Hiring in-home care can be confusing and complicated, as anyone who has ever gone through the process can tell you. Many believe that working with a home care agency is safer than hiring an independent caregiver - and for good reason. Training, liability coverage, replacement caregivers, and billing are all issues that may make it preferable to work with an agency. Additionally, it's easy to assume that the agency has taken care of a fair amount of prerequisites, such as drug screenings, comp...  

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More and more Americans are choosing to remain in their homes as they age. Eventually, home care in the form of aides, services, companion care or nursing is needed within the home. Finding the right kind of home care can be difficult. While hiring a private caregiver might be easier on your wallet, do you really know what you are paying for?  What kind of background and screening checks can you do on your own for a caregiver? If the caregiver gets sick, who is going to fill in? Is the caregi...  

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Caregiving for a family member or friend can be a very rewarding and loving experience. However, the time and energy spent can be draining emotionally and financially. You may have found yourself pinching pennies or cutting back your hours to help your loved ones, and you are not alone. More than 70 million people provide unpaid caregiving for family members. What most people don't realize is it might be possible to receive payment for your caregiving. Low income assistance for in-home care,...  

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Alzheimer's disease and related forms of dementia involve a progressive loss of one's memory, thinking, language, and self-care skills. Someone with dementia eventually loses the capacity to be completely independent, and others must step up to provide assistance. A special brand of leadership is called for. At least one person must assume overall authority for ensuring the person's well-being. Much work is involved in addressing basic physical needs like food and shelter as well as the emoti...  

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We may not recognize the risk we are putting ourselves in the moment of leaning over someone for an extended period of time. We may not feel any different a few minutes after lifting up a person from bed or transferring a person from a chair to a wheel chair, but inevitably, it hits us the next day. It's the subtle throb in the lower back when lying in bed or the stiffness in the shoulders when opening a door that makes us realize we've strained ourselves by our actions the day before. It is...  

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It's March. We all feel it -- the spring in our step when a 40 degree day hits followed by the dread the next day when it's back down in the 20s and snowing. The daily pressures combined with the weather all starts to mound and we wish we could just get away for a week or maybe even a few days. It's time for a vacation! A vast majority of people don't take vacations often enough. In fact, some never take them at all. If you are a caregiver, you probably fall into one of these categories due ...  

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The prestigious medical journal, Archives of Internal Medicine, published a study last month showing that a significant portion of Medicare expenditures for people with advanced dementia is spent on aggressive treatments that could have little clinical benefit. Researchers found that 30 percent of Medicare expenditures for people with advanced dementia were for hospitalizations during their last year of life. A few days after reading this research study, I visited a man caring for his wife, ...  

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Many children of older adults have heard their parents implore them to: "Please never put me in a nursing home!" Unfortunately, some of us find ourselves faced with a difficult decision when our parents become debilitated by disease or compromised with memory impairment issues. Today there are congregate settings, assisted living and supportive living programs in particular, that offer alternatives to the nursing home. However, while aesthetically more pleasing than most nursing homes, these...  

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