Aging in Place: You do not need to leave your home!

Given that 89% of people do not want to leave their homes, this statement featured on the article The Technology for Monitoring Elderly Relatives on The New York Times (July 28, 2010) about new technologies to help people stay at their home, makes total sense.

The purpose of many of these technologies is to provide enough supervision to make it possible for elderly people to stay in their homes rather than move to an assisted-living facility or nursing home — a goal almost universally embraced as both emotionally and financially desirable.

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We, at Living Well Assisted Living at Home,  believe the provide a safety net for the elders, an option to stay at home while providing peace of mind to the adult children and family members.

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Home Safety, important matter to age in place.

Our homes fulfill many needs for us. Often, the most basic need is for shelter from the elements and intruders. Once we are protected and secure, other needs can be met. Comfort and a place for self-expression are vital for our well-being. Home gives a feeling of independence. Ourhome should also be a place in which we can be safe from accidents and injuries.

A  Housing Safety Checklist for Older People prepared by Sarah D. Kirby, Extension Housing Specialist, and published by NORTH CAROLINA COOPERATIVE EXTENSION SERVICE. North Carolina State University and North Carolina A&T State University commit themselves to positive action to secure equal opportunity regardless of race,color, creed, national origin, religion, sex, age, or disability. The guide-checklist stresses that “…Home accidents are a major source of injuries and can cause death. Older persons, whose bones are often less dense and more brittle, are especially vulnerable to serious injuries from home accidents. A simple fall that results in a broken bone can become a serious, disabling injury that limits one’s independence…”

On the guide, you will find a series of checklists. Use these lists as you go through your home. Make a check mark next to those items or behaviors that you already have. If there are items that you do not check, then your home is not as safe as it could be. By improving those items not marked, you can make your home a safer and more comfortable place to live. While the suggestions in this publication are for older people, they apply to all age groups as well.

To Download the guide, click here.

Voices of Alzheimer's

A series of videos presented for The New York Times by Karen Barrow explores the frightening and confusing world of Alzheimer’s. She captures the voices of both patients and loved ones who are struggling with issues of independence, long-term care and making the most of the time they have left.

Listening to people who say that Alzheimer’s is not a normal part of aging but a disease that affects the patient and all family members equally, brings your awareness of the challenges of this disease that affects people “just out-of-the-blue…”

A common desire of people affected with Alzheimer’s is that they want to live life at its fullest and stay in their homes for as long as they can.

See the videos: Patient Voices: Alzheimer’s Disease and read the related article: “The Voices of Alzheimer’ by Tara Parker-Pope

More than 40 percent of adult patients in acute care hospital beds are 65 or older. Seventy million Americans will have turned 65 by 2030. They include the 85-and-older cohort, the nation’s fastest-growing age group. Elderly people often have multiple chronic illnesses, expensive to treat, and they are apt to require costly hospital re-admissions, sometimes as often as 10 times in a single year. Living Well Assisted Living at Home has designed a new model of comprehensive care that will help care for elders at home, including those who are frail, recovering from surgery, accidents or any illness. The model also strives to care for those suffering from dementia, at home.

In an article written by Milt Freudenheim for the Health section of the New York Times, in June 28, 2010, we find how geriatricians and other professionals are lobbying for best practices in the field of aging.  In the article it is stressed the fact of how “..to stay independent, the elderly will need to stay healthy. Many of these people could be back on the golf course and enjoying their grandchildren if we did the right thing for them,” said Mary D. Naylor, a longtime geriatric care researcher and professor of gerontology in the School of Nursing at the University of Pennsilvania. Her research showed that even fragile older people could avoid a quick return to the hospital if they are managed by teams of nurses, social workers, physicians and therapists, together with their own family members. Hospital re-admissions, which cost $17 billion a year, could be reduced by 20 percent — $3.5 billion — or more, she said…” Obviously a new approach to care for the elder is imperative if we wnat to promote wellness in this sector of the population and reduce the increasing costs of caring for seniors.

Mr. Freudenheim continues by saying: “…Many internists, family physicians and other primary care doctors are lobbying for payments for a team approach based in the physician’s office. The concept, which they call a patient-centered medical home, will be tried out under the new health care law by Medicare, Medicaid and some private insurers. Secretary Sebelius has called the medical home idea “one of our most promising models for improving the quality of care and bringing down health care costs…”

Read the article.

Despite of the widely use of the “emergency response buttons”, we realized that most of the times these devices are  not being used at the moment of the fall. The risk of falling increases with age and falling is the number one cause of injury in adults over 65. These numbers are cause for great concern, but awareness and prevention can help decrease the likelihood of falls in the senior citizen years.

Living Well Assisted Living at Home has researched thoroughly different alternatives to bring safety at home and enable seniors to live independently while keeping seniors safe at home and providing real time report and request for assistance. We partner with Grand Care System, Halo Monitoring, and Universal Design to tailor made the house to the senior’s needs and bring peace of mind to the family members and friends.

ABC News recently featured a video about how preventing dangerous falls.

Watch ABC News Video on Preventing Falls

Trisha Kellog supports independent living with some assistance and in a recent blog entry, Trisha stresses the need for systems that supports safety. She states that “…With age comes the risk of falls and falls can lead to serious injury or death. Improving health and being aware of potential hazards will help ease the mind of you or your loved-one…” Read the article

Liivng Well one-stop-shop

The New York Times published on June 18, 2010, an article by Lesley Alderman that stresses the need of a coordinated and comprehensive discharge plan. The article states that “…According to a study published last year in The New England Journal of Medicine, one in five Medicare patients returns to the hospital within 30 days of being discharged. The problem is an expensive one: in 2004, these readmissions cost Medicare $17.4 billion dollars, the researchers also found.

Hospital stays certainly are shorter now: the average stay was 4.6 days in 2007, down from about 5.7 days in 1993. But the readmissions problem is not simply the result of compressed care, experts say…” Read More