'Little Swimmers'...Now for Adults

SoSecure Containment Brief. Enjoy swimming again.

Everybody in The Pool

Mary is an active grandmother who loves getting in her backyard swimming pool with her 6 grandchildren. She had always enjoyed the warmer weather and being in the water but now it was even more special because she could share her pool with her grandchildren. She loved inviting them over one at a time for some special swim time with Grandma or having them all over at once. However, when she was diagnosed with incontinence her first thought was the loss of this special time.. How could she get in the water? How could she keep her grandchildren from knowing what she was dealing with? What would she say? She was overwhelmed and sad at having to give up swimming until she found out there was a solution which would allow her to keep enjoying her pool and the people she loved the most!

Today, there is no reason to sit out at the pool party. There are incontinence supplies which can allow anyone who is dealing with incontinence to still be able to enjoy the water both comfortably and discreetly. One of  these incontinence products is the SoSecure Containment Brief. The SoSecure Containment Brief is offered by Discovery Trekking Outfitters. They are committed to making and offering incontinence products that can make a difference.

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5 Great Ways to Spend Time with Parents with Dementia or Alzheimers

Visit daily, even if just for a short time. 

It’s natural to feel lost, overwhelmed and even a sense of despair when your loved one is first diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or Dementia. The signs may have been there but a diagnosis confirms it and makes it final. It is the start of a very difficult and long journey. Alongside your current responsibilities which may involve working and raising children, you will now need to find the time to support your parents.

Many people become the main carer for their parents and there are a myriad of decisions which need to be made to ensure your parent receives the best care possible. The following guidelines will ensure you are able to spend time with your parents while you can.

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It All Starts With a Fall- Get a FREE 19 Page Fall Prevention Guide

Elderly falling is a serious health concern which needs
to be addressed before a senior takes a fall. 

It All Starts With a Fall

When my phone rang at 6am on a Saturday morning I instinctively knew it wouldn’t be good news. It was my sister Sue explaining she had gone to check on my Mom and found she had fallen sometime during the night. Because Mom only had my sister checking on her we were unsure as to how long she had lain there on the floor in her apartment. Mom was transferred to the hospital for treatment and then had to finish her rehab at a nursing home. But after the fall she really wasn’t the same. The injuries she sustained slowed her down and made her fearful to be alone, while my sister and I were wracked with guilt about what we could have done to prevent this!

Falls Account for 25% of Hospital Admissions and...

● 40% of all nursing home admissions

● 40% of those admitted do not return to independent living

● 25% die within a year.

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The Top 8 Ways You Can Support a Caregiver

Melanie’s Story...

When it became apparent her elderly parents could no longer live alone Melanie felt fortunate she could move them into her home. However, it wasn’t to long before she began to feel overwhelmed. Between caring for her parent's medical needs and helping to manage her mom’s incontinence, along with taking care of her own family she didn’t know how much longer she could go on like this. She felt alone and isolated until a talk with a friend let her know she wasn’t alone and there was help available.

You Are Not Alone

Statistics show there are nearly 10 million adults over the age of 50 are caring for an elderly parent or other senior loved one. As individuals live long, there are more families than ever before who are stepping in to offer care. It is important to know you are not alone and there are resources which are available to help. If you are a caregiver or someone who wants to support a caregiver there are ways to help and get the resources you need. Recent research shows there are very practical ways caregivers would like help. Here are the top 8 ways to support a caregiver-

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"I felt so sorry for my helpless Dad after my Mom suddenly died from a stroke".

I felt so sorry for my  helpless Dad
after my Mom suddenly died from a stroke.

Our Sudden Family Crisis

Every adult will face a parent’s inevitable need and reliance on extra help. For my family, it happened when our mother suffered a stroke in the middle of the day and never returned home. She died that night. We were devastated, but our dad was gravely affected. He relied on her for sixty-three years. Throughout those years, he worked outside the home, and my mom cared for the family in the home. Mom took care of everything; she prepared meals, paid the bills, did the laundry, shopped, and raised four children. Dad went to work, usually six days a week and paid for all the essentials.

