activities for seniors: September 2019

Home Archives for September 2019

False-Hope Alzheimer’s Disease Drugs

Karl

As of August 1, 2018, the French national insurance system no longer reimburses the costs of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) drugs.

Instead, the funds saved from this decision will be used to provide care services for AD patients.

The French decision aligns with Public Citizen’s Health Research Group’s conclusion that all of the currently approved AD drugs offer very minimal symptomatic benefits for only some patients and do not alter the underlying disease.

As a result, we have long classified these drugs as Do Not Use.

Worst Pills Best Pills.

Alzheimer’s disease and drugs used to treat it

AD is a brain disorder that slowly destroys memory; cognitive skills; the ability to perform activities of daily living (including dressing and bathing); and the ability to recognize familiar objects, people and places. It affects nearly 6 million Americans, most of whom are elderly.
In addition to being a leading cause of disability and poor health, the disease is the sixth-leading cause of overall deaths and is the fifth-leading cause of death among people aged 65 or older in the U.S.

Because AD progresses silently for years, significant structural brain damage often exists by the time clinical symptoms appear. This makes it challenging for scientists to develop effective treatments for the disease.

Four drugs have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat AD.
However, these drugs are symptomatic therapies: They neither cure the disease nor stop its progression.

Three of these drugs, known as acetylcholinesterase inhibitors, initially were approved by the FDA from 1996 to 2001 for mild-to-moderate dementia of the Alzheimer’s type:
donepezil (ARICEPT), galantamine (RAZADYNE) and rivastigmine (EXELON).
Donepezil also is now approved for severe AD. These drugs increase the level of acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter that is low in the brains of affected individuals, with the assumption that this might improve the symptoms of AD-associated dementia.

The fourth drug, memantine (NAMENDA), was approved by the FDA in 2003 for the treatment of moderate-to-severe dementia of the Alzheimer’s type.

It works by blocking a receptor called the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor, which is postulated to improve the symptoms of AD.

Scant, questionable benefits

The approval of these four AD drugs brought genuine hope. However, the benefit of these drugs is limited to small improvements in cognitive function and activities of daily living. For example, a 2006 meta-analysis (analysis of data from multiple clinical trials) estimated that treatment with an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor, compared with a placebo, results in a 2.4-point improvement on a 70-point cognition scale in patients with mild-to-moderate stages of the disease.

A 2018 meta-analysis of studies on donepezil linked the drug to only about a three-point improvement in cognitive function on a 70-point scale.

Notably, this meta-analysis showed that the costs of health care use were similar between patients who received donepezil and those who received a placebo. A 2015 meta-analysis of studies on rivastigmine found similar minimal benefits and pointed out the uncertain clinical importance of these effects.

A meta-analysis of studies on memantine in patients with moderate-to-severe AD also showed that the drug had meager benefits:

a three-point improvement in cognitive function (on a 100-point scale), a one-point improvement in activities of daily living (on a 54-point scale) and a three-point improvement in behavior (on a 144-point scale).

Given that these drugs do not alter the underlying course of the disease, it is unclear how these very small increases in the number of points scored on cognitive or functional exams translate to improving the lives of AD patients in the real world.

Adverse effects and interactions with other drugs

Although earlier data suggested an acceptable safety profile for AD drugs, data that documented their numerous, sometimes fatal, adverse effects emerged over time.

As early as 2003, a meta-analysis showed that for every 12 patients treated with a cholinesterase inhibitor, one patient would benefit by achieving minimal improvement or better and another patient would experience adverse effects.

The most serious adverse effects of cholinesterase inhibitors are slow heart rate, heart block and syncope (sudden loss of consciousness).

Common adverse events of these drugs are nausea, diarrhea and vomiting. Loss of appetite and weight loss also occur with the use of these drugs.

The most common adverse effects of memantine include dizziness, headache, confusion and constipation.

Inflammation of the pancreas and kidney failure also have been reported with use of this drug.

