All Home Care Matters

Episode 9 - 

Let’s talk about the pros and cons of hiring private caregivers. If you have ever needed a caregiver either for yourself or for a loved one then you most likely either hired them directly or you chose to hire a local home care company. Either way hiring private caregivers on your own can be a full-time job and knowing the risks and responsibilities of hiring a private caregiver will help protect you. 

Welcome to All Home Care Matters. If this is your first time visiting the show we would like to say thank you for taking time out of your day to spend some of it with us. We know and appreciate how valuable everyone’s time is and that is why we try and make each episode here at All Home Care Matters something that will hopefully matter to you….

On today’s episode we are going to talk about and discuss “What are ADL’s (Activities of Daily Living) ?”

Some of you may already be familiar with the phrase ADL or ADL’s. The initials stand for Activity or Activities of Daily Living.

But, what does that mean?

The phrase or term ADL’s or Activities of Daily Living is used to describe the skills that are required to independently take care of yourself. This includes:

Personal Hygiene – bathing/showering, grooming, nail care, and oral care.

Eating – the ability to feed oneself, though not necessarily the capability to prepare food.

Transferring and Mobility – being able to move yourself from a seated position to standing, being able to get in and out of bed, and the ability to walk independently from one location to another.

Maintaining Continence—which means the ability to both physically and mentally use the restroom by getting on and off of the toilet but also knowing when you need to use the restroom.

When you hear someone ask how a person does or is doing with their ADL’s these are what they are referring to and depending on how much help they are needing for one, two, or all of them can determine the amount of care they may need day-to-day.

Episode 7 - Senior Living Options   

This is a topic that can be somewhat overwhelming and confusing for families and their loved ones when they start to explore possibly moving into one of the facilities and often have a pre-conceived notion about what they are and what they provide.

There can be several reasons for an older adult or their family to begin exploring the option of senior living options and they can vary for some older adults they may decide it’s time to downsize at this stage in their live and the maintenance of their home just becomes too much and more difficult to keep up with, or maybe it’s for financial reasons or it could simply be they are looking for more socializing and activities.

So it’s usually at this stage a family may begin looking at if senior living is the right choice for them and their loved ones needs.

Episode 6 - Home Safety for your loved ones

If you have ever been concerned for a loved ones safety after visiting them or after the first time they may have fallen in their home then you know how important it is to make sure that their home is as safe as it can be for them.

We are going to discuss some of the ways that you can fairly easily make some changes and modifications to help keep them safe as they age in place in their home.

The U.S. Centers for Disease and Prevention has some pretty staggering numbers that brings this issue of home safety to light for our seniors.

• 1 out of every 3 seniors falls each year
• every 11 seconds an older adult is treated for a fall in the emergency room
• every 19 minutes an older adult dies from a fall.

The source for these statistics is the CDC and agesafeamerica.com

Episode 5 - The Importance of Caregiver Support Groups

Today we wanted to take some time and talk about Caregiver Support Groups. We will discuss what they are and how families can benefit from them.

Some of you may have attended a Caregiver Support Group before and may be familiar with some of the benefits they offer. However, quite often when families are just starting to care for a loved one they aren’t readily aware of Caregiver Support Groups. This is typically more common than not. Especially, when you first find yourself caring for a loved one there are so many other needs, arrangements, appointments, and things that you may be the only one responsible for taking care of that and thinking about yourself or anything unrelated to the direct needs of your loved one can be found most of the time further down your to-do list and that is absolutely fine.

Here are some facts and statistics to consider from the Family Caregiver Alliance:

• Only 30% of caregivers provide care to their loved ones for less than a year.
• 24% of caregivers care for their loved ones more than 5 years.
• 15% of caregivers provide care for their loved ones for more than 10 years.

Episode 4 Note:

On episode 4 of All Home Care Matters we welcome a special guest, Michelle. The unique experiences that Michelle shares with us is something all families can benefit from. 

Michelle had several family members who all experienced different forms of long-term care and levels of care. Through this journey with her family members she is able to share some of the things she learned along the way as well as what she and her family wished they would have known then what they know now.

Episode 3 Notes:

A topic that most people are not very familiar with is what’s the difference between home care and home health care? There could be some of you right now that may not realize there is any difference. We find often that these two words are used interchangeably and even by professionals in the health care field. In this episode we are going to examine and talk about what exactly the difference is.

This will help differentiate the often times confusing use of the words home care and home health care and help you to better understand the differences and to know what they do and don’t provide and yes, they complement each other in the services they offer and can coexist but you do not need to use one in order to use the other. Many families receive help with one of these services while not needing the other.

Episode 2 - What is Home Care?

On Episode 2 of All Home Care Matters we discuss a question that often times seems fairly simple, but when answered often times people realize they didn't understand it completely and that question is What is Home Care?

Welcome to All Home Care Matters an exciting and informative new podcast that will discuss all things home care with guests, resources, and important topics on dementia and long-term care issues.