Senior Care Reviews, Blogs and Info!

Madison is in the heart of Wisconsin. Despite this capital city being relatively small in size, the Madison area and surrounding counties are big in their veteran population. Nearly 400,000 veterans claim the state as their home.  With this rather large veteran population, the state has cultivated a host of excellent benefits, programs and services for its most honorable residents. Let’s take a look at the available resources veterans can find in Madison and surrounding areas.

Kicking off the list is the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs. This online site is an excellent starting place for Wisconsin veterans seeking help across the state. 

Grandparents who find themselves raising their grandchildren can take inspiration from Ron and Nellie Biles. You may not recognize their names, but you’ve probably heard of their daughter, Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles. She and her sister, Adria, were adopted as young children by their grandfather Ron and step-grandmother Nellie, after a tumultuous start in life due to their birth mother’s struggles with addition. Here’s how Ron and Nellie embraced their role as parents to their grandkids, and how other grandparents can do the same when they’re the ones raising their grandchildren.

When caring for a loved one for long periods of time, it can be easy to neglect yourself and your own needs. When this happens, it is common for a caregiver to feel burnt out. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, burnout is “the condition of someone who has become very physically and emotionally tired after doing a difficult job for a long time.” The nature of most caregiving work is that it is physically and emotionally demanding, so what can be done to prevent or put an end to burnout? The key is helping yourself before helping others. However, most any caregiver will tell you this seemingly simple phrase is easier said than done. Finding practical ways to boost your quality of life will not only improve your days, it will in turn improve the quality of care your patient receives.

Ask family caregivers how much time they have for themselves and you won’t hear a lot about spa days and long getaways. One woman, poet and MacArthur grant recipient Heather McHugh, is making a small but important effort to change that. McHugh used her grant money to start Caregifted, a nonprofit that gives a few vacations each year to full-time family caregivers who have been on the job for a decade or longer without a break. Caregifted and McHugh were recently featuredin Reader’s Digest.

Although the Caregifted program serves a small number of caregivers each year, it raises awareness of the millions of Americans who take care of loved ones full time, without pay and often at the expense of their jobs outside the home. Because the stress of day-to-day caregiving and financial pressures can take a toll, breaks are necessary to help caregivers maintain their mental and physical health. If you’re a caregiver, the ideal to is schedule regular breaks for yourself before you feel that you’re worn out or reaching a breaking point. Here are some suggestions on putting self-care into action.

Whether due to a move to an assisted living home or the decision to live with senior roommates, a lot of seniors will find themselves living alongside other seniors after years of only living with family. For most of these seniors, it’s been decades since they had a roommate that wasn’t their spouse or lived in close quarters with anyone that wasn’t immediate family.

Getting accustomed to living alongside other people again – many of whom will have different habits and lifestyles – can understandably be a challenge.

Continuing our series on the best way to find local veteran resources in your city, today we are highlighting New York City. Other cities covered so far include Chicago and Houston, and we plan on showcasing veteran services and support groups in seven additional cities in the days and weeks to come.

New York State is home to nearly 900,000 U.S. veterans, with the largest percentage being in the 65-69 year old age group, and Vietnam being the most-represented conflict. While a higher percentages of veterans live in the more rural areas of New York state, in New York County – home to Manhattan – you’ll find 33 veterans for every 1,000 people.

As more seniors work past retirement age or return to the workforce after retiring, there’s a growing demand for job retraining and placement resources specifically for older workers. These programs help people make the change from physically demanding jobs like maintenance and landscaping to new careers that don’t require heavy lifting, climbing, or hours of walking each day.

As the New York Times article linked above points out, some blue-collar workers move into desk jobs or teaching positions in their field. For example, a career welder might train new workers in a community college program, or a CNA who can no longer lift patients might move to the reception desk. If there aren’t teaching or office jobs open in your line of work–or if you’d rather do something completely different–there are many places to learn new skills and find job leads.