Importantly, use of AD drugs exposes patients to the risk of dangerous interactions with numerous drugs including beta blockers, antipsychotic drugs (including chlorpromazine [generic only]) and anticholinergic drugs (such as oxybutynin [DITROPAN XL, GELNIQUE, OXYTROL, OXYTROL FOR WOMEN]).

What You Can Do

If you (or a loved one) has Alzheimer’s disease, avoid use of the four aforementioned drugs because their benefits do not outweigh their risks. Instead, as the French are now doing, use social and behavioral approaches for adapting to the limitations of the disease and improving quality of life.

Image by Pexels from Pixabay

121+ Fun Group activities for adults that doesn't focus on just drinking

Karl

People have this concept that if you stop drinking you will be missing out on the fun! Truth is, if you don't drink you will be able to remember the fun.

Base on my observations group activities that focus more on sitting, talking or eating quite often is accompanied with drinking. Therefore, to avoid drinking a lot chose group activities that involves less standing, sitting and that are not focus on food too.

You should know that doing something that’s really active makes it difficult for you to want to drink. An active activity will keep the conversation going while replacing the need to drink since all that energy is being used for the task.

If you must drink, drink responsibly.

I have tried a lot of these activities listed here both indoors and outdoors and some have been quite hilarious and others didn’t meet my expectations. Don’t get me wrong, am quite the adventurous type too! I will equally highlight a few of my favorites too. Here is my to-do-list of group activities that doesn't focus on just drinking.

Note: Most of these activities are very fun, simple, and cheap and requires no experience to engage in.

Fun Group activities for adults that doesn't focus on just drinking

Go to concerts of any kind and See live music.
Join a hobby session together (example swing dance, or horse riding).
Go to a family-friendly arcade (less booze around kids).
Take Walk to a nature park, lodge, Water parks etc.
Rent bicycles together and ride around the country side.
Form a book club.
Buy one of those super intricate adult board games beyond the classic ones and have a game night.
Theater show.
Rent a boat and go sailing on the sea, or lake, or whatever your group decides.
Go Rock Climbing (one thing to keep in mind, have an expert to drill you all the safety tips).
Dining out (or if you are so fun of your buddies you all can decide to take turns may be at the end of each month whose house is going to host for dinner.)
Pool party ( alcohol is optional).
Lego party (you can ask your friends to bring their Lego sets).
Get a huge white sheet and a mini-projector and find a good spot near you to have a mini cinema night.
Go Bible study with a couple of your religious friends.
Booking a private Karaoke room.
Go play corn hole, friends and family will have a freaky blast.
Hiking, if you have a good trail in mind then you all will be blast.
Escape room game trying to solve an escape room may live you hyperventilating with excitement.
Go to a local co-op farms or orchard and pick your own vegetables or fruits.
Go karting (one of my favorite preferably near you).
Ice skating.
Camping as a group.
Take a college class together, even if you all suck at painting.
Visit an Amusement park on a weekend preferably since you may be busy during the week.
Mini Golf, It is cheap, there may be probably one near and it’s also very competitive.
Explore new neighborhoods.
Kick ball on the beach (rubber balls are cheap).
Hide and seek in the dark (fun if you have creative places to hide, bathroom cupboards are my favorite).
Kayaking (you can experiment between oceans and river kayaking).
Visit museums and Art galleries.
Visit a video arcade.
Dance classes (social and keeps you fit).
Trips to the beach.
Going Caving and it is free in most areas.
Playing soccer.
Make your own game together.
Make your own stories together.
Hang out and watch a series.
Make a fort, for everyone loves pillow forts.
Coloring nights (Your group may love coloring).
Go take a walk in a graveyard. Bonus points if you do it at night.
Start a workout or walking or running club.
Volunteering at a local animal shelter. Everyone likes to play with puppies or kittens
Go out for coffee, espresso and tea at a great cafe.
Play VR arcade games and hey! They even support co-op.
Join a sport league for it gonna help you all stay fit.
Have a Political debate. If you got an odd circle of friends, chances are, you and your crew may necessarily agree on a lot of things, but not all, and the differences may lead to some fairly fierce arguments.
Going scavenger hunt.
Geocaching, lots of cache to trace using your GPS or a mobile app like C:Geo.
Dog party: everyone brings their dogs, and plays with them.
Going swimming in a lake.
Tubing (preferably something near).
Top Golf (if there is one near you).
Playing Street ball.

