The following information comes directly from HelpGuide.org.

It is difficult caring for an elderly, chronically ill, or disabled family member in addition to living daily life. It is a demanding job and very few, if anyone, are equipped or trained to do it alone. Respite care provides short-term breaks that can relieve stress, restore energy, and promote balance in your life. Even if working with family members is difficult, there are many other respite care options available to support you and your loved one.

Respite care basics

Seeking support and maintaining your own health are key to managing your role as a caregiver. Using respite care before you become exhausted, isolated, or overwhelmed is ideal, but just anticipating regular relief can become a lifesaver.

Respite care can take many forms, but boils down to two basic ideas: sharing the responsibility for caregiving and getting support for yourself. Finding the right balance requires persistence, patience, and preparation.

Planning your relief

Planning starts with analyzing needs, both yours and your loved ones. Assessing your needs for the type, skills, frequency, and location of respite services is critical to ensure you receive appropriate respite. As a caregiver, is support what you need most? Or is it some regular free time? Or maybe help with transportation? Keep track of your daily activities and then make a list of the areas and times when you most need help.

Identifying your loved one’s requirements, abilities, and preferences will also help you find the right match. Are social activities primary? Do they require assistance with walking, eating or medications? Do they need mental stimulation? Or exercise? Answering these questions will help you determine which respite options to pursue.

Learn more about an organization called Helpguide.org started by Robert and Jeanne Segal. It is a non-profit site dedicated to helping the caregiver.

You prepare.

No, neither your social life nor theirs ends with the diagnoses; but you both will need to prepare for the future.

There are many things that we don’t plan for but there are many blessings and growing opportunities that will come out of the road ahead. It will probably be both rewarding and depressing; but planning now is your key to surviving with your sanity intact.

Fair? It all depends on how you approach it: hide, run or…plan.

Ah, my favorite part. Overwhelming. That’s my favorite part! God created us as community beings and that’s how we get through most of the bad stuff in our lives. It makes those good times even better, because we have friends, family…community around us.

With that thought, I would like to remind you of www.alz.org/norcal as one of those resources that will help you plan and lead you to others who are working through the same or similar issues that you both are facing. They have tons of educational programs in your area and in the Placer/Sacramento County areas. Del Oro, http://www.deloro.org, partners with them on many of the educational programs. Seniors First, http://seniorsfirst.org/, also assists with training, referrals, relief and many other resources.

Don’t despair, there really is help. But you have to reach out first.

It has been said that the doctor cannot take care of the patient unless s/he takes care of themselves. The same is true for the caregiver. If you are stressed or sick how do you effectively take care of your charge?

AARP has many resources to help caregiver and suggests the following:

1. Figure out your priorities
2. Take time out from caregiving
3. Ask for help
4. Spend time with other people
5. Find some free outlets for your energy

They have a host of other suggestions and resources that you can find and use at the following web link.

http://www.aarp.org/home-family/caregiving/

Del Oro Caregiver Resource Center is also a great resource and Seniors First has referred many of its clients to them. You may reach them by calling 800-635-0220 or visiting their website at: http://www.deloro.org

The Fall Wine & Brew Fest is a fundraising event that supports the vital senior services and programs provided to Placer County seniors, helping them to remain independent and in their home for as long as possible.

• When:   Saturday, November 2, 2013
• Time:    5:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
• Where: Ridge Golf Club and Events Center, 2002 Golf Gourse Rd., Auburn, CA

Visit the Fall Wine & Brew Fest website for more information.

This thought came to me because of an article I read about money missing from trusts. You can read it too: http://www.mercurynews.com/trust/ci_21031651/fbi-probes-17-million-missing-from-santa-clara

Denny Welch is one of the attorneys I work with and actually, he is the very first one I worked with.  His website for more information is after the article. This is not meant to be technical but to get you to think about end of life issues.  

