Archive for February, 2011

Is Home Care for You?
By Maria M. Meyer and Paula Derr, Contributing Writers

The need to provide care for another person arises for many reasons. Often, the person who needs care does not realize it and family members must step in to help make decisions. One of those decisions involves who the caregiver will be and where care will be provided. The choices can be difficult unless you know what to consider.

When one member of the family becomes disabled, roles within the family often change. A person who took care of the family in the past or was the income provider may become dependent, while another person in the family takes on added, often unfamiliar responsibilities. For a single person, the changes may involve a new dependence on non-family members. Just the word “dependence” can cause unpleasant feelings. Being
able to talk openly about fears, anxiety, frustration, and doubts can be very helpful in dealing well with these new facts of life.

Discuss chronic care needs with the person’s medical team to learn what treatments; adjustments and other changes may be necessary. For some people, training to provide medical treatments, advice on coping with the challenges of chronic illness, and some long-range financial planning will be enough. For others, in-home personal assistance is the best option. Sometimes a nursing home or assisted living center is the better choice for everyone involved.

In making the decision for home care, it is important to be realistic about what the person in your care needs, and what you, the caregiver, can provide in terms of time, kinds of care, and financial responsibility. For example, deciding to hire an in-home attendant may be necessary if the primary caregiver works full time.

Before this happens, it’s important to look at the financial and emotional issues that go along with this decision.

Source: Caring.com
Continue reading…

If you or someone you know needs help with home care in Orlando FL and the surrounding area, contact the caregivers at Age Advantage. We provide quality and affordable in home care for many disabled and elderly loved ones in our community. Call us at 407-347-2050 for more information.

With Cataracts, Misinformation Seems to Abound

(HealthDay News) — When medical experts talk about prevalence, they’re usually referring to how common a particular disease might be. But in the case of cataracts, they might just as well be talking about how common it is to uncover misinformation and misunderstanding about the condition.

Cataracts are a leading cause of blindness among seniors in the United States, with more than half of all U.S. residents developing the cloudy vision of cataracts by the time they reach 80 years old, according to Prevent Blindness America, a nonprofit group that focuses on eye health. But eye experts say that people seem to believe things about cataracts that aren’t quite right, including when and how they should be treated.

Misinformation often seems to develop innocently enough, with well-meaning folks spreading things they’ve learned by word-of-mouth. “Sometimes friends give confusing and conflicting information because not every patient is the same or because they’ve heard something from someone else,” said Dr. Cynthia Bradford, an ophthalmology professor at the University of Oklahoma’s Dean A. McGee Eye Institute.

Nonetheless, the misinformation sometimes leads people to delay treatment long past when it could help them or to expect too much from treatment for this widespread vision problem. Cataracts occur when the lens of an eye grows cloudy, according to the U.S. National Eye Institute. Vision might grow progressively cloudy until the person has difficulty seeing, or the person’s vision might take on a brownish tint that makes it harder to distinguish colors. And that leads to one of the first major myths — that cataracts are something that grow on top of the eye.

“A lot of people think of it as a growth, but it’s almost like honey that’s become granulated,” Bradford said. The lens itself is the problem, which is why cataract surgery requires that the lens be removed and replaced.

Source: Caring.com…continue reading

If you or someone you know needs help with home care in Orlando FL and the surrounding area, contact the caregivers at Age Advantage. We provide quality and affordable in home care for many disabled and elderly loved ones in our community. Call us at 407-347-2050 for more information.

Happy (Or Not So Happy?) 65th Birthdays – The Baby Boom Generation Hits Retirement Age

People celebrating their 65th birthday today were born 9 months after Victory in Europe Day. Their arrival marked what some consider the very beginning of the Baby Boom Generation, which (at least in the Western World) enjoyed economic abundance, rock and roll, and long life expectancy.

Many wonder, however, whether the “Golden Years” are really going to be all that golden–not only for them, but for everyone else. Experts warn that many “Baby Boomers” are alarmingly short on savings, saddled with debt, and in poor health. The questions being asked are: Who’s going to pay the bill? And how will the aging of this generation affect the social landscape?

source:  wikihow.com

Age Advantage caregivers are available to answer all of your home care questions. We are a home care agency providing live in home care in Orlando FL and the surrounding areas. Call us at 407-347-2050.

Cataract Awareness, Conditions And Treatment

The basic definition of a cataract is where there is a clouding of the lens of the eye. When this takes place the light that normally enters the eye is changed or blocked off. Behind the colored iris and pupil lies the actual lens of the human eye. This lens is basically transparent and helps to focus images viewed onto what is called the retina of the eye. The retina is the part of the eye which sends the images that people see straight to their brain to be decoded. The most basic cause of eye loss stemming from a cataract forces vision to become dim or sometimes blurry. So how often do cataracts affect ordinary people in the world? One of the top causes of blindness and poor vision amongst older adults in countries like the Unites States is a cataract. There is an estimated twenty million folks in the USA alone that are around the age of forty, and they all have a cataract. 

It has been proven that literally one half of the people in America will develop a cataract by the time they have reached eighty. There are even studies showing a cataract forming in newborn babies, and some percentage of young people. Nobody really knows the exact reasons a cataract forms, but it has been assumed that they generally come along with age. So the older a person gets the more likely they are to form a cataract. There are also a multitude of risk factors that can cause a cataract. These include diseases like diabetes, extremely hot temperatures, long periods of exposure to the suns UV rays, inflammation of the eye, genetic factors, prolonged use of steroids, diseases that form in the eye, injuries to the eye, and smoking all play a role in the risk of a cataract forming. 

So what are the general symptoms associated with a cataract? It is well known that cataracts cannot cause conditions such as tears, pain, or redness, yet there are a few warning signs a person can use to judge if there is a possibility they have a cataract. These are things like feeling as if there is some sort of film cover, or ghost images and blurry vision. Also if there is a startling feeling that spawns from being exposed to very strong light. Also if the person often has a hard time seeing close-range objects. Sometimes it is even possible to physically spot a cataract, and they will normally have a sort of milky look to them and resemble a yellowish spot in the pupil. So what are some of the treatments that are available for older adults with poor vision? 

It is actually a common fact that most eye problems can be cured if they are treated as soon as they are discovered. Just like with any other disease if it is discovered early there is a much better chance of curing it, and avoid longer-term damages. The most important factor when it comes to safeguarding a person’s vision is taking part in eye exams regularly. Any person who is 65 and older should have a full eye exam completed at least one time every 1 to 2 years. This should be done even if there are no apparent eye conditions at the time. One more step to maintaining healthy vision is to ask the eye doctor for what is known as a dilated exam of the eye, and this just adds an extra level of safety against these sorts of conditions.

The caregivers at Age Advantage are available to talk with you and your family about all of your live-in home care needs. Age Advantage is a home care agency providing quality, affordable home care in Orlando FL and the surrounding areas. Call 407-347-2050 for more information.