The Kenwood of Lakeview is hosting an event on July 24th called: "Building Better Bones".It is for ages 50+. It is an Osteoporosis Education Seminar and FREE BONE DENSITY SCREENING!!!! This free event begins at 10:00 a.m. on Thursday July 24th. The event starts with a 45 minute presentation on building better bones and then a FREE bone density screening with instant results and health recommendations.The Kenwood will also be providing a free buffet lunch and tours.Counsel for Jewish Elderly - Senior Life is co-sponsoring the event.There is a maximum attendance of 35 people. All must RSVP to 773-508-1073 to register.Address: 3121 N. Sheridan Road, Chicago IL 60657

Investigators in the College of Nursing at Rush University Medical Center are looking for family caregivers for a new research study.  This study will test the effectiveness of an 18-month multi-component health promotion intervention with family caregivers for persons with Alzheimer’s disease. 

Study participants will engage in six interviews and twenty intervention contacts.  All contacts will be arranged at the caregiver's convenience and conducted in their home or by telephone.  No visits to Rush University Medical Center are required for this study. 

If you know of caregivers who might be interested in this study, please have them contact Dr. Caryn Etkin at 312-942-5242.

Study staff will conduct a brief screening interview to see if they meet eligibility criteria, and if eligible, will set up a baseline interview in their home. 

At least as far as I am concerned. This woman stole over $300,000 from a senior. She took advantage of a nice old lady with dementia.And she only got fired from her job at the bank? Why is she not in jail?Here is a link to the latest, apparently the bank has agreed to pay the senior back after it the potential PR nightmare that the Sun Times Cover caused this morning.I know the news is depressing, but this is downright sick. Is anyone else as upset about this as I am?

A nursing blog contacted me to let me know they had this post and I thought I would share it because I think it is helpful.  50 tips for caregivers.

I am not sure if you can link the article so I have copied it below.  It was written by Jane Zhang for the Wall Street Journal and I thought it was worth noting.

We're here to help.

U.S. Preps Nursing-Home Rating System

Move for More Data 
To Appear on Web; 
Sprinklers Required

By JANE ZHANG
June 19, 2008; Page D2

WASHINGTON -- In an effort to improve care at thenation's 16,000 nursing homes, the Bush administration will startrating facilities based on a five-star system and require all of themto install fire sprinklers.

The rating system, expected to be available on aMedicare Web site by the end of the year, will give each nursing homefrom one to five stars based on government inspection results, staffingdata and quality measures. It may also include information such aswhether a nursing home provides care to patients with dementia or thoseon ventilators.

"The fact a home has a lower rating will likely putthem on a path to improvement," said Kerry Weems, acting administratorat the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal agencythat manages Medicare, the health-insurance program for the elderly anddisabled, and Medicaid, the health program for the poor.

About 1.5 million Americans live in nursing homes andeach year, more than three million end up in nursing homes at leasttemporarily, and the numbers are expected to rise as the baby-boomgeneration ages. About 22% of 5.3 million people 85 years old and olderhad a nursing-home stay in 2006.

The federal and state governments are the largestthird-party payer for nursing-home care. Medicare alone spent $21billion on nursing homes in 2007, up from $17.6 billion in 2005.

For seniorsand their families, it is often difficult to get enough information --the staffing level, the number of patients with bed sores, violationsand other data that shed light on the quality of care -- before theychoose a nursing home. Despite government oversight, some nursing homesrepeatedly violate regulations, and lawmakers and patient advocateshave been raising questions about care at some investor-owned nursinghomes.

This year, Medicare listed some of the most troublednursing homes in its public database, which already has someinformation on staffing and quality measures. Many consumers havecomplained that the information isn't easy to understand, and statessuch as Wisconsin and California have established their own databasesto evaluate nursing homes.

Sen. Charles Grassley (R., Iowa), and Sen. Herb Kohl(D., Wis.), have introduced legislation to allow consumers to lodgecomplaints about nursing-home neglect. The lawmakers welcomedMedicare's move, but stressed that to make a difference, the MedicareWeb site will have to be easy for consumers to use.

Mr. Weems said the agency is aiming for easy use, andis accepting public comments in July and August on the site and itscontents.

Mr. Weems said that requiring all nursing homes to install sprinklers by 2013 is also an important step toward safety.

Only new nursing homes and those under renovationcurrently are required to have sprinklers. The Medicare agency said 80%of nursing homes now have sprinklers. Renovation costs to meet the newsprinkler requirement are expected to total $846.7 million over fiveyears, the agency said. The lack of sprinklers has been blamed for 31deaths in nursing-home fires in Hartford, Conn., and Nashville, Tenn.