The trust is just the tip of the iceberg. Equally as important, in my opinion, is the power of attorney for health care, better known as the Advance Healthcare Directive.

My wife has been an oncology nurse for a long time. We’ve been married for a long time, and we talk. I get the image of the family in the hospital corridor when the doctor walks out of the patient room. “Well, folks, there’s nothing else we can do. What do you want us to do?” It’s like the deer being caught in the headlight. Nobody knows what to do, because they’ve never talked about it. Even if they did, no one has the legal authority to make a decision because there’s nothing in writing.

The Advance Healthcare Directive allows you to make a decision today on what you want done if you were that person in the hospital bed. You can make that decision today while you are still in good health and have a clear mind and a clear purpose on what’s best for you.  By making that choice today, you are taking the onus away from your loved ones on what you want done.  Your desires can be as specific as you want.

Most of us feel that “when my time’s up, my time’s up. ” If all the quality of life indicators are gone, and to a medical certainty they aren’t going to come back, then, under those circumstances, “keep me comfortable and keep me pain free, but don’t keep me alive just because science says you can.” But no one would know that, or have the authority to act, if you hadn’t gotten your ducks in a row.
__________
Donald D. Welch  is an Estate Planning Attorney servicing the Northern California region. To find out more about Estate Planning, please visit www.dennywelch.com.

The Fall Wine & Brew Fest is a fundraising event that supports the vital senior services and programs provided to Placer County seniors, helping them to remain independent and in their home for as long as possible.

• WHEN: Saturday November 5, 2011
• TIME: 5:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
• WHERE: Ridge Golf Club and Events Center, 2020 Golf Course Rd, Auburn, CA

Buy tickets online here.

FWBF Flyer 2011

Here a couple of quotes from her work:

“When someone is acting in ways that don’t make sense, we tend to want to carefully explain the situation from our “normal perspective”, calling on his or her sense of appropriateness to achieve more “normal behavior” and compliance. However, dementia-challenged adults are no longer able to access the “boss function” in their brain any longer, so they cannot respond as they did before dementia to discussions, arguments, or customary communication approaches,
no matter how much our reasoning seems like straightforward common sense to us. This simple motto applies well to communication with a person with any form of dementia; “Only tell them what they can handle, and as the dementia progresses, they can handle less and less.”

http://www.dementiawhisperers.com/dementia_whisperers_communication.htm

sited June 23, 2011

“…do not argue with a confused person. Arguing may only escalate and fan the fires of anger, anxiety, paranoia, and fear. If you cannot win the battle, change the war No matter how outlandish the claim or accusation, listen and proceed as though you believe everything the person with dementia is saying. Plan to take action that will give the person with dementia is saying. Plan to take action that will give the person a sense of relief To her, the most frustrating response is for you to argue or try to convince her that the satiation is not real.

Imagine what it would be like if you thought you were being followed home by a strange car one evening, thought you had been receiving odd or threatening phone calls, or thought you saw someone hiding outside your bedroom window. Now imagine that you shared your fears with your family and friends, and that even though you were genuinely scared, they calmly dismissed your anxiety as foolishness. How would this make you feel?”

A Loving Approach to Dementia Care, Making Meaningful connections with the Person Who Has Alzheimer’s Disease or Other Dementia or Memory Loss – Laura Wayman, The John Hopkins University Press, 2011 Pg. 54

Link: http://www.dementiawhisperers.com/index.htm

1. Court ordered on behalf of a person so someone independent can manage funds either up to a certain age or permanently.

2. Guardians, i.e. parents of a special needs person, sets it up so the special needs person can receive public benefits and still have other expenses cared for. Someone else manages the cash to pay for other expenses not covered by public benefits. Public benefits covers food and shelter and the trust can pay for clothing, furniture, car, gasoline, insurance, etc.

If there is a pool of money, the fiduciary must invest it wisely to get a return for the client according to the Uniform Prudent Investors Act in the California Probate Code. Other income must also be managed appropriately.