wearing myself out with worry.

That's when I need to turn on the gratitude. If I do that enough, gratitude might just become a habit. It means,, that I increase my chances of psychologically surviving hard times, that I stand a chance to be happier in the good times. I'm not ignoring the threats; I'm appreciating the resources and people that might help me face those threats.

Here then are some tips for how you and I can become one of those fantastically grateful people.

1. Once in a while, they think about death and loss - Contemplating endings really does make you more grateful for the life you currently have.

When you find yourself taking a good thing for granted, try giving it up for a little while.

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.

Even Longer Dotted Divider Line
 
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.

Even Longer Dotted Divider Line

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!