After her death, the family knew that dad was in a world of trouble. It may be hard to understand, but he had no inkling about paying bills, cooking meals, shopping for groceries and incidentals. It’s near impossible to believe, I know. But Dad remained confused about what to do. Each morning he would take his mail to my sister’s house and ask for her help in managing the finances, even reading the mail sometimes. He was lost.

Family caregiving has tripled in the past 15 years

As a family caregiver, you hate to see a parent be dependent but we all experience it. Initially, each one of us pitched in to help, but he never became independent. I believe mom took that away from him the day they married.

As our parents and relatives grow older and live longer, many of us find ourselves in this harsh situation. And according to several studies, the number of adult children helping an aging relative has tripled in the past 15 years (MetLife, and the National Alliance for Caregiving.) And an estimated 36 million U.S. households have at least one person who is a caregiver, and 33% of them do it for more than five years.

How You Can Best Help Your Parents

In the simplest of terms, it all starts with Daily Living Activities and needs or ADLs. These are the essential things we learn early in life such as eating, bathing, dressing, grooming, toileting, and transferring.

The other activities that older adults need help with are the Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IDLs.) These are the actions that allow an individual to perform complex skills. These include managing money, paying bills, cleaning the house, shopping, taking medications, and preparing meals. These are the ones my Dad had the most trouble performing.

There are many technical terms and ways to measure the level of performance but for the sake of this article, let’s focus on how a family caregiver can gauge them. The activities of daily living is a clear indicator whether a person requires a move to a nursing home. Besides, the ADLs are a significant factor when qualifying for long-term care insurance benefits.

My family had to follow Dad’s performance of doing everyday tasks. We needed to know what he could do or not on his own. It was our guide to helping him stay home or move to a residential care home. Using the Center for Disease Control data, it told us that 60% of the residents in a facility required help going outside. They also needed assistance to bathe (70%) and help with incontinence products (40%). Our Dad did a fair job performing those activities, so we figured he had a good chance to stay home with a little help.

Bathing, dressing & toileting. The first ADL’s to go.

The same data told us that an older person's growing need for support follows a pattern. The first ADL to appear is bathing. The next is a dressing, then toileting, transferring and eating respectively. It surprised us because he needed more help with dressing than taking a bath, but the data said that there are exceptions to every rule. Together we decided to hire home care, and he was thankful to stay home. As time passed, he needed help with bathing, incontinence, and eventually with eating.

Measuring ADLs helps families prepare for upcoming stages of elder care. That’s why it’s so important to observe an elderly relative – their actions are windows to their needs. Here’s a handy tool that you can use when assessing your relative’s elder care journey. It will help you and the rest of the family to prepare better.

Carol Marak is a contributor for the senior living and healthcare market. She advocates older adults and family caregivers by writing on tough topics like chronic issues, senior care and housing. Read her work at AssistedLivingFacilities.org and SeniorCare.com. Find her on LinkedIn and contact her at Carol@SeniorCare.com.


Further reading: 

How to Choose The Right Incontinence Products For Your Needs

Here’s Why 15% of Seniors Want To Leave Home

New Tools for Long Distance Caregivers 

5 Signs Mom or Dad Need Help

Help support this ad free blog by answering several questions about caregiving here. It will take just two minutes. 

Call us. We're here to help.

About The CareGiver Partnership. The CareGiver Partnership helps caregivers and their loved ones with answers to their caregiving questions, including information about home health care products and supplies, from our Wisconsin-based team of Product Specialists who are all current or former caregivers. The company’s Web site provides the largest online library of resources on subjects most important to caregivers — from arthritis to assisted living, and Parkinson’s to prostate cancer — as well as access to more than 3,000 home care products for incontinence, skin care, mobility, home safety and daily living aids. The CareGiver Partnership was founded in 2004 by Lynn Wilson of Neenah, Wisc. Visit http://www.caregiverpartnership.com to learn more or call 1-800-985-1353.

