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Brain Wellness À la Wii

Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010

Living Well at HomeThe Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As of August 2010, the Wii leads the generation over the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in worldwide sales and in December 2009 broke the record for best-selling console in a single month in the United States.

Nintendo hoped to target a wider demographic with its console. The productions are Nintendo’s first broad-based advertising strategy and include a two-minute video clip showing a varied assortment of people enjoying the Wii system, such as urban apartment-dwellers, country ranchers, grandparents, and parents with their children.The marketing campaign has proved to be successful: pensioners,  as old as 103 have been reported to be playing the Wii in the United Kingdom.. A report by the British newspaper The People also stated that Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain has played using the Wii console!

Now,  we have data that the Wii games have brought back feelings of being young again as the participants flex their mental muscles and improve their physical fitness. The Wii is improving the quality of life of many aging seniors.

Diane Carbo, in an article written for Senior Advice, states that “…Healthy aging and a brain fitness program along with the Wii promotes the development of new skills, and helps aging seniors learn from their mistakes. The best part of using the Wii as part of a healthy aging program is the laughter and excitement you see in the faces of the participants. The environment is electric as the aging seniors enjoy familiar interests in a new format. For many seniors it feels like old times again…”

Read More

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Posted in Aging, Aging at Home, Aging in Place, Alzheimer's & Dementia, Announcements, Health & Wellness, News & Discoveries | No Comments »

“IF I ever need to go to a nursing home, kill me first”

Thursday, July 29th, 2010
You do not need to leave your home

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.

Read More about it…

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Posted in Aging, Aging at Home, Aging in Place, Announcements, Home Care, Home Safety, News & Discoveries, Products & Services | No Comments »

Alzheimer’s Association reports on optimism among scientists to solve the Alzheimer’s puzzle!

Wednesday, July 7th, 2010

Living Well with ALzheimer'sThe Alzheimer’s Association presented an article published by the Health Day News for Healthy Living where the outlook for Alzheimer’s disease research is promising, even as the disease’s looming impact on society grows, experts say. Work is being done on scans and tests that could lead to early detection, and researchers are also identifying genetic and biological markers that could indicate if a person is at increased risk for developing Alzheimer’s.

The Health Day Article by Dennis Thompson states “…Research into Alzheimer’s disease has reached a point of significant potential, even as the disease’s looming impact on society grows more and more dire, experts say. Some leading scientists, in fact, worry that we may not be doing enough to press forward with key advances and new insights into Alzheimer’s, the most common type of dementia among older people…”

Read the article

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Posted in Aging, Alzheimer's & Dementia, Announcements, Health & Wellness, Liivng Well with Alzheimer's, News & Discoveries | No Comments »

Caring for The Elder at Home: The Need For a New Paradigm.

Tuesday, June 29th, 2010

Living Well at HomeThe increasing number of people turning 65, the high number of elders with health constraints, and the sky-rocketing price of health care posits the question of how are we going to care for all the elders who constitute, today the upcoming silver tsunami?

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.

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Posted in Aging, Aging at Home, Aging in Place, Announcements, Health & Wellness, Medical Advocacy for Seniors, News & Discoveries, Public Policy | No Comments »

Baby Boomers May Need to Find New Care Networks to Care for Their Golden Years.

Sunday, June 20th, 2010

In a paper presented at the 2010 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, held this week at Concordia. University in Montreal, Jacques Légaré and other researchers at the Université de Montréal, stated that Baby Boomers will need to be creative when it comes to find new alternatives to senior care.

“…Who are tomorrow’s seniors going to call when the going gets rough? Today’s young adult may not have a child to help out when they become older? Today’s adult is having less children. Because of this when they are elderly they may need to have non-traditional support networks or pay for the care that past generations relied on their own children for. That’s the findings of Jacques Légaré, professor at the Université de Montréal. Légaré studies

Aging in Palce for Boomers

Baby Boomers Aging

aging baby-boomers. Baby Boomers are a generation that had fewer children and were less likely to have a stable marriage. Légaré  stated that until 2030 the family circle involving senior citizens will be evolving. For about 70 percent of today’s frail seniors the family circle provides care. Generally that care comes from the children or their spouse. They are the last population before the baby boom after World War II. Today’s Baby Boomer generation is rapidly hitting the golden years but not with the same family security that their parents had. With divorce, blended families and common-law unions the family scheme is vastly different than in their parents’ day. Adding in medical advancements that have increased life span brings an unclear picture of who is going to care for those unable to care for themselves. “Tomorrow’s elderly – today’s boomers – had far fewer children. Who will take care of them?” Légaré asked, “They risk finding themselves in difficult circumstances and might have to turn to the public system or pay their way.”

Read Legare’s Paper

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Posted in Aging, Aging at Home, Announcements, Caregiver and family support, Health & Wellness, News & Discoveries, Uncategorized | No Comments »

A Diversity Toolkit for Providing respectful Services for Any Diverse Community

Sunday, June 20th, 2010
Living Well supports Diversity on Aging

Living Well Supports Diversity on Aging

The Administration on Aging just released A Toolkit for Serving Diverse Communities.

This Toolkit provides the Aging Network and its partners with a replicable and easy-to-use method for providing respectful, inclusive, and sensitive services for any diverse community. The Toolkit consists of a four-step process and a questionnaire that assists professionals, volunteers and grassroots advocates with every stage of program planning, implementation and service delivery for older adult communities, their families and caregivers.

The core principles of the toolkit include respect, inclusion and sensitivity as the hallmarks of quality service. This Toolkit is an invitation to make a cultural shift in service provision, to learn, to grow and fully appreciate the diverse community of older adults that agencies and their partners serve.

Download the AoA Diversity Tool Kit

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Posted in Aging, Aging in Place, Announcements, Health & Wellness, Home Care, LGBT Aging Issues, News & Discoveries, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Caring at Home for an Elder? When is it Time for a Family Meeting?

Tuesday, June 15th, 2010

Family meetingCaring for a loved one can change your life and although the process can be rewarding, at the end, sometimes it creates, for all involved (family and friends), tension and new challenges. John Boden, founder of ElderIssues, and a nationally recognized expert in elder care issues and geriatric care management explains when a family meeting is to take place and what to expect. He says: “…Family meetings are a meaningful way to gather information, discuss options and plan for the future. Most of us do not want to face the eventuality of the physical or mental decline that may come with old age the signaling the need to rely on others for help with daily activities. It is best, of course, to be discussing ideas and planning for them ahead of these events so that elders are full participants. However, when a family member does begin to experience physical or mental changes that cause concern, it is important for the family to gather. Early involvement can ensure that this time is a positive, meaningful exchange that revolves around the expressed or known interests of the loved one…” Read it all.

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Posted in Aging, Aging at Home, Aging in Place, Announcements, Caregiver and family support, Health & Wellness, News & Discoveries | No Comments »

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