Make the Best Senior Housing Choice for Your Loved One

by ElderCarelink

The aging of our loved one and parents is a time of change and--in many cases--uncertainty. Caring for and anticipating the needs of your elderly loved one means always being ready for the unexpected. However, you can take active steps towards planning for the future and removing some of those feelings of uncertainty.

Aging checklist: 4 items to check

Physical. Is your loved one in good shape physically? Will they need assistance with day-to-day activities (e.g. bathing, eating, or dressing) in the future?
Financial. How are your loved one's finances? Do you have a budget for their future care? Have you started thinking about long-term care costs?
Social. Does your loved one have close friends or neighbors? Will they need opportunities to socialize in the future?
Medical. How is your loved one's health? Do they have a chronic health condition? Will they need medical assistance in the future?

Senior housing options
There is a wide range of senior housing options that can help a parent or loved one remain independent in their home or provide 24-hour medical care in a facility.

Home-care. In-home care agencies can help a loved one age-in-place through both companion and medical services.

Independent living. A broad term, independent living can take various shapes. These types of living arrangements may include retirement homes, senior apartments, senior-designated neighborhoods and more.

Assisted living. Assisted living is an option for individuals who do not require 24-hour medical care, but do need assistance with some activities of daily living.

Nursing homes. Nursing homes are designed to provide hands-on medical care and assistance for individuals who cannot live independently.

As you take the initial steps to plan for the future care of your loved one, be sure to do your research, involve you loved one in the conversations, get a full understanding of costs, and compare facilities and services before making a decision. Visit ElderCarelink.com to find care facilities near you or your loved one.

Assisted Living - Living here, your loved one will be part of a community of their peers, be able to take part in an array of daily activities, and have access to medical care.

Adult Day Care - A protected setting, usually open five days a week during business hours. Typically offers social activities, meals, personal care, and therapies.

In Home Care - These services offer trained professionals who visit your loved one to provide companionship, help with daily tasks, transportation to social events, and more.

Have you noticed any changes in your loved one's health or behavior? Update your Needs Survey now so we can keep you connected to the resources that are most relevant and helpful to you.
Update Your Needs Survey Now.

You've received this message because you've registered to receive email from ElderCarelink.com. If you no longer wish to receive product offer emails from us, please go here to Unsubscribe.

© 2014 QuinStreet, Inc. | All Rights Reserved | 950 Tower Lane, 6th Floor | Foster City, CA 94404

NAIPC® News
September 12, 2014

In This Week's Issue

Members Only: National Aging in Place Planning Day Training Webinar
Greater Charleston Chapter Partners with Goodwill Industries to Create "Hire Me!" Program
Central Coast of California Chapter Featured in Local Publication
California State Senate Candidate to Speak at Orange County Chapter Event
Member Spotlight: Meet Tony Rovere!
Discovery of "Research Gold" Leads to Key Findings on Longevity
Aging in Place...Abroad!
Upcoming Events

Members Only: National Aging in Place Planning Day Training Webinar

The National Aging in Place Council has designated Wednesday, October 15, 2014 as National Aging in Place Planning Day across America.

On that day, aging Americans in cities where NAIPC has local chapters will be invited to sit with our members and make a plan for Aging in Place. The guide for the plan will be a new template developed by NAIPC called Act III: Your Plan for Aging in Place.

On September 25, 2014 at 3:00 pm eastern standard time, NAIPC will hold a training webinar for NAIPC members only. The purpose of the webinar is to demonstrate how chapter members can effectively utilize this resource in their communities: how to help seniors fill it out, how to help them identify their needs, how to help them put together a plan, and how to help them find the resources they need.

Act III was created over the past 18 months with input from subject experts in each of the covered areas. NAIPC will continue to update this resource based on its users’ experience.

Click here to register for the webinar.

Greater Charleston Chapter Partners with Goodwill Industries to Create "Hire Me!" Program

As a reverse mortgage professional, Paul Franklin of the NAIPC Greater Charleston, South Carolina Chapter has been observing the day to day struggles of seniors for over 20 years.

