For family members still searching for gift ideas for grandparents or aging relatives, think about the things you could purchase that would really help benefit their lives. Here are a few great ideas to help you out:

• Items that allow them to fell pampered – seniors on a budget are not likely to splurge on things they consider non-essentials. For Christmas gifts, buy candles, soaps and body lotions that allow them to feel pampered at home. Gift cards to restaurants or spas are added luxuries

• Gift baskets – gift baskets with a combination of items, including some of the above, as well as seasonal foods, books, and craft supplies that they will enjoy and make use of are all great things to include! Gift baskets can be bought pre-fabricated or can be created at home

• The gift of companionship – seniors will most appreciate the company of their loved ones. If this is not possible, senior care services can be gifted for companionship and assistance at home.

• Take an elderly loved one out for the day – a trip out for lunch around the holidays to see a movie or a musical event can be a very enjoyable way for them to spend a day and it will be memorable!

Home Care Boston providing elderly services in Cambridge, Boston, and Somerville. Call us at 617.557.4600.

Just when you thought that family caregiving couldn’t get more complicated… but upon arriving home for the holidays you spot several concerns that leave you worrying more about Mom and Dad. When this happens, you may be left wondering what to do. How do you begin to talk with your elderly mom about getting more help? When do you discuss with your dad giving up the car keys? What do you say to your brothers and sisters when you’re stuck with all the caregiving and you can’t count on your siblings to assist? When you’re a family caregiver, the list of possible caregiver questions and issues is endless.

But everyone is home for the holidays; they are the best time to assess if an older adult needs help. But take care not to ruin the fun or cause a family fight.

Don’t get into the topic when everyone is at the dinner table nor when they may have had too much holiday wine, advises Gail Hunt, President and CEO of the U.S.’s National Alliance for Caregiving.

“When talking with your siblings about your concerns for Mom and Dad, go out to lunch to have that discussion rather than right in the middle of the family festivities. Then approach a parent in a non-threatening way. Perhaps you’re in the kitchen making pies with Mom. You might ask, ‘I saw those bills on the dresser. Is there something I can do to help?’”

The following informational tool has been developed by Home Instead Senior Care for adults who have parents over the age of 70. We invite you to complete this quiz to determine the quality of your parental conversations. After you answer the following 15 questions, you will receive an assessment of your conversational relationship with your parents, along with resources and tips that can help you talk to your aging parents. This assessment is intended for educational purposes only and should not be interpreted as a recommendation for a specific course of action: Communication Assessment.

Remember when talking with your siblings about your concerns for Mom and Dad, go out to lunch to have that discussion rather than right in the middle of the family festivities. Then approach a parent in a non-threatening way. Perhaps you’re in the kitchen making pies with Mom. You might ask, ‘I saw those bills on the dresser. Is there something I can do to help?’”

Need help getting these important conversations off the ground, visit our Conversations Starters page for more information.

Home Care Boston providing elderly services in Cambridge, Boston, and Somerville. Call us at 617.557.4600.

The 50/50 Rule: Solving Family Conflict programs and practical support services are offered to develop open discussions between adult siblings in an effort to help them improve communication skills, develop teamwork, make decisions together and divide the workload in caring for aging parents. Check out these tips on how to share the care.

Sharing the Care Plans

As adults, you and your siblings might not feel you have much to talk about anymore. But whether you’re still close or if you’ve grown apart, you still have at least one common bond. That’s the planning for care of your elderly mom and dad.

No matter what you family relationships are like, an aging care plan represents uncharted waters for most families. Who takes care of Mom and Dad, and where? Do you seek outside support or try to do it all yourselves? What do you do when you can’t agree or when someone feels left out? Who takes charge when your parent is ill or even dying?

The 50-50 Rule℠ program offers strategies for overcoming sibling differences to help families provide the best care for elderly parents.

At the core of the 50-50 Rule public education program is a family relationship and communication guide of real-life situations that features practical advice from the Home Instead Senior Care network and sibling relationships expert, Ingrid Connidis, Ph.D., of the University of Western Ontario.

Research suggests that siblings don’t want to harm their relationships with each other. That’s why the 50-50 Rule program will help facilitate communication in relationships with brothers and sisters who want to make the most of their parents’ senior years and their own caregiving journey.

Get your free copy of the 50/50 Rule Guide.

Home Care Boston providing elderly services in Cambridge, Boston, and Somerville. Call us at 617.557.4600.

When his wife died two months before Christmas, Ida’s Home Instead Senior Care client didn’t have much interest in the holidays that year.

Robert spent the time with family out of town. The next year, while helping to organize a closet, Ida discovered a treasure trove of beautiful Christmas ornaments and decorations that Robert’s late wife had collected throughout the years.

So out came the trees, the ornaments, the holiday tableware, the holiday village and so much more. Suddenly, the holidays took on new meaning again for this 85-year-old senior.