In March 2005, Medicare required all nursing homeswithout sprinklers to have battery-operated smoke alarms in patientrooms and public areas.

Larry Minnix, president and chief executive ofAmerican Association of Homes and Services for the Aging, a tradegroup, said the new rating system must be based on "reliable, validatedinformation for the public to trust not only nursing homes but therating system itself." He said the public oversight, as part of thesystem, will be most controversial, because it is subjective,inconsistent and not timely, among other things.

Toby S. Edelman, senior policy attorney with theCenter for Medicare Advocacy, an advocacy group, said two of the threecriteria that CMS plans to include "are self-reported by nursingfacilities and are inaccurate."

"Too often, nursing facilities report that residentsare doing much better than they really are and that they have morestaff than they really have," he said. "Relying on nursing homes todescribe accurately how well they are doing -- and reporting thatinformation as fact -- just doesn't make sense."

Just like the Amber Alert - but for missing seniors...helping law enforcement officers find seniors who have maybe wandered away from home.  In effect in some states from my understanding, but I also just found this information online:

(Washington DC) At least 70 members of the United States Congress support a bill that would fund a Silver Alert system to help people suffering from Alzheimer's Disease and other dementia-related illnesses.  According to Congresswoman Candice Miller of Michigan, over five million Americans are known to have either Alzheimer's or dementia.  She says 60-percent of patients with those issues will wander off at some point during their illness.

Congresswoman Miller hopes to see this legislation passed through the House and the Senate and eventually be signed by the president.  Then, she says, each approved state will receive at least 100-thousand dollars toward establishing or improving an alert system.

Congresswoman Candice Miller says it's great we are having longevity, but there are challenges that come with it.

Last week I got a call from my sister.  Her mother in law is searching for a place for her father to live.  They called me for my help because this is what I do all day here in Chicago.  The only catch was this was in North Carolina...

I of course agreed to help right away, and while it took me about 1/10 of the time it would have taken her to make all those calls herself, I am still surprised how hard it is to find senior living.

First of all, I don't think the consumer knows what to ask for. 

In this case, the dad is currently doing a respite stay in Long Island at a senior community there.  He is considering coming back to North Carolina as his other daughter is re-locating there as well.  The family kept telling me they were looking for "assisted living" but when I asked more questions about where he was living now I realized he was living in what we in the industry would consider "independent living".  So if she started calling all of the places in NC that offer "assisted living" she would not be getting her dad that same thing he is living in and enjoying in Long Island.

So I started my search with this in mind and was surprised how hard it is to find all the options in a given area.  If the company does not have a presence on the web and you are searching from out of town, you may never find half of the places.

I made some calls.  Luckily, I know exactly what questions to ask to save time.  Half of the places I called had someone available to answer my questions and give me pricing.  The other half I had to leave messages with.  Of that half only two people returned my calls.  Its been 6 days now and I don't imagine I will hear from the ones I had left message for if I have not at this point.  I emailed a couple of places and did not get a single email response back.

Interesting.

So how do you know if you are finding the best place if you can't even connect with some places?

I guess this lesson only validated how valuable the service my company provides to families looking for senior living in Chicagoland.  And since its free, the price can't be beat!

Needless to say, I finally talked to one place that I think will be an excellent fit.  The location is great.  The size is great.  The reputation of the company is great.  The price is well within the budget and this independent living home also offers assisted living should the need arise later on.

Of course, after doing all of this research, I was informed that dad and the other sister have "changed their mind" for now.  I just want everyone to know that this is not UNCOMMON.  However, the work has been done and now I have a wonderful excuse to go back down to North Carolina to visit my new niece.  I can tour some of the communities down there and see how they compare.  And when the family is finally ready or a crisis occurs, we will be ready to make and educated decision very quickly.

Sometimes I think your body just gets so used to constant stress, that you don't even realize how stressed out you are. I personally just sold my condo for sale by owner, just bought a new condo, went through the nightmare of a mortgage application. I also run a business and just got married. Yet, for some reason when I start breaking out I can't believe that I could actually be stressed out. I almost need someone else to point out to me everything I have been through in the past few months to admit that I might be a little stressed...I have also been thinking about this a lot lately because I just heard the story of a family member who is caring for his wife with Alzheimer's.He has been her primary caregiver for years. They finally got her to go to day care which has provided some respite but not enough. He has lost lots of weight. He is very emotional. He is not thinking or acting rationally. He has many family members telling him its past time to put his wife in assisted living. He still thinks she is not ready.Yet, if he doesn't start taking care of himself, what could happen? Maybe he won't get to decide what or who takes care of her if he doesn't start thinking about himself and taking care of himself.assisted living is not always the solution for everyone. But in this case, they can afford it and they have researched their options. Its time.But maybe its time for him to do a self assessment in regards to the stress he is under. When its constantly building every day for this many years, I don't think you realize how stressed out you are because you have almost built you tolerance for it.Perhaps I will suggest he take this quiz on the AARP website.

