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Showing posts from January, 2022

The Value of Home Care

The Home Care Association of America and Global Coalition on Aging‘s collaborative booklet, “Caring for America’s Seniors: The Value of Home Care,”  was the first report to shed a light on the critical role home care plays in the lives of many seniors, families, the healthcare system, and the nation’s economy as America continues to gray. “The Value of Home Care” emphasizes the importance of home care by helping us not only understand the needs of our aging population, but also by forcing us to recognize American seniors’ desire to age in the comfort of their own homes and in the communities with which they are familiar. Here are a few key takeaways from the report, as well as some insight as to how home care is a key component of the senior care continuum. Studies show in most cases, a good quality of life is  better  maintained  by remaining in the home as long as possible. This is based  on many factors ,  including  seniors’  mental and  emotional  wellbeing  in familia r surro

Eight Senior Health Benefits to Drinking Tea

There’s nothing like a hot cup of tea to fire up our day or to downshift at day’s end. After water, tea is the most popular drink in the world and an integral part of various cultures since ancient times. January being National Tea Month lets tea drinkers celebrate their passion for camellia sinensis , the plant from which all true tea – including black, green, white, oolong, pu-erh – comes from. Seniors who drink tea may not know that their beverage habit may be supporting their physical and mental health as they age, according to various studies. Being an avid tea consumer as an older adult may be particularly advantageous in managing chronic conditions like diabetes and heart disease , according to medical research. Here are some reasons to sip a cup or down a cool glass of (unsweetened) tea a little more often:   Mood booster and stress reliever Put on the kettle to lift your spirits. Depression is common among older adults , as the World Health Organization notes that 7% of th

Remembering You! Five New Year’s Resolutions for Family and Professional Caregivers

If you are caring for an aging family member, or if you are a professional caregiver tasked with the welfare and wellbeing of your clients, you know how daily demands can leave you depleted with little or no time for yourself. Chances are you have children of your own which only compounds responsibilities and adds pressure, further diminishing the time for any self-care. If self-care is such a novel thought, perhaps you’ve been in your current role for months or years. You may be so habituated to the world being about others you’ve lost sight of how important it is to give yourself a break, that is, in the realm of treating yourself to the things that make you feel happy, restored and more like you ! (Remember you?!) Because the new year is fresh and, well, still new, why not consider the following resolutions to help improve your relationship with someone very important in your life—even if you haven’t had time to consider that yet. Of course, that someone is you: I resolve not

Self-Care is Not Selfish — A Checklist for Family Caregivers and Older Adults

From an early age, we are told our work ethic will strongly determine levels of success in life. If we want more, or increasingly if we want to simply stay afloat in light of an evolving, pandemic-driven world, we need to give it all to our job. Or in some cases, to multiple jobs we’ve taken on. Compound that with family demands, aging parents who depend on adult daughters and sons and community obligations that require a huge expenditure of time, effort and energy. In the workplace alone, 77 percent of respondents to a Deloitte external workplace survey said they experience burnout. So where does all this leave us? It may be surprising to some to note that taking steps to care for ourselves is not selfish as we may have come to believe. Self-care, in fact, is a measure of respect and gratitude for all we’ve been given. Whether you’re an adult daughter or son who is a family caregiver to an elderly loved one or an older adult with a full plate, chances are you’ve learned to do wit

Celebrating Holidays with People with Dementia

Samvedna Senior Care regularly conducts Dementia Support Group meetings for family caregivers. In these meetings, specialists from the field and caregivers are invited, to discuss issues and challenges that they face while providing care for their loved ones suffering from dementia. In the last meeting, Dr. Vijay Kumar, Consultant Psychiatrist at Samvedna Senior Care was invited to discuss the topic, ‘Memory Loss and Dementia, Celebrating Holidays and Festivals .’ In this meeting, our experts answered questions that the audience had related to dementia and the challenges that they might be facing with the advent of the festive season. With several cultures coming together in our country, there are numerous festivals to celebrate. These year-long festivities bring everyone joy and could play a significant role in the lives of people with dementia . There are several things that one could do in order to make festivals more inclusive for people with cognitive impairment. Since the ent