Ida and a fellow Home Instead CAREGiver Kathy engage Robert in other ways, too, including helping him make holiday ornaments. Within his box of ornaments, they discovered an angel decoration and decided to recreate it. So every year now, they make angels to display and give as gifts.

Ornaments are an important part of the Home Instead Senior Care network’s Be a Santa to a Senior® program as well. Home Instead Senior Care offices throughout the country partner with local retailers and use senior-care agencies to identify needy seniors. Trees go up in the community with ornaments that feature the first names of these seniors and their gift requests. BeASantaToASenior.com

Now Robert loves to participate in the Be a Santa to a Senior program each holiday season. Together with his CAREGivers, he buys gifts and makes angel ornaments for other seniors who might need a lift during the holidays.

Home Instead CAREGivers have years of experience bringing cheer and companionship to seniors across the U.S. and Canada – during holidays and throughout the year. We can help you and your loved one make the most of the holidays in Boston this year, find our how 617-557-4600.

Home Care Boston providing elderly services in Cambridge, Boston, and Somerville. Call us at 617.557.4600.

If you come home to visit you parents and find their house dark and dreary during the festive holiday season, it could be a sign they are no longer up to the holiday decorating they once enjoyed. Encourage your parents to decorate by helping them add color and light to their homes for the holidays. Here are a few ideas to help make their season festive:

Help a senior find and unpack their decorations, or ask to do it on your own. Perhaps that’s a task that they dread tackling by themselves.

Ask your loved one which decorations are most significant to them, and how and where they should be displayed.

Maybe your senior would like to shop for one more decoration to add to his or her collection. You could add to a continuing tradition, such as a new angel ornament for the tree.

Offer to photograph this year’s holiday display, not only to hold a memory for weeks after the holidays, but to remember exactly where everything needs to go next year.

Decorations could tie in with a tradition of holiday foods. Perhaps it’s appropriate to prepare a special dish that’ll complement a table display. Share others’ recipes and stories from the Homemade Memories Cookbook at www.mealsandcompanionship.com.

If your parents need extra help to make the holidays special, Home Instead CAREGivers are easily available to make the holidays more enjoyable for loved ones. Call 617.557.4600 to learn more.

Home Care Boston providing elderly services in Cambridge, Boston, and Somerville. Call us at 617.557.4600.

Family caregivers and senior-care professionals can benefit from the Home for the Holidays webinar, which will help educate families about the warning signs that a senior loved one might need help at home.  Register for this free webinar on Nov. 15 or Dec. 5.

With the holidays just around the corner, many families will be hitting the road with loved ones. Or, perhaps, preparing older adults in their lives for a plane trip to be with family. To help ensure that your trip doesn’t turn into a National Lampoon’s Vacation movie script, consider the following tips:

• First, a family traveling with Dad will want to ask his family doctor about any special precautions that need to be taken for holiday travel plans.

• Plan a schedule. When does Dad take his medications? Is Mom on a restricted diet? How often do parents need bathroom breaks?

• Make sure Mom doesn’t forget to pack her medications. If flying, check out requirements for packing medications.

• Consider where they will be headed. Help a loved one pack for the weather conditions. Remember that seniors can easily become chilled.

• Plan for access to plenty of fluids to avoid seniors becoming dehydrated.

If a family caregiver isn’t close by, a Home Instead CAREGiver can help a senior prepare for a trip by assisting with packing, medication reminders and household chores. To help support your efforts, we offer a variety of resources for senior-care professionals. To learn more about how we can help you, contact us at 617.557.4600.

Home Care Boston providing elderly services in Cambridge, Boston, and Somerville. Call us at 617.557.4600.

Elderly faces nutritional health challenges when living alone. If you are planning to visit your elderly loved one during the holiday season this year, Home Instead Senior Care will help you determine if your loved one is facing a health challenge. When you first arrive to your elderly mom’s house and, once again, the fridge is empty and your mother is eating toast for dinner. “Why cook,” she asks, “when I’m all alone?” Or, perhaps, Dad has quit eating altogether since Mom – the gourmet cook in the family – died last year.

When family caregivers live away from elderly relatives, we know how difficult it can be to ensure older adults are eating properly. After all, seniors often face multiple challenges. Much can stand in the way of good nutrition and maintaining elderly health.

For instance, illnesses and diseases can dampen taste buds. Seniors on multiple medications or recovering from an illness may lose interest in eating. The conditions of aging sometimes make shopping and preparing food difficult. And then there’s loneliness. All of these issues can mean your mom or dad could fail to thrive like they should.

Two of five seniors who live alone (44 percent) have at least four warning signs of poor nutritional health such as eating alone, taking multiple medications and having an illness, according to research conducted for the Home Instead Senior Care.

“Nutrition is certainly a key factor to an individual’s overall health and well-being,” said Sandy Markwood, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging (n4a). “If someone is at risk, their health is impacted. When you see the warning signs, it’s indicative of a larger risk. Combine that with loneliness and you’re looking at increased mental and physical health risks.”