Among the most prevalent problems he sees is aging Americans not having enough income to pay for monthly expenses. For some of Paul’s clients, the difference between making it and breaking the bank was as little as a couple hundred dollars a month.

Paul wanted to find a way to help some of these seniors bridge the financial gap.

So Paul and his colleague, Patti Stanford, Business Services Coordinator at Goodwill Industries of Lower South Carolina, came up with an idea: develop a program tailored to help mature adults find employment in the community. They called the program “Hire Me!”

Patti’s work with Goodwill focuses on helping veterans and those with disabilities find jobs in the community, so she has connections with good, local employers. She reached out to her network to test the idea. What were local employers looking for in their staff? What skill sets were they seeking? Would they be interested in hiring seniors?

Local employers were overwhelmingly supportive of the idea. They saw a lot of value in such an initiative. Mature adults are dependable. They have strong work ethics. They have a wealth of experience.

With this buy-in from local employers, the next step was to gauge the level of interest of seniors in the community. Would they want to go back to work, even part-time? Were these the types of jobs they’d be interested in?

So Patti and Paul tried it out. They brought together one of the interested companies, Target, with members of a senior center in Mt. Pleasant over coffee and donuts. The Executive Director of Human Resources of the local Target along with four other team members conducted a presentation on employment at Target: the work environment, the types of available positions, the pay rates, and schedules.

Sixteen seniors attended the event. Every single one filled out an employment application with Target. Nine of the seniors were hired and are still employed there. That’s nine seniors who have, in a dignified and empowered manner, bridged their monthly financial gaps.

Patti and Paul now plan to expand the program and hold similar events across the region. They want to get more employers involved, and they're working to form relationships with more senior centers. They’re surveying seniors in various communities to gauge the level of interest and determine the type of work they're interested in.

The "Hire Me!" program is still in the pilot stages, but has already yielded positive results: It’s helping seniors. It’s helping employers. And it’s helping the Greater Charleston community.

Central Coast of California Chapter Featured in Local Publication

In an article highlighting key resources that support the growing aging population in the Monterey, California area (and nationally), Senior Advocate Liz Horvath details the need for organizations like NAIPC to support and protect seniors.

With the growth of the aging population, many sectors are shifting their focus towards the 60+ demographic, which will soon be the largest age group (by far) in the nation. However, Ms. Horvath cautions that this focus may have drawbacks.

"Unscrupulous individuals or overreaching service providers may view the senior market as easy targets with lots of bucks at their disposal and, unfortunately, that vulnerability may be true," she writes.

Because of these vulnerabilities, Ms. Horvath emphasizes the need for senior advocacy, both locally and nationally.

"Thankfully, some organizations have recognized the potential for abuse and are offering some protection. The National Aging in Place Council was formed with the mission of establishing a network of professionals from private, public, and nonprofit sectors who can help seniors with housing and care needs. Locally, Teresa Sullivan of the Alliance on Aging and Galen Call of Treehouse Mortgage, have joined together to form the Central Coast of California chapter of NAIPC."

NAIPC, providing local support networks and a national voice, gives seniors the support and protection they need.

To read the full article, click here.

California State Senate Candidate to Speak at Orange County Chapter Event

California State Senate Candidate, Jose Solorio, will address the Orange County, California Chapter at the next member meeting, scheduled for September 25, 2014 at 9:30 am at Mimi’s Café in Irvine, CA.

Trustee Solorio, the son of migrant farmers, earned a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard University after spending his teenage years laboring in the fields. He now represents central Orange County on the Board of Trustees for the Rancho Santiago Community College District.

Previously the State Assemblyman, Trustee Solorio now serves as Community College Trustee, focusing his efforts on education, job creation, public safety, and infrastructure improvements.

For more information about this event, click here.

Member Spotlight: Meet Tony Rovere!

Like so many other Aging in Place professionals, Tony Rovere’s experience began as a result of a family crisis. In January 2012, his mother suffered a near-fatal heart attack, and, literally overnight, he had to take on the role of her (very unprepared) caregiver.