25 Fun games to play with friends indoors

Some of these games may be complicated at first but with time you and if you find the right people, your all will catch the intended fun playing these games. Most of them will be tempting to play when drinking but I know you made up your mind not to drink. In fact playing games with friends are very fun, immersing, cooperative, and kills time.

Play ludo (the one I played up to four people can play at a time.
The resistance game is similar to werewolf or mafia just that players are not eliminated between rounds.
Play Rattles d20
Board games (Some good board games beyond the classics: Tokaido, Forbidden Desert, Betrayal at the House on the Hill, Camel Up, Dead of Winter, Space Alert, Settlers of Catan, Dominion, Bang, Cash, monopoly, Guns and Settlers of Catan are just a few of my favorite board games to play because they are so easy and anybody can play).
Carcassonne (You will need to pay a few dollars for full expansion)
Laser tag
Cards against Humanity
Escape room
Multiplayer games like Nintendo 64.
Betrayal at House on the Hill (A semi-random horror board game)
Munchkin (a card game)
Cards against Humanity
Play Codename
Play Telestrations for this one is so hilarious!
Pictionary
The T-Shirt Game
Dungeons and dragons (and a great way to stretch muscles).
Pokémon Go.
Playing Chess
Playing Smash.
Playing Pathfinder
League of Legends (You may forget yourself playing this game alone! so much fun but once you a have couple of friends over who know how to have fun with this game then you all are just going to have a blast.)
Play Jackbox Games (like Drawful, Fibbage, and Quiplash)
Play Fluxx
Play Fiasco! All it takes is the book and sufficient dice (4/person) in your group.

13 Fun indoor group activities for adults

If you are more of the indoor type, here are few of my favorite, fun and cheap activities to do indoors;

Cooking night, Look up simple recipes that only need a few cheap ingredients and cooking it together.
Pick out random foods that you have around the house, and do a chopped style cooking competition.
Telestrations (this how this game is played, your friends should all have a pad of paper to writes down a creative statement and hand over the pad to another person, the person then reads and draws a picture of what it written and also passes the pad to the next person who then have to guess what has been written based on the picture drawn.
Card games random examples are war, rat slap and crazy eights.
Get together and watching TV during movie nights, and constantly recommend TV shows and animes to each other.
Telephone Pictionary.
Sock wrestling or sock off (after all the wrestle, last person with still socks on wins).
Cleaning and doing laundry together ease the work on one person.
Drawception (quite similar to telestrations but it is more of a picture or drawing game were sheets are folded to conceal the pictures inside and pass around to the next person were the folded sheets are unfolded and the pictures interpreted.
Dice games random examples are beetle, yahtzee and farkle.
Indoor bowling (will require some extra space indoors).
Russian Submarine (get a group of friends into a studio, cover the windows and under cracks of your door with blankets then unscrew all light bulbs and replace with a predominant single red bulb. have some bread or pickles and water with you and then wait it out for the first person who get bored and opens the door.
Going Treasure hunt.

