In Home Caregiver

Tips for Distance Caregiving: Up Close and Personal at a Distance
If you think being a caregiver to an older loved one is hard–with all the trips to help them...
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February 4, 2020
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Caregivers and their Medicare?
Yes, you read it right. I am posting this one about what caregivers should know about their Medicare. But...
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September 12, 2013
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It is sadly ironic that it was former president Ronald Reagan who designated November as National Alzheimer’s Awareness Month in 1983. Reagan’s efforts and his own personal experience with Alzheimer’s disease did much to bring this mysterious and stealthy condition to the nation’s attention. But it did nothing compared to the attention that the nearly 6 million Americans today who have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and the 16+ million caregivers who support them lend. The number with diagnosed Alzheimer’s is expected to double in the next ten years, and experts are concerned that there may not be enough family caregivers to meet the needs. Everybody knows someone whose family knows Alzheimer’s. The number of assisted living centers as well as new types of facilities is increasing, but there also has been a revolution in the on-line resources available to families confronted with the challenges Alzheimer’s brings. Here are four that I recommend to meet needs from early stage diagnosis through to the rest of the trajectory families will face:
1. The Alzheimer’s Association offers a searchable “library” called the Green-Field Virtual Library. It offers searchable content and e-books on a range of topics from the range or neurological conditions of which Alzheimer’s is one to caregiving patient health.
2. The Alzheimer’s Association also hosts a number of independent sites with their own searchable, relevant content: Caregiving Fundamentals, Clinical Trials, Alzheimer’s Research and Alzheimer’s Stages.
3. The Alzheimer’s Association recognizes that the burning question for every caregiving family centers on finding a cure. We are not there yet, but for those of you who follow my blog, you know that a lot is being done to advance the effort toward an Alzheimer’s Cure.
4. On a more local and global front a group based originally at Northwestern University has created a digital platform for caregivers called June Care. June Care is a digital care platform that empowers families to support their relatives diagnosed with Alzheimer's. The June Care team has built an online therapeutics program made to manage and change behaviors around caregiving. June Care is partnered with the Alzheimer's Prevention Registry and is actively enrolling caregivers in Illinois — Ideal participants are full-time family caregivers who care for persons with dementia and are looking for support. Because these are pilot studies, there is no cost to participants.
So, while there is not yet a cure, there is both hope and help. Please feel free to search our Blog as well as the other resources we work to make available to families who have been thrust into the caregiver role to a loved one with any form of dementia. Also, please let me know your questions at info@creativecaremanagement.com. Charlotte Bishop is an Aging Life Care Advisor, Geriatric Care Manager and founder of Creative Care Management, certified professionals who are geriatric advocates, resources, counselors and friends to older adults and their families in metropolitan Chicago. She also is the co-author of How Do I Know You? A Caregiver’s Lifesaver for Dealing with Dementia.
I have had the good fortune to connect with Julian Hills, a content writer and blogger for a great website and resource, Drugwatch.com. When I asked about the latest on diabetes and treatment, she offered these things to consider when it comes to elder care at home.

Diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States. Controlling the disease can save lives, but it’s also important for caregivers to know that controlling it can also come with its own set of consequences. Diabetes occurs in people who have high blood sugar because their body cannot move sugar into fat, liver and muscle to be stored for energy. The pancreas either does not make enough insulin or cells do not respond to insulin.

There are two common forms of the disease. The first, called type 1 diabetes, can be diagnosed in people of any age. The cause is unknown. These people need daily injections of insulin. The second, type 2 diabetes, is becoming more prevalent in the United States due to high obesity rates. Teens and young adults are now among many of the people developing type 2 diabetes. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that more than 8 percent of Americans have diabetes. Controlling diabetes is important because if untreated the disease can cause heart disease, stroke, hypertension, blindness and kidney disease. With nearly 26 million estimated cases in this country alone, an entire drug industry has blossomed, and caregivers need to be aware of the complications that have arisen from this group of drugs. While many of the medications on the market have helped patients control their condition, there are also a number of complications being reported.

As more and more people depend on these drugs, more and more lawsuits associated with their usage are arising. Here are some examples of conditions associated with these drugs:
- • Actos helps patients with type 2 diabetes by making their cells more sensitive to Insulin. But studies show extended use of the drug has been linked to an increased risk of bladder cancer. Patients taking Actos need to watch for painful or bloody urination, and unusually severe back pain.
- • Byetta is an injectable drug for type 2 patients. The drug controls blood sugar, but has been linked to damage of the pancreas, kidneys and thyroid. These complications can be fatal.
- • Januvia works in tandem with other type 2 diabetes medications to increase their effectiveness. It’s not for type 1 patients. Pancreatic cancer and pancreatitis are closely associated with the drug. In 2011, the Food and Drug Administration received nearly 200 reports of acute and chronic pancreatitis linked to the drug.
- • Victoza is another drug aimed at fighting type 2 diabetes. It has been linked to thyroid tumors, as well as pancreatitis and kidney failure.
Not all patients will suffer from these complications, but drugs may not be the only option. Adopting a healthier lifestyle may help people depend less on medication and avoid the potentially dangerous effects of these medications. Caregivers need to remember that helping people with the condition develop better diet and exercise habits is a great way to control the effects of type 2 diabetes.

