Great Places Toolkit

This site provides comprehensive information about senior housing options, medical equipment, and care choices.

Great Places includes:

• in-depth information on properties and care facilities, including price range, care information and other amenities
• video interviews with residents for personal stories about the community and available services
• latest news about medical innovations and senior living, plus tips for children of aging parents in our newsletter and blog
• resources to help you talk to your parents about housing options, insurance choices, and legal matters in our Toolkit.

http://www.greatplacesinc.com/toolkit/default.aspx

The Economic Crisis: How Fare Older Americans?

This article, which introduces the Generations issue titled "The Great Recession: Implications for an Aging America," summarizes the implications of the current economic downturn for older Americans and those who serve older Americans. It outlines the economic, psychosocial, and political shocks, and identifies the resulting opportunities for policy and program enhancements.

To view the table of contents for the entire issue, click here.

http://www.generationsjournal.org/generations/gen33-3/toc.cfm

Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk: Aiding Elderly Drivers.

In the first installment of "Good Morning America's" series on tackling tough topics with aging parents called "Mom and Dad, We Need To Talk," "GMA" family and life contributor Lee Woodruff looks at the complicated issue of elder driving.

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Aging/mom-dad-talk-elderly-driving-aiding-aging-parents/story?id=9668508

Connecting and Giving

Connecting and Giving: A Report on How Mid-life and Older Americans Spend Their Time, Make Connections and Build Communities was recently published by AARP Knowledge Management.

Key findings of the August 2009 telephone survey revealed that:
The nature of civic engagement is changing, becoming more personal and more secular.

• Mid-life and older Americans are less likely to join organizations.
• Although membership in religious organizations remains a relatively popular activity, involvement in these organizations has declined.
• While the rate of traditional volunteering (i.e., volunteering through or for an organization) has held steady, the amount of time volunteers spend in service has declined as volunteering becomes more episodic.

Read the full report for more information on volunteerism and older adults: http://assets.aarp.org/rgcenter/general/connecting_giving.pdf

HeartHub

HeartHub is the American Heart Association's online portal for information, tools and resources about cardiovascular disease and stroke.

The site contains a wealth of information on risks and treatment options. The site is divided into warning signs, information on sugar, healthy recipes, risk assessments, quizzes, and information in a variety of languages.

http://www.hearthub.org/

Internet Use Among Midlife and Older Adults

This document reports on an AARP telephone survey of midlife and older adults's internet use in the following areas: where they use the internet; how they use it; length of time; how they learn to use it; and levels of interest in learning how to use it. 

 

http://assets.aarp.org/rgcenter/general/bulletin_internet_09.pdf

Seeing Old Age as a Never-Ending Adventure

This article from the New York Times reports on people, who well into their senior years, have embarked on incredible adventures.

At the Grand Circle Corporation, for example, a Boston-based company that specializes in older travelers, adventure tours have gone from 16 percent of passenger volume in 2001 to 50 percent for advance bookings this year, even as the average traveler’s age has risen to 68 from 62.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/08/us/08aging.html

Caring for a Depressed Elderly Parent

Depression is a common among the elderly, and caring for a depressed elderly parent can be difficult for family members.

This 17 minute podcast from Families for Depression Awareness is designed to inform caregivers how depression affects families and how to ease the burden of caregiving.

The podcast can be downloaded on iTunes or at:
http://familyaware.org/podcasts/Families Podcast

Comfort Zone

Comfort Zone uses the Internet and a device to track the location of a person with Alzheimer's. The system allows users to set-up safety zones in a Web application and receive alerts

Comfort Zone includes a location-based mapping service, or LBS . This term refers to a wide range of services that provide information about a person's (or object's) location. If you've ever used a GPS device in your car for turn-by-turn driving directions or tracked a package online, you've used LBS.

Examples of how LBS works:

• A person with Alzheimer's wears or carries a locator device (such as a pager or wrist-worn device) or mounts one in his or her car.
• As the person travels around town or the country, the device receives signals from satellites or nearby cell towers. The device can then approximate the person's location by measuring the distance between the device and the cell towers or satellite signals.
• The device communicates with the Comfort Zone Web application.
• Family members access information about the person's location by using the Internet or calling the monitoring center.

Families can also decide on the level of monitoring needed, such as verifying location from a computer; receiving alerts when the person has traveled in or out of a zone; or just emergency assistance if there is a wandering incident.

http://www.alz.org/comfortzone/

New Books on Caregiving

No Act of Love Is Ever Wasted: The Spirituality of Caring for Persons with Dementia. Published in 2009 by Upper Room.  ISBN-10: 0835899950

This book addresses the spiritual needs created by the toll that Alzheimer s disease and other dementing illnesses take. The authors examine that the spiritual options of dealing with all those affected by dementia, as well as the perspective that caregiving is an extension of spiritual life.  Biblically grounded, the book offers practical suggestions, as well as personal stories of those affected by Alzheimer's and other dementias. their book will bring comfort and hope to all those caring for loved ones with dementia.

Stages of Senior Care: Your Step-by-Step Guide to Making the Best Decisions. Published in 2009 by McGraw Hill. ISBN-10: 0071621091

Using their experience running a successful international company providing in-home, non-medical services for seniors, husband-and-wife founders of Home Instead Senior Care offer a helpful guide for families choosing among home care-giving and other assisted-living options for aging or ailing parents. The Hogans believe in helping seniors stay in their homes as long as possible, and knowledge is their most powerful tool in securing that goal; this well-researched volume is packed with information, advice and resources aimed at managing and ameliorating the sadness, confusion, guilt and anxiety of making quality-of-life decisions for a loved one.