Caregiving for elderly loved ones carries some inherent understandings of how day-to-day activity is managed. For the most part, decisions and choices that affect the life of the elder needs to remain in her/his hands. For the most part… so what are the exceptions?

Based on our six-month experience, these are some guidelines that make sense:

Decisions about simple things like what the elder is going to wear are left up to her/him… except… except when she wants to put on a long flowing skirt that now comes to the floor and would likely get entangled in her legs and cause her to fall. Mother was still mobile the first three or four months

Senior Citizens Find Money Saving Moves It seems that seniors are always on the lookout for ways to save money. That is likely because most of us live on a fixed income that is based on a Social Security check and -for some- a pension. We don’t like to dip into our investments, if we [...]

Toxic chemicals have no place in the homes of senior citizens. We rely on public information to tell us when a product has ingredients that are harmful. And sometimes that information is clouded by special interests of companies that want us to buy their products in spite of the poison in them. So we have to perform due diligence and find the best information available before we decide what to purchase.

Following are some resources SCJ found that other seniors might find helpful:

Triclosan: This chemical has long been found in cosmetics and soap used on the body (including shampoo). The Suzuki Foundation has labeled it toxic for years. Triclosan has been in the news

Someone recently said to me, “I do not want to die with any regrets.” My life-long statement to self has been, “I want to be proud of what I do and say.” This was certainly true of the six months we spent caregiving. Did I live up to that totally? No. Did I get close? Yes. I learned that, because there is life after caregiving, I needed to conduct myself so I would not end up with regrets.

By far the most difficult situations we encountered caregiving for my mother-in-law centered around her safety. Momma never got her fair share of common sense and good judgment in life. Health care professionals, particularly in rehab after she broke her hip for the third time, consistently identified her lack of judgment as a major problem in her rehabilitation. So we came to her last days still trying to manage her safety in the face of her poor judgment.

One of the benefits of being a senior citizen these days is the joy of admitting we have a lot yet to learn. We don’t have to prove ourselves any longer. We can just be ourselves, open to learning whatever new behaviors and insights happen to come along our way.

Such is the case with our most recent caregiving experience. It was actually the first time we had taken on the responsibility of care for another human being. I had always insisted I wasn’t a nurse and didn’t want to be one. But when faced with the choice of caring for my 93 year old mother-in-law in our home, I didn’t hesitate. She had been a loving and caring person all her life; it was time for that love and care to be returned to her in her last days.

The Nature of Research I remember when I was attacking the long and tedious process of research and writing for my doctoral dissertation. I mostly remember the pain and agony of attention to detail. But I also remember my advisers telling me that what I studied had to be transparent, and it had to be [...]

Discarding  Medications Safely Senior citizens are met with the need to discard medications safely for a variety of reasons. Sometimes we need to throw out leftover meds because we no longer take them and/or they have expired. Or we may need to toss them because they no longer are doing the job, and between us [...]

Every time a new concept surfaces on the national scene, there is a flurry of articles about it on the Internet. Some of what is written is obviously biased toward one political camp or another. Such is the case with the chained CPI. We thought trying to take a look at it as objectively as possible might be helpful.

First, the chained CPI is part of President Obama’s 2014 budget plan as it relates to Social Security.

Second, a number of government programs (like Social Security) calculate benefits based on the rate of inflation. Inflation is a measure of changes in the cost of living, which typically increases to one degree or another annually. There are different formula used for calculating changes in the cost of

Jerry has been writing the past couple of weeks about death and dying, loss of loved ones and the importance of family and friends when one is in grief. His mother, Hazel, died Thursday, April 11, 2013. She lived in our home these past six months, with Jerry and Sharon being the primary caregivers. Hospice accepted Hazel in to their tender and competent care in late October, 2012.

More than a year ago, Hazel requested that we take her into our home when we knew death was approaching. She wanted to be cared for by Hospice and us, and she wanted to die in our home. Our agreement was an easy one because we participated in caring for Sharon’s mother 30 years ago, and

Look for the Obvious Over-medication issues are common in the lives of our elderly loved ones. They happen more often in nursing homes, but they can still happen with elders living at home and/or being cared for by a caregiver.// The most important issue for seniors concerned about over-medication issues is to look for the [...]