SOURCES: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002194/
http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/pubs/factsheet11.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/pubs/pdf/ndfs_2011.pdf

Julian Hills is a content writer and blogger for Drugwatch. His journalism career has taken him from newspapers to local television news stations and even a 24-hour cable network in the Southeast. Julian is a graduate of Florida State University.

Charlotte Bishop is a Geriatric Care Manager and founder of Creative Care Management, certified professionals who are geriatric advocates, resources, counselors and friends to older adults and their families who need help with elder care at home in metropolitan Chicago. Please email your questions to info@creativecaremanagement.com.
At the point in life when one of the family steps up to be a caregiver to an aging parent, all the "children" have already grown and flown the nest. But as siblings begin to communicate and delegate to help mom or dad, there can be a lot of the same sibling issues that may have been there when everyone was a lot younger and lived under the same roof. The result can be inequity in the duties expected of each of the siblings and a lot of stress for everyone. But it does not have to be that way if the family can set up some rules for communicating and sharing the caregiving load. Here are some useful "Do's" and "Don'ts":
Charlotte Bishop is a Geriatric Care Manager and founder of Creative Case Management, certified professionals who are geriatric advocates, resources, counselors and friends to older adults and their families in metropolitan Chicago. Please email your questions to ccbishop@creativecasemanagement.com. Visit our For The Caregiver page for more information and resources.
It is November, and for most of us that means gearing up for the holidays, family and memorable events. The first two are true of almost everyone, but the third one - memorable - can be a huge challenge to caregivers and patients with Alzheimer's Disease. Caregivers to a loved one whose mental faculties are declining from Alzheimer's Disease can face a lot of challenges, not the least among them the guilt that can come from hosting a holiday get together when things just cannot be the way they used to be. Here are some tips for caregivers to a loved one with Alzheimer's or any of the dementias that may affect memory:
1. Take care of the caregiver: The person whose needs most often are at the bottom of the list is the caregiver to an AD patient. Do something for you, and it will make it easier to do all those other things for all those other people.
2. Be realistic: We all tend to have a notion about what the "holiday is supposed to be." That may not be feasible when a loved one has Alzheimer's, so work within the capabilities and the comfort zones of all concerned.
3. Include everyone in the plan: If you talk over plans for the holiday with all the family, it can help all to enjoy the event. Everyone will have had a say in what happens and expectations will be better met.
4. Avoid over-doing the alcohol: There is a great deal of loneliness in being a caregiver to a loved one in decline, so avoid the inclination to self-medicate. If you as a caregiver already feel melancholy, alcohol will only fuel the depression.
5. Let visitors know: If visiting family does not know exactly what to expect from a loved one with AD, they probably will not act appropriately. Help them to understand about talking and living in the moment.
6. Let your loved one know: For patients with early onset AD, there can be moments of lucidity as well as confusion. Help them to also be in the moment and not lapse into the sadness or even the angry outbursts that can come from AD's confusion.
7. Manage the environment: AD can be confusing enough without exacerbating the challenge with a noisy environment. Helping your loved one to engage people in quieter surroundings can help everyone communicate better.
As you navigate through the holidays, appreciate that they may not be as they once were before the intrusion of Alzheimer's, but you are making new memories for you and the rest of the family. With attention to some of these tips, you will find that the new experiences will help everyone's holidays to be their own new memories to cherish. Charlotte Bishop is a Geriatric Care Manager and founder of Creative Care Management, certified professionals who are geriatric advocates, resources, counselors and friends to older adults and their families in metropolitan Chicago. Please email your questions to info@creativecaremanagement.com.
Most of you probably know that Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia among younger and older Americans. One in three Americans dies with either Alzheimer's or some other form of dementia. Scientists make a distinction between what they call late-onset and early-onset Alzheimer's Disease. Very simply, early-onset is a disease that manifests itself among patients younger than 65 years old, and late-onset is among those who are 65 plus. As a geriatric care management professional, you can imagine that I commonly am involved with families who are addressing this frightening condition in a loved one. If you are a caregiver to an older adult or other loved one who has developed Alzheimer's, you are very familiar with short term memory loss as well as confusion, language difficulty or other cognitive issues. But there have been some recent possible breakthroughs in Alzheimer's research, particularly late-onset Alzheimer's. What makes this potentially more exciting is that the specific Alzheimer's manifestation where this research has relevance. It is for the common non-familial kind of Alzheimer's Disease, the one that has seemed so unpredictable. In research published in the journal Nature, scientists at Columbia University seem to have narrowed down the late onset Alzheimer's to two genetic pathways. They then compared the genetic pathways among study subjects who had not manifested Alzheimer's and they did not have these pathways. They found in other subjects that these two pathways were associated with the development of what is called amyloid plaque. And that those without these particular genes did not have the amyloid tissue. While this research is all very preliminary, the good news is that when scientists find these "pathways" are tied to the onset of a disease, they can then begin to research what they can do to therapeutically modify the pathways – in effect, turning off the gene expression. It is going to take a lot more research and testing, but it offers a much awaited bit of good news for the more than 5 million Americans and their caregivers who are living with this disease. For more information on the disease, we have links to the Alzheimer's Association on our geriatric care management Support Tools Tab. Charlotte Bishop is a Geriatric Care Manager and founder of Creative Care Management, certified professionals who are geriatric advocates, resources, counselors and friends to older adults and their families in metropolitan Chicago. Please email your questions to ccbishop@creativecasemanagement.com.

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