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11 Practical Father's Day Gifts Dad Will Actually Use

Give Dad a gift that helps him maintain dignity and normalcy.

For older dads, there’s nothing like receiving a Father’s Day gift that keeps a man on the move and independent. 

Father’s Day is Sunday, June 21, and this year, considering getting Dad something he’ll actually use. As Dad gets older, sometimes the greatest gift we can give is something that helps him maintain dignity and normalcy. That can be the ideal gift for the dad who’s not quite as independent as he once was.

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Where Can You Get Bariatric Incontinence Supplies?

3 things to know before buying bariatric incontinence supplies. 

How to Help My Dad

When it became apparent my Dad could no longer live alone I moved in to become his caregiver. Dad had a couple of different health concerns but one of the most pressing was the need to more effectively manage his incontinence symptoms. His former caregiver worked only part-time and she would shop the local stores for incontinence supplies. Unfortunately, this task often involved going to several different stores since my Dad is a big guy and needed larger incontinence products than those which were generally in stock at the corner drugstore or the big box stores. Worse yet, the lack of proper sizing in his incontinence undergarments put him at increased risk for leakage and accidents due to the improper fit. We were actually using tape to hold them together. We figured someone out there sold larger sizes - called bariatric.

Bariatric incontinence products are incontinence supplies which are made specifically for the comfort, care and well being of larger individuals. These incontinence products are more generous in size as well as being designed to maximize absorbency and provide leak protection. Adult diapers generally start in waist sizes of 60 inches or more with some fitting up to 100 inches. Size names for this type of incontinence products are sometimes called 2XL, XX-L, 3XL, or XXX-L.

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Improvements in Men and Women's Incontinence Supplies

It's really gotten better. 

When I was first diagnosed with incontinence I worried I would be stuck using a one size fits all, oversized baby diaper. Being totally unfamiliar with the wide variety of incontinence products on the market today I wrongly assumed I would have to wear a bulky, ill fitting, and poorly absorbent incontinence undergarment if I ever wanted to leave my house and carry on with the things I love to do. I thought of the clothes I would never wear again and the embarrassment which awaited me when I was sure my incontinence undergarment would fail or just the smell would give my secret away to coworkers and friends. You can’t imagine my surprise when I found out none of my worries were real and I would be able to manage my incontinence both discreetly and comfortably!

How to know which is the best product for your needs

One of the most important strategies is to have the right incontinence product to use whether you are looking for incontinence pads or adult diapers.When you are able to find the right incontinence supplies for your needs then you can continue on with the activities you enjoy comfortably all the while managing your incontinence discreetly.

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Who Takes Care of the Caregiver?

Vibroacoustic Therapy- a new way to reduce
pain, stress, anxiety and insomnia. 

Being a caregiver to a loved one takes a lot of energy - physical and emotional

Do you take care of your ageless mother?

Do you take care of your husband who is in advanced stage of Parkinson?

Do you take care of your autistic son?

You know all too well that caregivers are “the silent crowd”. Too busy running your life, your home, your business and taking care of loved ones, nonstop.

Caregivers are not free people – by will, they dedicate their “free time” to their loved ones.

Many face moral questions such as; how to help without taking over. How to explore together ways of getting better, instead of imposing your way and taking dominance by thinking that you know the best, of what is good for the one you are treating.

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How to Find the Best Senior Care- In a Crisis

Guest Post by Ryan McEniff of Minute Women Home Care, located in Lexington, Massachusetts

A previous post talked about how private home care helped my mom while losing her battle with cancer. When anyone is dealing with a terminal diagnosis of someone they love, there isn’t a whole lot of time to think, plan, and execute. Things are moving way too quickly.

There is no time to look into multiple services, what options you have, companies to consider. You are dealing with the shock of the situation. It is ‘we need home care and we need hospice immediately’.

That’s why I created the infographic- "56 Best Senior Caregiving Websites".  It provides a wealth of resources on the best tools for choosing senior care. It breaks the tools into different categories and provides short descriptions of each tool, allowing you to find what you are interested in and look at the tools you need.

