Caregivers, Care Managers and Family Members

Many seniors, for various reasons, face hazards when they are left alone in the house. Some might need someone to bring food and water, or help them go to the bathroom. Others, due to memory problems might be in danger of leaving the stove on, or doing something else that puts them in danger. For these seniors, just having someone around for supervision can be a tremendously valuable thing.

Unfortunately, many seniors are unable to have someone around at all the times when they need one. For seniors with large, closely-knit families, it can be easier to make sure that someone will be there, especially if the senior also has a professional caregiver for hours when family is unavailable. But for other seniors, without a lot of nearby family members to supervise, it can be a major challenge to get sufficient care. In this situation it can be useful to hire a care manager. Care managers work with seniors’ physicians, family members and caregivers to ensure that the senior is being cared for sufficiently, and is not in danger. When seniors don’t have family members to check in on them, a care manager can provide all the supervision that would otherwise be provided by the family.

Not all seniors can have people around whenever they need them. Depending on the amount of care needed, and the ability of the senior's family to provide supervision, the senior's home care needs could be met by a combination of family help and the services of professional caregivers. But for seniors without an adequate family or social support system, hiring a care manager might be the best choice.

Homecare Humor

Because laughter is the best medicine, the ACS blog is going to take a break from serious topics, and bring you some homecare humor. We've searched all across the web to find the best (and most family-friendly) senior jokes. So here's a funny list of signs that you might be the right age for homecare, from your friends at Accredited Caregiver Specialists.

You know you might be the right age for homecare when:

1) Your back goes out more often than you do.
2) Your idea of a night out is sitting on the patio.
3) At cafeterias, you complain that the gelatin is too tough.
4) You begin every other sentence with, "Nowadays..."
5) People call at 9 p.m. and ask, "Did I wake you?"
6) Your knees buckle and your belt won't.
7) Happy hour is a nap.
8)Tying one on means fastening your Medic Alert bracelet.
9)You do the hokey pokey and put your left hip out, and it stays out.
10)You light the candles on your birthday cake, and a group of campers form a circle and start singing “Kumbaya.”

Happy Holidays everybody!

How Seniors Can Beat the "Holiday Blues"

People often associate the holidays with good company and happiness, and for many this is so. But for others, the holidays can be a very challenging time. For some, the stress of preparing celebrations, and the financial pressures of buying gifts can make the holidays an unpleasant time, and for seniors lacking a strong social support system, the holidays can be a time of loneliness, and especially difficult when seeing everyone else having a "merry" time. This is an important thing for all of us to keep in mind during the holidays. To prevent "the holiday blues" among seniors, social interaction is very important. If there is a senior in your life who you know might be missing out on the holiday cheer, remember to visit or at least call them, because even small gestures can make a big difference for their moods. And if you are a senior, click here to read an article on how to improve your mood during the holidays.

Season's greetings from all at ACS!

Avoiding Senior Scams

This week, our blog will take a little break from the topic of home care to try to alert seniors to a potentially dangerous phenomenon. It’s unfortunate, but in today’s world, seniors need to be especially careful to avoid the scams of con-artists who prey on the elderly. One particular scam, known as the “grandchild scam” or “grandparent scam” has been making a comeback lately. This article is an attempt to inform seniors of how the scam works, so that they can know what best to do to avoid it.

In the typical grandchild scam, the con-artist will call a senior at home, saying something like “grandma” or “grandpa, I’m so glad to have reached you.” Sometimes the perpetrator will already know the name of a grandchild and attempt to impersonate them. Today, scammers can easily find many peoples’ names and information from websites like Facebook or Myspace, but the scam can work sometimes even without the perpetrator knowing the grandchild’s name. In that case the scammer would ask a leading question to the senior, such as “don’t you know who this is?” If the grandparent responds with a guess of which grandchild this person sounds like the most, the scammer will then have a name to work with. One excellent piece of advice from anti-scam advocates, is to never take a guess, and instead to respond by saying, “why don’t you tell me?” or something to that effect. After hearing that, 99% of scammers will hang up the phone.

If the scammer is successful in getting the senior to believe that he or she is a real grandchild, the scammer will then tell a sob-story about how they were in a car accident, arrested, injured, or in another unfortunate circumstance, and need money right away, in the form of check, money order, or even bank account information. The scammer might even have a co-conspirator come on the line pretending to be someone like a bail-bondsman or doctor, to validate the fictitious story. Another key to the scam is that the fake grandchild tries to convince the senior not to tell anyone about the situation. “Please don’t tell Mom or Dad” is a common statement to hear from the scammer.

This scam has been successful in extracting thousands of dollars from seniors across the country. The seniors who are most vulnerable to it are those who have lots of grandchildren, or have problems with memory. Those who are the most trusting, and generous with money are also heavily victimized.

So the key thing to remember is, regardless of how much you love your grandkids and want the best for them, you should always be suspicious of calls like this. Con artists are often people with zero conscience, and are very good at what they do. The person on the other end of the line might be very convincing, but always keep in mind that they might not be who they say they are.

Source:

http://www.scambusters.org/grandparents.html

Home Care and Caregiver Bonding

Different types of home care provide different features. Certain features, such as bonding can be very important for some consumers, and not so important for others. This article is an attempt to clarify when bonding can help you, and when these features may cost you more than what you get out of it.
Caregiver bonding helps provide assurance that if your caregiver steals anything from your house, you can be compensated. But this is not always a simple matter. If you suspect that a caregiver has stolen from you, generally you must press charges in order to receive compensation for the item. For relatively small dollar value items, clients are often hesitant to do this because of the effort involved with complying with law enforcement. Instead they choose to simply discontinue service with the caregiver, and the bonding that the client has been paying for never comes into effect. For higher dollar value items however, bonding can be useful. Another situation where bonding can be useful occurs if a caregiver is hired to pay bills for a client. If a law-breaking caregiver with access to the client’s checkbook were to start writing checks to himself, bonding can ensure that all funds are recovered.
So as a general rule, bonding becomes more useful with the more access a caregiver has to valuable items. So if a client has expensive paintings on the walls, or gives the caregiver access to personal funds, such as through a checkbook, bonding can be worth the expense. But in other situations, this feature might be of a lower priority, and not worth the extra cost.