Read the warning indicators that a senior could be in trouble: Warning Indicators.

Home Care Boston providing elderly services in Cambridge, Boston, and Somerville. Call us at 617.557.4600.

Home Care Boston providing elderly services in Cambridge, Boston, and Somerville. Call us at 617.557.4600.

A common concern for families and siblings are denial and refusal to discuss the fact that aging parents may need more help at home. Caring for aging parents can put siblings at odds.

Denying elder care planning is common within families, nearly half (46 percent) of people surveyed who expect to eventually be caring for an elderly loved one had not taken any action to plan for this care. This survery was produced in a Harris Interactive® poll conducted for the Home Instead Senior Care® network.  In addition, 70 percent had not spoken with the parent or relative they anticipate needing to care for about what their wishes might be, while 76 percent had not discussed the issue of caring for elderly relatives with other family members.

Denial or sweeping elder care concerns under the carpet is a prevailing emotion and action when it comes to the care of senior loved ones. But refusing to address the issue won’t prevent the unexpected from happening. That’s why it’s important to talk with your parents and siblings as soon as possible and plan for the future.

The first step of letting go denial is to ask your relatives what they would want to do if the time comes for them to need special care in their lives. Ask specific questions such as: “If you fell and were injured, where would you want to go to rehabilitate?” If the answer is “home,” which is where most seniors prefer to be, then look into the types of services that can help your loved ones remain where they live. Discuss whether your parents would benefit from these services now. Many home health care companies are available in communities of all sizes to provide medical caregivers at home.

Oftentimes, a Home Instead Senior caregiver also is well-equipped to help seniors at home. For example, Home Instead Senior Care now has more than 900 offices throughout the world. A Home Instead CAREGiverSM is trained to assist elderly individuals by providing companionship and medication reminders, and help with meal preparation, light housekeeping, errands and shopping.

Check out these tips about communicating with family members. And go to www.4070talk.com and www.solvingfamilyconflict.com to learn more.

We all have aging relatives in our family. It is important to plan for their safety. Even if the elderly family member is capable of caring for self, you can never be too cautious. The Home Instead Senior Care® network’s Senior Emergency Kit can help ensure that family caregivers like you have fast and easy access to important information about loved ones in case of an emergency call. This toolkit will provide you with all the important information you need in a centrally located file so you are ready for a crisis, day or night. The toolkit materials are available for download here.

Here are other tips to help prepare for emergencies and to keep your senior family member safe.

• Create a communications center – this consists of important information that is needed during an emergency, such as medications, phone numbers of family members and the names of doctors. These lists should be kept near a phone or posted to the side of the refrigerator.

• Create a safety system – this could simply be a scheduled phone call to check on the individual. It could also be an installed monitoring system.

• Make sure to enforce fire prevention – do this by checking outlets, using timers and whistling tea kettles and discouraging the use of any candles.

• General household safety – install non-slip rugs, nightlights, extra lighting to increase visibility and telephones that have large buttons and light up in a dark room.

• Make sure emergency items are available, including medical cards, first-aid kits, and extra batteries, anything that would be needed in an emergency situation.

Source: Life123.com

Home Care Boston providing elderly services in Cambridge, Boston, and Somerville. Call us at 617.557.4600.

Summer heat can play havoc on aging bodies, especially on days when the temperature and humidity rises. It is important to take steps to make sure that older adults remain safe. U.S. Department of Labor – Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) warns us that when the body is unable to cool itself by sweating, several heat-induced illnesses such as heat stress or heat exhaustion and the more severe heat stroke can occur, and can result in death.

Family members and the elderly need to prepare thoroughly before spending time outdoors during the summer heat. You need to make sure safety precautions are taken for the aging senior’s care during these blistering hot summer months. Heat can affect health, and exposure to extreme heat. Help your aging loved one be safe, healthy and comfortable. Here is useful information from the U.S. Department of Labor listing facts about heat exhaustion and how to protect yourself and the elderly.

Symptoms of Heat Exhaustion

• Headaches, dizziness, lightheadedness or fainting.
• Weakness and moist skin.
• Mood changes such as irritability or confusion.
• Upset stomach or vomiting.

Symptoms of Heat Stroke

• Dry, hot skin with no sweating.
• Mental confusion or losing consciousness.
• Seizures or convulsions.

What to Do for Heat-Related Illness

Call 911 (or local emergency number) at once.
While waiting for help to arrive:

• Move the worker to a cool, shaded area.
• Loosen or remove heavy clothing.
• Provide cool drinking water.
• Fan and mist the person with water.”

For more information:

U.S. Department of Labor
Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
http://www.osha.gov
(800) 321-OSHA

Home Care Boston providing elderly services in Cambridge, Boston, and Somerville. Call us at 617.557.4600.