By having a resource list like this, you have the most important tools needed when investigating the different types of services and products that are associated with senior care. It allows you to be proactive about the future, rather than being reactive to a situation.

Some people like the written version of the 50+ Best Senior Care Tools Online better, but I find the infographic to be simple and straight to the point and I am sure you will find a wealth of information to use!

Three other very helpful resources for caregivers are:

• The CareGiver Partnership - a resource to call to find out about the best home health care supplies like incontinence products. They'll send samples to try before you buy.

• The CareGiver Partnership blog. Thousands of articles on various aspects of home caregiving. Updated several times a week with fresh new relevant content. 

• The worlds largest caregiver resource library with links to over 1500 fully vetted resources for caregivers on a range of issues. They are easy to search and find what may be helpful to you. 

Ryan McEniff is the content contributor and owner of Minute Women Home Care, a private home care company located in Lexington, MA



Help support this ad free blog by answering several questions about caregiving here. It will take just two minutes. 

Call us. We're here to help.

About The CareGiver Partnership. The CareGiver Partnership helps caregivers and their loved ones with answers to their caregiving questions, including information about home health care products and supplies, from our Wisconsin-based team of Product Specialists who are all current or former caregivers. The company’s Web site provides the largest online library of resources on subjects most important to caregivers — from arthritis to assisted living, and Parkinson’s to prostate cancer — as well as access to more than 3,000 home care products for incontinence, skin care, mobility, home safety and daily living aids. The CareGiver Partnership was founded in 2004 by Lynn Wilson of Neenah, Wisc. Visit http://www.caregiverpartnership.com to learn more or call 1-800-985-1353.

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5 Celebs Who Own Their Incontinence

Katy Perry weighs in on incontinence at any age. 

What do Katy Perry, Kris Jenner, Tony Romo, Steven King & Samuel L. Jackson have in common?

Incontinence

You may be surprised to learn that incontinence is so much more out in the open that celebrities are even owning up to the fact they have experienced it and are offering advice on how to cope with symptoms. Here are 5 celebs who own their incontinence...

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Simplifying Incontinence Products and Supply Selection

Manage your incontinence with the right incontinence products. 

The first step - diagnosis

When Susan began to have symptoms of incontinence the first thing she did was to visit her healthcare provider. While she felt some embarrassment in having to discuss something so personal, she was pleasantly surprised her doctor was able to begin testing right away in order to diagnose the underlying cause of her symptoms and formulate a treatment plan. However, when Susan’s doctor explained treatment takes time she knew she would have to come up with some management strategies in how she would handle her incontinence both at home and the office.

How to know which is the best product for your needs

One of the most important strategies is to have the right incontinence product to use whether you are looking for incontinence pads or pull on underwear. When you are able to find the right incontinence supplies for your needs then you can continue on with the activities you enjoy comfortably all the while managing your incontinence discreetly.

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Enter to Win FREE Poise and TriDerma Products- No Purchase Necessary!

Enter to win! 

The CareGiver Partnership is giving away five skin care products and a case of bladder control pads. Enter for a chance to win!

Each month, we highlight a family caregiver solution chosen to help seniors live more independently and gracefully in their homes. This month’s prizes were chosen to help women who need extra help with skin care or bladder control live with normalcy and dignity. And entering is fast and easy — all participants have to do is e-mail or mail us — no purchase necessary and no strings attached.

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Mary's Story: Traveling For the First Time With Incontinence

Traveling for the first time with incontinence. 

What it Takes to Get it All Done

Mary is an active, working, highly social adult with incontinence. Recently however, she found herself in a new situation since being diagnosed with incontinence. She had a planned to take a weekend trip and was worried how she would be able to manage her incontinence effectively and discreetly. While she had strategies in place for home and the office this was the first time she would be away from both and she worried about having the right strategies in place. This included have the right incontinence supplies and not running out. She naturally wanted to be able to enjoy all the activities at her destination. She was determined her incontinence wouldn't slow her down and she would do what it takes to get it all done while still enjoying her weekend!

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