29 Fun Outdoors group activities for adults

If you are an outdoorsy person, you will find some of these activities listed here to be fun and hilarious, your only problem should be to find the right people to join you. Here some fun things you can do with your friends:

Jet skiing in a local lake.
Disc Golf, is an amazing sport, lots of fresh air and significantly cheaper than its ball counterpart, most courses are free and the discs are inexpensive! Find a course near you.
Setup an outdoor movie night.
Go on Road trips together, preferably around the countryside and chat aimlessly. Works best at night for if you live urban areas, the traffic is going to be busy.
Swimming.
Go-cart racing.
Ultimate Frisbee. So hilarious!
Going Picnic in the park, never underestimate sitting under a big tree and eating some treats.
Going to Flea Markets
Visit Zoos and aquariums
Go to conventions together.
Go thrift store or junk store shopping, it great to out useful thing in a bin of unsorted items.
Bonfires.
Hire some mountain bikes near you, pick a route, and go and explore.
Movie marathons.
Hiking and camping, doesn’t need to be strenuous, just take basic supplies and a simple jaunt in the woods counts, and its super fun exploring.
Go Fishing
Paint balling.
Going kayaking.
Going to Yard Sales.
Get a fire pit.
Arcades.
Trying new restaurants.
Biking or skating.
Sports games.
Grilling.
Museums and galleries.
Geocaching is a great cheap thing to do; you don’t need an expensive GPS for just your Smartphone and some gas money will be enough for you can go search for cache. Some of these caches are difficult to find but you can simplify that with the help of a Google map. Groundspeak owns geocaching.com, and it is the website that has the most listed caches, by far. If you're android I would recommend you download C:Geo.
Playing Letterboxing. It is quite similar to Geocaching, except it different for it is much of a glorified scavenger hunt.

What group activity did I miss? Let me know how you have fun with your friends.

41 Easy Activities for Elderly with Macular Degeneration and Dementia

Karl

Seniors are known to sit and stay lazy all day especially those diagnose with dementia and other age related disease like macular degeneration.

Gradually going blind is traumatic enough for us younger folks, I certainly understand how much more so for elderly ones, especially if they don't have access to or ability to use technology devices available now a days that give visually impaired/blind ones the ability to function in life more easily.

Even with low vision, the senior can therefore; there is a need for seniors to engage in activities

The elderly need to engage elderly in touch, sound, taste, aroma and movement type activities to all gently stimulate the brain to help the individual to relax.

Remember, there isn’t a cure that can return already loss sight, but exercise is known to help prevent age related blindness and macular degeneration is common among the elderly.

Seniors can’t do the exercise and activities the young do but there are easy and simple activities to keep them engage and active and they don’t need to only rely on their eyes to do them.

If you need something your love can do without them relying much on their eyes" This may be the answer.

41 Easy Activities for elderly with macular degeneration and dementia

1. Make or buy a fidget blanket! A fidget blanket has many different sensory items ...easy to just sit on a lap and then it keeps fingers busy. As the dementia progressed you will find often times that they are very restless. Many times simply giving the senior something like this will give their fingers something to work on and keep them settled. Your love one will sit for hours and zip and unzip and play with the beads.

2. Buy a kids xylophone so the senior can PLAY music and record it back.

3. Get a recorder and lessons for 30 minutes 3X a week.

4. Buy an inexpensive keyboard and get lessons for 30 minutes a week so the senior can learn to play it!

5. When holidays are around the corner, learning holiday songs would be excellent focus!

6. Get clay or take the senior to a pottery class.

7. Get a kit that the senior could make potholders and the senior can donate to the assisted living centers, preschools, kindergartens, etc. if they want or keep them... My house looks like a pre-school classroom! Think small toddler activities!

8. Smelling kitchen spices and talking about memories they trigger.

9. If they senior has a favorite scent, Put in scented shower products or a candle the seniors loves and ask their opinion on the scent.

10. Play guessing games on what they can smell e.g. lavender, mint, basil, even basic things like coffee, chocolate, cheese, list is endless! Senses are still there for most people especially their smelling sense.

11. Bubble wrap popping elderly people loves to pop the bubbles.

12. Folding laundry, Small task like this works the memory.

13. Massage, Hand lotion and hand massages Feet massages Nail polish.

14. Give the senior a baby doll to snuggle with.

15. Get a large piece puzzle that have large pieces (2×2) and bright colors. For example child jig saws 12 big pieces.

16. Checkers or dominoes, checkers or draughts is a board game with black and white counters and dominoes are small rectangular pieces with dots on and you have to match up the dots if you Google the rules it will explain how to play.