Tony began the daunting process of filling out Medicaid applications, ensuring proper medical care, researching nursing homes. He soon realized the dire need for access to the plethora of information involved. So many in his generation were having to take on family caregiver roles with absolutely no guidance or experience. Tony knew there had to be a better way to link family caregivers with the information and resources they need, so that they could focus on their loved ones, not on all the paperwork and research.

That’s why Tony founded www.StuffSeniorsNeed.com, which has become a repository for all the information he has collected on caring for the aging population. The website is totally informational, free, and publicly available.

By far, the most frequent requests for assistance that Tony receives regard dental care (specifically dentures) and hearing aids. He has researched both areas and is able to provide advice on how to get free dental care and free hearing aids.

Tony made it his personal mission to collect as much information on caregiving resources as he could, which led him to a seminar held at the local library by theNAIPC Long Island Chapter. He eventually joined the local chapter and formally joined the Aging in Place Movement.

Tony has been with the Long Island Chapter for over a year now and serves as Chapter Coordinator. Since joining the chapter, traffic on his website has doubled, resulting in twice as much advertising revenue, plus increases in sales from his caregiving store. Not only is Tony’s business benefitting from his involvement in NAIPC, but his reach to the senior population has also increased, benefitting so many of the elderly in his community.

What began as a crisis, a traumatizing and life-changing event, has evolved into a path of advocacy and philanthropy for Tony.

Visit www.StuffSeniorsNeed.com today to learn more.

Discovery of "Research Gold" Leads to Key Findings on Longevity

Jane Whistler turned 100 years old recently. When she moved into a retirement community called Leisure World more than 35 years ago, she had no idea that she would eventually be the subject of a study, the first of its kind, that has produced key findings on longevity. But that's where she finds herself these days. Every 6 months, Jane undergoes a comprehensive physical and mental evaluation, conducted by researchers at UC Irvine.

Leisure World (now called Laguna Woods) is a retirement community located 45 miles south of Los Angeles. In 1981, Leisure World conducted a study of more than 14,000 of its residents.

Jane was one of those 14,000.

The data collected was extensive. Pages and pages of information on the diet, exercise, and daily activities of 14,000 people age 52+.

When Dr. Claudia Kawas, a researcher at UC Irvine, discovered the data a few years ago, she knew she had struck gold. She could track down these 14,000 participants, find out which ones had since passed away, and analyze when they died and how. She could find the ones who were still alive and reexamine them, find out what they've done all these years to make it to 90+.

And that's exactly what she did.

A recent "60 Minutes" documentary reports on Dr. Kawas's study--the history, the progress made, and the key findings thus far.

Not surprisingly, non-smokers lived longer.

Taking vitamins, overall, had no effect on longevity. Neither did diet.

Social activities and engagement were beneficial.

Moderate drinkers lived longer than non-drinkers. And the type of alcohol didn't matter, as long as it was in moderation.

1-3 cups of coffee a day was better than more than that, or none at all.

But the most crucial finding, the one commonality among every single participantwho lived past 90 years of age, was exercise, even as little as 15 minutes a day. Those who exercised 45 minutes a day fared best.

The benefits of the 90+ Study help us better understand the aging process: how we can better care for our elderly loved ones, how we can better care forourselves, how we can maintain physical and mental health, and, of course, how we can make it into the 90+ club.

To watch the full documentary, click here.

Aging in Place...Abroad!

Aging in Place means carefully planning your future so that you can spend your later years in the home of your choosing. For more and more aging Americans, that home is wherever the road takes them.

According to a recent New York Times article, rates of retirees traveling are up significantly. In a ten-year span, the number of retirees who traveled abroad was up more than 3%. In 2013, the number of retirees accepting Social Security payments at foreign addresses was up a whopping 48% from ten years earlier.

So what does that mean? Many seniors are choosing to do more than just downsize...they're selling their homes and investing in a retirement full of travel experiences, not possessions.

To read the full article, click here.