|
How Adult Day Care can help you maintain your sanity while caring for your loved one with Alzheimer’s Disease
By: William G. Hammond, JD
Adult Day Care provides comfort, support, care, companionship and counseling for elderly or Alzheimer’s patients who require supervision during daytime hours. It offers patients the opportunity to socialize and to receive health and social services in a stimulating and supportive environment.
When you have chosen your Day Care, make sure that their license is current and do not hesitate to ask questions. Among others,
- Ask to see results of their state inspections and if there were any deficiencies, ask if they have been corrected.
- Observe if the patients are involved in activities.
- Does the staff encourage the participants to be as independent as possible?
- Ask about the staff to client ratio. For Alzheimer’s patients, the ratio should be at least one staff member for every eight patients.
- Meet the director and the staff.
- Is there a lot of staff turnover?
- What are the emergency procedures?
- Do they serve meals and how are they prepared? Do they offer food for patients of special dietary needs?
- Is there a secure outdoor area sufficient for walking and spending time outside? It can be vital for an Alzheimer’s patient to spend time outdoors in order to have a good quality of life.
- What are the hours of operation?
- How do they handle participants who wander?
- How often must the participant attend and for how long?
- How involved can I be as a family member?
Find out what the requirements for admission are. These may include a health history and a physical may be necessary with a current (within the last year) TB test or chest x-ray. Take time to sit with the director or staff and go through all the processes prior to attending the day care.
Of course, taking care of a loved one with Alzeimer’s can be very stressful and you may find yourself tired. Sometimes you need time away from your loved one to rejuvenate yourself. This will require making arrangements, which is where Adult Day Care comes in. This time off will allow you to invest some of your energy in your other relationships, to rest and recharge your physical and emotional batteries in order to maintain sanity and quality care for your loved one. Do the things you used to do before your loved one became ill. Have fun and enjoy yourself.
Your loved one will be in good hands and will get involved with other persons with Alzheimer's. They will be given the care they deserve and will enjoy a facility that caters to their needs and interests. You will find that your loved one looks forward to the day care to have fun, make friends (to the extent they are able), and will return home at the end of the day more relaxed.
Adult Day care may also help ease the way if one day you have to put your loved one in a nursing home. Some daycare centers are affiliated with nursing homes. The combination sometimes makes the transition into nursing home care much easier.
So, take time for yourself. You deserve it, and your loved one will notice your changes as well
|
About The Author
William G. Hammond, JD is a nationally known elder law attorney and founder of The Alzheimer’s Resource Center. He is a frequent guest on radio and television and has developed innovative solutions to guide families who have a loved one suffering from Alzheimer’s. For more information you can visit his website at www.BeatAlzheimers.com.
support@Alzheimers-Resource-Center.com
|
This article was posted on September 26, 2004
Return to Index
email this
page
Still haven't found what you are
looking for?
Try this search:
Free Email
List Reveals health,
fitness and wellness
tips - secrets and information - delivered directly to
your inbox
How to Benefit from the Mind-Body Connection
(excerpt)
You are about to gain insight into the
mind-body connection. The number of
people who truly understand these principles on our
planet are relatively few.
There is an undeniable connection between our minds and
bodies, you can learn
to use this fact to your benefit.
Dr. Bernie Siegel, author of "Love, Medicine and
Miracles" was once a
distraught cancer surgeon until he
began to understand the greater principles
of the mind-
body connection. He felt dragged down by the artificial
barriers
that existed between patient and doctor, and the
helplessness he often felt as
a result of his inability
to effectively serve those patients. Eventually, those
barriers
were disintegrated by Dr. Siegel's recognition
and growing understanding of the
mind-body connection and
how it could serve his patients and himself.
Dr. Siegel, or Bernie as he began to have his patients
refer to him, had some
startling realizations as a cancer surgeon. He found that
there were actually
quite a few people in the world that successfully beat
the statistics on cancer
survival. He began to recognize that a patient's ability
to defeat something as
serious as cancer had to do with the patient's mind and
attitude about their
disease.
If you would like to see the rest of
this article, please go here:
http://www.tobeinformed.com/repository/mind-body.html
copyright 2004 - David Snape
|