17. Magna-Tiles are awesome. They are larger building tiles (great for people with limit dexterity/ impaired vision) and click together magnetically so there is no precise lining up. They connect easily and pull apart easily. And the build options are endless. Just need creativity.

18. Fidget cube, they are literally what it says is a cube with a bunch of different things on it for fidgeting.

19. Tea and scones, something English people in particular eat with a cup of tea you can have savory ones or ones with currants in and eat with cream and jam. They’re yummy!

20. Get an echo for the senior if they are into comedies and biographies, sit and discuss the comedies and books. Just normal talking and ask their opinions, even if they are odd sometimes, share a hobby can break this uncomfortable time.

21. Air dry clay can be bought at most crafting stores, but just the manipulation of it with the hands might be appealing.

22. Untying knots in shoe laces.

23. Put Large Lego’s together, the senior can build whatever they wants and will keep them busy.

24. Get a tape recorder or something similar to that and ask the senior to record their history so that future generations will know their story.

25. Get a large prints coloring books with large illustrations, nothing intricate. Preferably seasonal ones so the senior is aware of the time of year.

26. Get oversized playing cards that the senior can plays with.

27. Does the senior like animals? Depending on where you live, you can often visit or accept dog visit for the senior to interact with them. That would be tactile.

28. Play dough slime, good to massage and mess with and good with limited sight.

29. Take walks in the park.

30. Sit outside and enjoy the fresh air.

31. Talking about the old days, reminiscence.

32. Anything to do with shapes or textures such as sorting items or sensory mats/cushions. They are amazing.

33. Watch a quiz channel on the TV.

34. Paint birdhouses and other wooden items.

35. Make memory boards and picture books.

36. Visits the senior’s favorite places.

37. Sing along with sing the senior.

38. Visit family and invite family and friends to visit too.

39. Music the person enjoys - created a collection for the senior with music from the 30 and 40, especially Mozart for it activates all the brain waves that no other music activates slowing the progression of dementia. Any music from their younger days...Watch "Alive Inside" video to see what an impact it has on people who are not engaged in anyway, but who come "alive" when hearing music they know and loved.

40. Audio books, you can get them at libraries, there are various sources for audio books, some free, some not so free.

41. Tell joke if you can, the elderly love it.

Common Indicators of Macular degeneration

Early in this disease you will not witness symptoms but as time gradually passes you will witness disruptions in with your vision. Here are just a few first early indicators for you to suspect Macular degeneration.

Distorted vision morphed look on people.
Having dark spot in your central vision at certain times. For example the house seems darker in the daytime when you haven’t turned a light on and after you turn the light off at night you have a blind spot where your central vision should be for awhile.
Blurry and double vision.
Light sensitivity! Like not being able to adjust to darkness when lights are turn off.
Wavy lines and grey spots on the Amsler grid.
Seeing Bent and broken lines are indications that something is wrong.
Drusen on eye exam

How to Make Life Easier and Safer for seniors with Low Vision

Basically keep the floor free of clutter.
Lots of bright lights so the blind person can see things.
Colored toilet seat so he can see where to aim.
Make sure that there are no throw rugs or cords that the senior can trip on.
Get lots of Audio books the person can listen too. You can get them at the library.
Get a Magna sight (sp) machine that helped the person to continue to read books even though legally blind with macular degeneration.
If the person isn't reading and has varifol glasses change them to just distance vision. Reading isn't needed anymore.

17 Tips for communicating with visually impaired people

When people lose one sense, the other senses get heightened. There’s no universal language, special tips or tricks, but some basics are quite efficient.

