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We know Spring is here because the flowers have sprung!
Here at Always There Home Care, we are grateful you are slowing down to read our newsletter, which is full of items that relate to home care, home health care, aging & 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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Please take some time to watch our video! | |
Regina McNamara RN, MSN President & Kelly McNamara, Chief Operating Officer | |
Photos in top banner: Grace, our Graphic Designer’s daughter, showing off her oil painting skills; Ryan and Nora (Regina’s grandchildren) saying Happy St. Patrick’s Day!; Michelle smiling for the camera. | |
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FEATURE ARTICLE:
Caregiver Turnover Strains Households
The supply of home health aides isn’t meeting growing demand as America ages and many people prefer to stay out of facilities
Mary Barket, a 66-year-old widow with a degenerative muscular disorder and no family around to help, has had seven different caregivers come through her home in the past six months.
On a recent Saturday morning, she was told by the home care agency that her caregiver wasn’t coming that day and that it couldn’t send a substitute.
“My hands don’t work. I can’t even open a box,” says Ms. Barket, who has ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. “It’s a very tenuous situation.”
High turnover among in-home caregivers is straining the daily lives of America’s aging population, which relies on them to remain in their homes.
The median caregiver turnover rate was about 64.9% in 2021, according to a report by Home Care Pulse, a company that provides data and training to home care agencies.
But the pandemic added to demand, as the high number of Covid deaths at long-term-care facilities contributed to the desire for people to remain in their homes, the major force behind the unprecedented demand for good home care providers.
Over 85% of home care companies turn down cases for lack of staff, and/or a shortage of experienced caregivers
Continue reading full Feature Article...
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Photos above left to right: Pappy (Tom) and Nora, his granddaughter; Ryan plays bball with uncle Basil and almost WINS!; Nora (Regina’s granddaughter) playing outside with her cousins; Ryan butting into Nora’s selfie with Gigi (Regina) | |
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KUDOS from Kelly
Our Everyday Heros
By Kelly McNamara
Malika Allen:
It is a happy time in which we find ourselves this month honoring Malika. We will strive to best describe her talents, traits, and outstanding care delivery.
Perhaps her most admirable traits are consistency, reliability, professionalism and empathy. She is very bright. Her observation skills are well developed and she excels in addressing safety and care issues early to avert later, more serious problems.
Care in clients’ homes, unlike in skilled nursing facilities, hospitals, or other settings, requires a unique blend of observation, solid knowledge about clients and ability to act swiftly when there is a change of status in a client.
Malika is skilled and bright enough to work well independently and also be a wonderful team player. Families naturally gravitate to her and trust her with their loved one’s care. Her humility and charm are the traits which clients most appreciate.
Malika is very dependable and responsible in carrying out her responsibilities of client care and family support. She respects and enjoys everyone with whom she comes in contact.
Malika is especially talented at problem solving and assisting family members with suggestions for care of their loved ones, equipment, and safety measures. Malika is especially alert to noticing changes in her clients. She is a superb caregiver. We are so very proud and fortunate to have her as part of our team at Always There Home Care! Whoops, and we almost forgot to mention that SHE’S beautiful!
Congratulations to you, Malika and we wish you a long stay with us !
All caregivers mentioned in this column will receive a bonus and our sincere gratitude! Many thanks to all of you for once again extending yourselves to ensure that we are of course Always There…!! ■
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REGINA'S REFLECTIONS
Our wish for Those Who are Grieving…
May You Discover True Meaning
One of the surprising advantages of leading one of the finest Homecare companies in our State is the relationships that me and our special caregivers form with our clients for years after they are no longer clients. We lose them as clients to death of a family member but we retain them as friends. Some for nearly a decade. What a wonderful privilege.
Our regular newsletter readers, by now quite familiar with Al Nixon, a wonderful man who lost his beloved wife Eileen over seven years ago after a long battle with Progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), a brain disease that can cause changes to speech, balance, walking, swallowing, vision, cognition and autonomic functioning. They can also involve symptoms similar to Parkinson’s disease including tremor, stiffness and slowness. It is a devastating disease.
Though Eileen is beyond our sight, she is often in our thoughts. And Al of course is our good friend and witty contributor to our newsletter. Few of us can bring the energy and commitment to our very special work without maintaining a sense of humor, in spite of our occasionally sad and challenging care.
So, it has become a lovely routine that Al and I meet on a regular basis for lunch, laughs and from my perspective, a check in with a dear and much-admired friend. At the beginning of our lunch date series, my focus was on him…was he able to spend time on the activities he loved…Skiing, golf, pickle ball, his beautiful daughters, their partners and amazing grandchildren...
Continue reading full article...
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A Terminal Diagnosis Does Not Terminate Living
by Linda Campanella
Every day a daughter or son somewhere, or a sister or brother or parent, receives the news that a cherished loved one has been diagnosed with a terminal disease. We need not be consumed by the depths of despair; and for the ones we love and will lose, it is vital that we climb out of the depths as quickly as possible so they won’t fall in themselves.
• If you receive the dreaded call, what can you do?
• How can you inject living into dying?
• How can you let the sunshine break through the menacing cloud overhead?
First, reel yourself in from that place of anticipatory grief. No one has died yet, so stop grieving a loss that hasn’t occurred. Rather than anticipating death, we can choose to embrace and enjoy life.
Realize that while there is nothing you can do to keep your parent or loved one from dying, there is much you can do to help him or her keep living. Make what time remains a period filled with purpose and passion.
Stay in the moment. Don’t focus on what lies ahead. It is possible, and good, to crowd out thoughts about dying by injecting acts of living.
Continue reading why a terminal diagnosis isn't the end...
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Photos Left to Right: Grace, our graphic designer’s daughter, helping her mom volunteer at The Run 2 End Alzheimer’s Race in Georgia;
Ryan and Nora in their pajamas; Michelle washing the dishes for her family.
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Thank you to our friend Al Nixon, once a special client, now a regular Newsletter contributor. Our world is sometimes sad, his emails brighten our days. We are especially grateful for his generosity.
SENIOR HUMOR
- The biggest joke on mankind is that computers have begun asking humans to prove they aren’t robots.
- Just once I want a user name and password prompt to say CLOSE ENOUGH.
- If I am ever on life support unplug me and plug me back in and see if that works.
- Do you ever wake up in the morning and look in the mirror and think, “That can’t be accurate!”
- I see people out there zip lining and mountain climbing and here I am feeling good about myself because I got my leg through my underwear without losing my balance.
- You know you are getting old when friends with benefits means having someone who can drive at night.
- Weight loss goal: To be able to clip my toenails and breathe at the same time.
- After watching how some people wear their masks I understand why contraception fails.
- Some of my friends exercise every day, meanwhile I am watching a show I don’t like because the remote fell on the floor.
- For those of you that don’t want Alexa listening in on your conversation they are making a male version….it doesn’t listen to anything.
- Now that I have lived through a plague I totally understand why Italian renaissance paintings are full of fat people lying on couches.
- Three thousand and twenty-seven years from now, life will either be really good or really bad. It’s 5050. ■
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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
- Seabury Active Living Retirement Community, and Seabury at Home, Bloomfield
- Masonicare Home Health and Hospice, Danielson, Derby, East Hartford, Mystic, Norwalk and Wallingford
- McClean Home Health and Hospice
- Brookdale Gables Senior Living, Farmington
- Vitas Palliative Care and Hospice, Middlebury, Glastonbury, Norwalk.
To find out more about these providers, click here!
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800.348.0485 ~ We are Always There | | | | |
