Category: Benefits of Home Care

Is it time to find care for your loved one?

Posted on by NursePartners

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Many families struggle to make decisions about the best living situation and care for their loved one. There are many signs that indicate your loved one might benefit from home care services:

  • Confusion and uncertainty when performing once familiar tasks;
  • Unexplained weight loss;
  • Spoiled food in the fridge;
  • Difficulty standing and walking;
  • Forgetfulness and loss of interest in favorite activities;
  • Neglected personal hygiene;
  • Inability to keep up with house maintenance;
  • Missed appointments, unpaid bills, and late payment notices.

Seniors who live alone often experience isolation and poor nutrition, contributing to depression, cognitive decline, and a lower quality of life. It may be time to consider home care if you find your loved one with some of these symptoms.

In-Home Care Offers Independence

Many individuals, if given the choice, would choose to remain in the comfort of their own home for as long as possible. In-home care is an option for providing support, without moving them from their current residence. A plan of care can be tailored to meet the likes and needs of your loved one.  This is the superior option to scheduled activities and regimented care that is often provided in assisted living facilities.  At home, your loved one can set their own schedule and find comfort in the familiarity of their surroundings.

NursePartners works with each family to enable safety, comfortability, and happiness through home care services. As part of this process, we match your loved one’s needs to a select group of compassionate carepartners.

Our carepartners are dedicated to improving our clients’ quality of life. Our approach to Alzheimer’s and dementia care is based on The GEMS™: Brain Change Model created by Teepa Snow.  

The GEMS™: Brain Change Model

NursePartners recognizes Teepa’s positive approach to care as an effective method to provide care for loved ones affected by dementia. This approach categorizes dementia stages with six different gemstones, each defined by unique characteristics. Understanding each stage of the process allows carepartners to gain a deeper insight into what your loved one is experiencing.

After an in-home assessment, we work to create a plan of care to help your loved one live comfortably and safely. By keeping a record of everything from mood behaviors, health complications, to daily activities, we can begin to understand what factors contribute to positive moods and overall happiness.

In-home care offers independence, and NursePartners delivers with flexible, customized solutions. Ready to learn more? Our care team would love to offer a complimentary in-home care consultation. Contact us today.

NursePartners can alleviate the need for informal caregiving services

Posted on by Peter R. Abraldes

Caring for an aging relative on your own is no easy task. Eventually you will need a team of individuals for guidance and support.

NursePartners provides care for those who can no longer care for themselves. We relieve families from the chore of providing informal caregiving services. Our approaches to care allow family members to maintain enjoyable relationships with their loved ones.

Our early intervention prevents you from “learning on the job” as you try to anticipate the next development in dementia. The techniques that worked well last week will probably not work well this week. Unfortunately, informal caregivers lack the resources they need to provide adequate care to the loved ones. In consequence, the informal caregiver becomes frustrated and feels unfulfilled.

We prefer that you maximize on the enjoyable moments with your loved one, and let us handle the rest. The longer you spend as informal caregiver, the less time you have to advance your career and build your own retirement security.
Here is some data from AARP and MetLife that show you some the consequences of the decision to become the informal caregiver for an aging relative:

AARO Duration of Care - 2MetLife Impact of Parental Caregiving on Lost Wages

Why reinvent the wheel? Normally care begins by doing the laundry, preparing meals, and assisting with hygiene. However, the progressive nature of the disease will soon demand that you become the first caregiver. By the end, you will find yourself surrounded by a team of 5 to 10 other caregivers.

Providing care independently is a massive undertaking. The first step should be to establish a living estate or business. You will also be responsible for hiring, firing, and managing staff daily operations. Remember to also mitigate symptoms of depression, fatigue and deteriorating health, not just for the care recipient, but for other caregivers and yourself!

Don’t forget to seek a Workers’ Compensation policy, establish payroll to properly submit taxes, and keep meticulous bookkeeping. If your loved one has a long-term care policy, you will need to submit flawless reimbursement requests or face rejection. In your free time you will be coordinating all medical appointments, pharmacy prescriptions, and speaking to other vendors.

Our business is built to account for these needs. We provide the expertise and the employees to help you through this difficult period. We want you enjoy the best moments with your loved ones, while we help you through the worst. You and the care recipient are our clients.

Do not underestimate the advantage of introducing us to a care recipient earlier on in the diagnosis. Trust needs to be established and we want to connect before providing care. When our introduction is delayed, so too is our ability to make this meaningful connection.

The Healing Power of Music

Posted on by NursePartners

music therapy, singing, NursePartners, dementia

Music is one of the ways we communicate

Research is confirming an idea long held by those who work and care for dementia patients: music has the power to shift mood, manage stress, stimulate positive interactions, facilitate cognitive function and coordinate motor movements.  It can provide a way to connect, even after verbal communication has become difficult.

This happens because rhythmic and other responses require little cognitive and mental processing.  They are influenced by the motor center of the brain that responds directly to auditory rhythmic cues.  A person’s ability to engage in music, particularly playing and singing, remains intact late into the disease process because these activities do not mandate cognitive functioning for success.