So last week the American Academy of Neurology had their annual conference here in Chicago.  There have been tons of articles since then so here is one more - I picked this one because :

A. I have the power to increase my intake of Vitamin E
B. I have no way to change the size of my brain

So at least I feel more in control then when they tell me I need to eat fish (yuck!)

April 15, 2008
Recommend <https://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/health/896387,brain041608.article#none>

BY MONIFA THOMAS Health Reporter

The size of a certain part of your brain might protect you from memory loss associated with Alzheimer's disease. And regular high doses of Vitamin E appear to help people with Alzheimer's live longer and slow the progression of the disease.

Those are the key findings of two new studies presented in Chicago Tuesday at the American Academy of Neurology's annual conference.

Autopsies have shown that some people die with perfect memories and sharp minds, even though their brain cells are riddled with abnormal lumps of protein that are the hallmark of Alzheimer's disease.

To figure out why, researchers compared the brains of 23 people with Alzheimer's disease to those of 12 people who had the same amount of protein plaques in their brains but did not develop dementia.

The only noticeable difference was in the hippocampus - the part of the brain that controls the formation of new memories. It was 20 percent larger in the non-impaired group, said Dr. Deniz Erten-Lyons, the study's lead author.

"This larger hippocampus may protect these people from the effects of Alzheimer's disease-related brain changes," said Erten-Lyons, an assistant professor of neurology at Oregon Health and Science University.

In other research, Vitamin E was shown to increase the survival time of people with Alzheimer's. The study is the latest to suggest that a diet rich in Vitamin E - an antioxidant found in vegetable oils, nuts and leafy, green vegetables - can slow the disease's progress.

Scientists tracked 847 people with Alzheimer's for an average of five years. They found that people who took high doses of Vitamin E twice a day - doses much higher than what's recommended for the general population - were 26 percent less likely to die than those who didn't take Vitamin E, according to lead researcher Valory Pavlik of Baylor College of Medicine's Alzheimer's disease center.

As if we needed another reason... I recently read an article in the Chicago Sun Times that said :"Ranjan Duara, MD, of Mount Sinai Medical Center’s Wein Center forAlzheimer’s Disease in Miami Beach, Florida, led a team of researcherswho say its possible to delay the onset of the disease by as long asfive years, if people would reduce or eliminate heavy smoking anddrinking habits. Research suggests a five-year delay in the onset ofAlzheimer’s would reduce the total Alzheimer’s population by almosthalf."You can read the entire article here: Smoke More, Drink More, Get Alzheimer's Sooner

This week I read in my AARP magazine that Florida state Rep. Rick Kriseman, (D) has proposed a bill that would include a $1 surcharge on clients of adult strip clubs and the state would use the revenue to increase monthly Medicaid personal needs allowances.  Currently in Florida its $35 a month and they are hoping to increase that to $70 a month.  Here in Illinois, I believe a nursing home resident on Medicaid only gets a $30 a month allowance (and supportive living residents on Medicaid get a $90 allowance.)  That gives the resident about $1 a day to spend as they wish.  So the ongoing debate has always been how to increase this allowance to be much more livable. 

I had never heard of such a tax before and as I researched it online I read about how they had a $5 "pole tax" in Texas but a Judge declared it unconstitutional 3 months after it went into effect.  (This tax was not for Medicaid it was for anti-sexual-assault programs and healthcare for the uninsured.

Not sure how this is all going to turn out.  Maybe they should consider an additional $1 tax on some of the things that might put someone in a nursing home (like cigarettes?)  But since I can't think of any ideas I guess that is why I am not a politician.  I do hope that Medicaid payments can be increased for nursing home residents by all states (its state run, not federal) so we will have to keep watching the news to see what happens.

We all know today is Earth Day which is great.  We all need to do what we can to save this earth for the future.  Luckily Earth Day has some marketing behind it and its kind of the "in" thing to do lately - go green. 

But I missed telling you about another important day - maybe because there is not as much marketing and hype behind it - and maybe because its scary - but it is what we need to do to "protect" what we really want in the future.