Urinary tract infections (UTI) are the second most common infection among women in the United States. It is said that over 50% of women will have at least one UTI in their lifetime. UTI’s are especially prevalent in the elderly population due to age related factors such as weakened bladder muscles leading to incontinence and urine retention, frequent use of catheters, being dependent on others for assistance and the loss of ability to communicate needs or recognize when help is needed. Although UTI’S are treatable,  if ignored they can lead to a number of serious issues. While elderly women are particularly vulnerable, it is important for both men and women to take precautions and know the warning signs of infection so that a UTI does not progress into a serious infection or misdiagnosed as another illness with similar side effects.

Everybody loves Madison. Wisconsin’s capital city lands at or near the top of best cities lists year after year, mostly because of its robust economy, great healthcare system, and job opportunities for seniors. Live music, a full calendar of arts festivals, and the legendary Dane County Farmers’ Market contribute to the overall quality of life for Madisonians.

To help you enjoy retirement life in Madison or to help you track down helpful resources for family members living in the city, SeniorAdvisor.com has mustered all its Madison articles and listings on one convenientMadison Senior Care and Services page. Think of it as a senior-focused city guide to Madison’s recreation and social options, senior communities, in-home care services, professional services, and more. Here’s a preview of what you can find.

Cincinnati may not have the retirement-town image of Orlando or Scottsdale, but it definitely has a lot to offer seniors. It’s one of the few cities outside the Sunbelt to crack the top 20 best places to retire, and it’s one of the best cities for people of all ages, due to its low cost of living, low home prices, and arts and entertainment options. To help you get the most from your time in Cincy, SeniorAdvisor.com has collected its city info on one Cincinnati Senior Care and Services page. Visit it when you’re ready to downsize, need to find an assisted living community, want a little help around the house, or are looking for new things to do.

Ageism is a hot topic, which is both bad and good news. The downside is that age discrimination is rampant in the workplace . The upside is that as more Baby Boomers run into this problem, they’re speaking up about it and offering suggestions for finding jobs that make the most of older workers’ skills. Here’s what you may face, and how to cope.

The Washington Post recently ran a feature by Lydia DePillis on how pervasive ageism is in the workplace. One of the subjects of that article, author Ashton Applewhite, wrote a New York Times column about the problem that all workers will face eventually. Older jobseekers need to know the points they make.

In the United States alone, over 65 million peoplespend an average of twenty hours a week or more caring for an ill, disabled, or senior family member. Our country is full of caregivers struggling to balance the responsibilities of living a full life, while also providing care for someone they love.

It’s a hard job and one that’s in many ways underserved. Caregiver Homes seeks to change that last part.

Time is precious at any age, and time spent tracking down senior services for yourself or your family is time not spent on other things you need or want to do. To help streamline the important and sometimes complicated process of finding the right senior care and social opportunities, SeniorAdvisor.com recently launched a series of major city guide pages filled with information you can browse at a glance. These pages are ideal for seniors planning to move to a particular city, residents of these cities who need resources, and long-distance friends and relatives who want to help a loved one in one of these cities get the support they need. Is your city (or your parents’) on our list?

Long distance caregiving for a parent or other loved one can come with many challenges. The further away you are, the harder it may be to truly recognize what type of care your parent needs. When your main line of communication is through phone and you are unable to visit as often as you would like to, you may be turning to others for information on his or her well being. Relying on others such as friends, family members or neighbors to relay accurate information may leave you with questions, uncertainty or even guilt. If this sounds familiar to you, you are not alone. According to the National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP, there are 5 to 7 million long-distance caregivers in the U.S. who are caring for an older relative from far away.

With aging in place on the rise, many seniors are turning to in-home care options to receive the kind of care they would have received from staff in an assisted living facility.

As such, the home health care industry is projected to be one of the fastest growing industries in the United States in the coming years. Right now, most of the home health care businesses you’re likely to encounter hire caregivers as contractors, but some professional caregivers have begun to form caregiver cooperatives.

Are you one of those people who are consistently looking for ways to give back to your community? Maybe you need volunteer hours for school or for your job? If so, you’ve come to the right spot. This blog post will give you everything you need to know about volunteer opportunities with seniors within the Austin, and surrounding, area. Current Volunteer Opportunities in Austin (updated 10/3/16):