Many individuals with Alzheimer’s can learn to move better, remember more, and even regain speech through listening and playing music.  By pairing it with everyday activities, your loved one can develop a routine that helps them recall memory, as well as working to improve cognitive ability over time.

Incorporating music into a treatment plan:

  • Use familiar songs to help soothe and take the edge off difficult moments.  Make sure that the songs you select do not bring up bad memories and are not connected to sad events of the past.
  • Identify music that is familiar and enjoyable to your loved one.  If possible, let them choose the music.
  • Compile a playlist of favorite recordings, which can be used for memory recall.  Singing a familiar song together can offer a welcome distraction and help a person “snap out” of a repetitive action or behavior.
  • Encourage your loved one to move along to the music to develop a routine (clapping, dancing, playing).
  • Choose a source of music that isn’t interrupted by commercials, which can cause confusion (iTunes, YouTube channels, playlist building apps).
  • Song sheets or a karaoke player can allow your loved one to follow along and sing to old-time favorites.
  • You can use music to influence your loved one’s mood.  A softer piece of music can help create a calm environment while a more upbeat song can uplift spirits.
  • Playing animated, happy songs in the morning can help with getting your loved one started.

music therapy, dementia, NursePartners

The Unpaid Caregiver and their Financial Security

Posted on by NursePartners
One of our carepartners helps a client remember her past.
One of our carepartners helps a client remember her past.

When a family member becomes ill, the initial response may be to divide up responsibilities and address them as a family unit. Unfortunately, family members forget to calculate the direct and indirect monetary, health, and social costs.  These costs are assumed by themselves, their families, and the care recipient.

Last year approximately 673,000 Pennsylvanians provided unpaid caregiving services. On average, unpaid caregivers spend almost 22 hours per week providing this service[1].
The Alzheimer’s Association estimates that it costs the average unpaid Pennsylvanian caregiver $13,952.45 in direct income per year. This estimate is conservative.  Unpaid caregivers often fail to maintain perfect bookkeeping practices, which leads to an understatement of the financial burden.  Costs for utilities, transportation, groceries, and medications are often forgotten as caregivers raise their own families and manage jobs.  As the diseases progress, costs also increase.

Unpaid caregivers begin to make decisions that impact their own employment and retirement security. Sometimes unpaid caregivers work less hours and eventually leaving their jobs altogether.  This decision has an immediate impact on the unpaid caregiver’s finances, but it also has long-term implications.  Social security and pension payments can decrease as a result of the years spent outside the labor market.  Promotions based on workplace experience can be postponed or never obtained.  Professional networks weaken or disappear, inhibiting their ability to reenter the workforce.  The sacrifice is great for the unpaid caregiver, but the consequences are not always realized until many years in the future.

6 in 10 caregivers report having experienced at least one impact or change to their employment situation as a result of caregiving, such as cutting back on their working hours, taking a leave of absence, receiving a warning about performance or attendance, or other such impact[2] (p. 60).

Other indirect costs can arise as caregiver health problems are exacerbated. This can occur by increased stress levels and instances of depression.

23% of family caregivers caring for loved ones for 5 years or more report their health is fair or poor[3].

Stress of family caregiving for persons with dementia has been shown to impact a person’s immune system for up to three years after their caregiving ends thus increasing their chances of developing a chronic illness themselves[4].

Instead of remembering the good times spent with the care recipient, the unpaid caregiver gradually replaces these memories with a new reality. Their daily mission becomes ensuring that the care recipient completes the activities of daily living.  Emotional and financial stress can sour the relationship just when it should nurtured most.

Finally, as the disease progresses, the care recipient becomes unable to communicate their needs. Meeting these unmet needs requires expertise.  The unpaid caregiver must subject themselves to a learning curve in order to provide effective caregiving.  How will you know if you are truly connecting?  How many workshops will you have to attend?  How many professionals will you need to consult?  The learning curve for providing adequate care implies a steep cost of entry for both the unpaid caregiver and the one receiving care.

Let us be there when you cannot. Call 610-323-9800 to learn more about
our dementia services and workshops.

[1] 2016 Alzheimer’s Disease Facts and Figures. Alzheimer’s Association.  Alzheimer’s & Dementia 2016;12(4). http://alz.org/documents_custom/2016-facts-and-figures.pdf.

[2] 2015 Research Report: Caregiving in the U.S. June 2015. National Alliance for Caregiving and the AARP Public Policy Institute. Pages 60 and 62. http://www.caregiving.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/2015_CaregivingintheUS_Final-Report-June-4_WEB.pdf.

[3] Caregiving in the U.S. 2009. National Alliance for Caregiving in collaboration with AARP. November 2009. http://www.caregiving.org/data/Caregiving_in_the_US_2009_full_report.pdf.

[4] “Chronic stress and age-related increased in proinflammatory cytokine IL-6”. Glaser, Janine et al. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States. 2 April 2003. http://www.pnas.org/content/100/15/9090.full.pdf.