1. Blinds people can't see signs, if you know the person enough some touches could have intuitive meanings, for example a gentle touch of the shoulder could tell where you are and the side where they should go, so the person could be quite safe even in a rude environment like work.

2. In a crowded room, say the person’s name when talking to a blind person, otherwise they person might not respond.

3. Use more of descriptive words. For example instead of saying "over there" you can say "over on the right side of the house". The more details the better, it's like painting a picture with words....when talking would help. Ohh and sometimes sound effects are cool....

4. Always tell the person if you are exiting the room. The blind hate talking to someone and they walk off. And they realize they’ve been talking to them self. For who knows how long.

5. Don’t assume that your visually impaired friend can see this or that because they saw such and such another time. Every circumstance is different and there are different variables that combined determine how well a person sees something.

6. When leading a visually impaired person, offer your elbow to them rather than grabbing them and pulling/pushing them everywhere. Don’t grab the cane; blind people need that to feel where they are going. Use Left Right; up down instead of it’s over there.... Ask them politely "so they know how to help, what can you see?"

7. Blind people appreciate being talked to like you would anyone else; they don’t like people to assume that they can’t do something.

8. Always ask if they need help instead of just helping without asking first.

9. Offer assistance but don’t insist on doing everything for them.

10. If you meet a blind person for the first time, don’t just grab or touch them, say something to let them know you are nearby and that you are addressing them specifically. If it’s someone you know and you see them somewhere, don’t automatically assume they can recognize your voice.

11. If you’re in a social situation, blind people love talking to people about things that don’t have to do with being blind.

12. If you want to communicate by writing, make your print large or use adaptive software. Most of blind people can either read large print or use adaptive software to read things on computers or phones.

13. When speaking to a virtually impaired person, eye Contact doesn’t work.

14. Do not talk with a high volume and very slowly. Talk normally; Blind people can understand you just fine.

15. Braille is quite similar to steno writing but with less keys, it could became how anyone type one day, on the opposite, signs could somehow blend with our usual culture, Moss VR game is a good example, with time people might be able to understand quite a load of things with some gestural talk.

16. Low and slow is more helpful than loud, which may be more about the person’s perception than you actually being loud. Listen to what the person says and modify the way you talk.

17. If the blind person is a parent, speak in deference to him/her...parents don’t want to be treated like children!

Above all, remember that blindness is a spectrum, most people who are legally blind will still have some degree of usable vision and it can differ greatly from person to person. The most important thing is that the blind are people and want to be treated like you would anyone else.

How to Balance Care giving and Personal Life if you are the Care giver of an adult

Karl

Balancing care giving and personal life is one of those questions caregivers often ask when they are in a frustrated mood.

Taking care of a love one requires your complete attention and it is such a time intensive activity. Making a balance between your personal life and caregiver life may almost seem impossible.

As care givers, you often may feel your life is stolen because you have prioritize your family and forgotten your own self.

Nobody knows about such a journey, what you give up, what you feel inside, and how the years pass by you.

But would you change it?

It depends on a lot of factors:

Relationship,
Emotional closeness,
Attachment to them, and
How selfish you choose to be or how much you can take …

No one can tell you what to do.

At the end of the day it is your decision as a caregiver that you will have to live with right or wrong...

Your feelings are perfectly normal and I think these are real and understandable feelings that many of us wrestle with, especially as the quality of life of your Love one declines.

Many people don’t understand how challenging this journey is unless they are in the trenches themselves.

Honestly, resentment is something many of us have to battle. I would love to have my life back!!!!

Everyone says enjoy the time you have now. But how can you enjoy it when your trapped mostly in your house you can't do anything fun that's spontaneous. The only thing spontaneous is cleaning up after your Love one!

According to Caregiver organisation, many caregivers end up with physical and mental issues themselves and 60% will die before the person they are taking care of!

Ways to balance personal life and caring life if you are the care giver of an adult

1. Seek help from family members

It is understandable. Try to get a weekly sitter so you and your hubs, kids or friends can have time together. At first it will be all about your love one, however, over time you realized that if you are not healthy, then you cannot give your all for your love one.