April 19 was National Healthcare Decisions Day.  Just because we missed the day, doesn't mean we can't do something about our future - just like I would hope that you would recycle 365 days a year, not just earth day!

For more information and free forms and free advice and help!!!  visit National Healthcare Decision Day's website.

Are you a caregiver with a story? Well all of you have a story, but do you want to share it with others so they know they are not alone? A friend of mine just started an awesome new website called Caregiverlist.com which will become an incredible national resource for all things caregiving.. in the meantime they are looking for real stories and real pictures, so if you want to share, please click through here to the real caregiver stories part of their site and spill!

Are assisted living communities Government Regulated?While there are federal laws that impact assisted living, the primary oversight of assisted living occurs at the state level. Each of the 50 states and DC regulate assisted living to some degree, but there is a great variation among them.Even in the most highly regulated states, the people developing the standards try not to create a product that is overwhelmed by rules and regulations. Because then you would have a nursing home, and assisted living was conceived as an alternative to the institutional feel of many nursing homes.It is up to the consumer to do their research and ask the hard questions to make sure that the assisted living facility that they are considering will be able to provide the care they need for their loved one now and into the future.For additional information and a state by state listing you can download the Assisted Living State Regulatory Review 2006 published by the National Center for Assisted Living.https://www.ncal.org/about/2006_reg_review.pdf

The American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging (AAHSA) contacted me regarding their consumer guide that they thought some of my readers may be interested in.

Unlike other resources, the guide features a comprehensive list of questions that address various elements of quality, like staff training, resident/client involvement and governance. There are also follow-up questions people can consider after they’ve visited an organization.

They think what’s best about the guide is that it helps people boil down a lot of information to ask themselves the most important question: “Can I trust this organization and the work they do for older people?”

I like it because its "deeper" than most checklists that you can download off the internet.  Not that there is anything wrong with the checklists, I just have not seen some of the questions in this guide on these checklists and I think they are important, especially the follow up questions.

The guide can be found at https://www.aahsa.org/qualityfirst/assessment/documents/consumers_guide.pdf.

Senior Lifestyles runs a few of the properties that my company works with including the Breakers of Edgewater Beach and the Autumn Green properties.  So when I saw this article about a new young CEO I thought I would share...

Full article from Crains here.

I wish I had heard about this sooner, as it is on tonight. If you miss it, hopefully it will repeat as it sounds very interesting. Here is a little bit about it from their website:The first 90-minutes of Caring for Your Parents underscorestoday's struggle to keep parents at home, tensions between siblings,and the complexity of shifting caregiver roles through an intimate lookat five American families. In the end, the documentary contendssuccessful caregiving requires one primary ingredient‒love.Immediatelyafter the 90-minute broadcast, medical correspondent Dr. Art Uleneleads "A Conversation About Caring." This half-hour panel discussionoffers concrete advice and guidance on how to start theconversation‒often the most difficult step in caregiving.If you click on the link above, it will take you to their site where you can learn more and also check local listings for times!

Having a large gut in midlife increases the chance of dementia in old age, according to new research published Wednesday (March 26th) that suggests that abdominal fat is a bigger risk factor than family history.

For those of you who didn't already know...this "body type" has already been linked to higher risk of developing diabetes, stroke and heart disease.

Guess we need to get to the gym and watch what we eat - and now we have even more reasons too!

The complete article can be viewed at:
https://www.courant.com/news/nationworld/hc-belly0327.artmar27,0,4172715.story

Recently I was contacted by Fraser Sherman who is writing a book about managing a parent's finances when they're no longer able to do so.  As part of his research he is looking to include case studies from people who've had hands-on experience managing their parent's money, whether it went well or poorly.

If you would like to share your story, please contact Fraser via email at bogatyr5@aol.com

• As many as 5.2 million people in the United States are living with Alzheimer’s.

• 10 million baby boomers will develop Alzheimer's in their lifetime.

• Every 71 seconds, someone develops Alzheimer’s.

• Alzheimer's is the seventh-leading cause of death.

• The direct and indirect costs of Alzheimer's and other dementias to Medicare, Medicaid and businesses amount to more than $148 billion each year.

These are just a few of the facts in the Alzheimer's Associations newest report, 2008 Alzheimer’s Disease Facts and Figures. You can click on that link to go to the page on their site where you can download the report in PDF format. The report is a comprehensive statistical abstract of U.S. data on Alzheimer’s disease that includes:

• prevalence 
• mortality
• the costs of Alzheimer care
• family caregiving
• a special report on lifetime risk