You have to learn to ask for help where ever you can get it. It’s important to remember, you cannot do this alone. Be kind to yourself. It’s always harder on the caregiver than it is on your love one. You are not alone.

You have to find time for yourself! So do not feel guilty for taking time for yourself. You must enjoy your life, as did your elderly love one!

Try and get as many people involved looking after your love one otherwise you will burn yourself out and may end up with depression and anxiety.

2. Get a good support system

You can talk to your doctor, get more help and more support from support groups. There are support groups for people dealing with a loved one with a brain injury and memory issues or other age related disease. If you cannot find one locally, there should be one or more online.

Your local hospital should have some referrals for you. These groups will help you a lot and with this group of people, you will learn a lot. Also, local senior centers, city hall, might have some resources for you to check.

Also read: 35 Best Caregivers Support Groups You can Find on Social Media Today

3. Get what they call "respite care”

I do agree with others that if there is any way you can take advantage of any respite situations or more regular assistance you should do that without guilt.

But, I also understand those arrangements are much easier said than done. Respite allows you to take your love one to a place for a period of time to give you and the family a break.

This will help you tremendously. Family should understand that this is a temporary new normal.

You should check into respite in your city. Contact a senior’s agency or a hospital social worker and ask them about respite care. They can direct you.

4. Use a Senior Placement Specialist (SPS)

They do not cost the family or loved one anything. The SPS already knows the communities and homes in your area, the ones that are good and the ones that are not.

They will work with your finances to make sure you are taking advantage of every available financial program for your love one.

They will whittle down your choices to the ones that fit your requirements and go on tours with you. People don’t realize these folks exist.

They are essentially paid after the placement (and it has to be successful) by the place YOU choose to put them.

They also have many, many additional resources that can help you accomplish a lot of the other little stuff that a caregiver may not think about.

Check out this Info-graphic below for more ways to balance personal life and care giving if you are taking care of a senior.

Source

8 Reason why balancing your personal life and care giving life may seem impossible

Balancing your personal life and caregiver life depends solely on you and the influence of your demands for example, workplace demands and family demands or the care giving situation you are in. Some of this personal and care giving demands you take into consideration are the major obstacles you have to tackle and they are:

Working shift and hours: Your type of job and working conditions (the number of hours you put in a day/week for work, work shift like day shift or non day shift) will greatly affect your ability to perform your care giving role. Your job stress may have a spillover effect on your family because of the difficulty in creating a balance between work and family.

Occupation: Your occupation plays a big role in your ability or inability to balance your personal life and caring life, you need to take into consideration the flexibility of your job. Different occupations have different flexibility levels for example, lawyers have more job flexibility (though court datelines may sometimes affect them) compare to nurses and bus drivers.

Number of children: People with one child find difficulties balancing child care and elderly care especially if they child is under the age of 6. But when you have more kids, and some are age 9 – 17 then sibling self care arrangement comes in; a situation where the older siblings can help provide some care to the younger ones while you can freely care for the senior citizen.

Household income: Caring for a senior isn’t easy as there is cost and needs you must meet up with and all this expenditure will have a toll on your personal and household income.

Total time you spend out of the house: This factor depends on the quality of care. Most often you may turn to spend most of your time caring. That will makes it difficult for you to spare some time for yourself, thus balancing your personal life and caring seems impossible especially if you are putting more hours at homes caring.

Marital status: Perhaps if you are married and your spouse isn’t employed, your spouse would probably take up most of the caring responsibilities. But if you both are employed then you both will have to share the caring responsibility. But this division of labor will favor the person who works most for most of the caring will be in the hands of the unemployed spouse.

Ease of finding elderly care arrangements: Finding an elderly care arrangement with ease will be very helpful for any disruption in finding a caring community will equally have a toll on your personal life.

Satisfaction with care: Earlier I mention respite care; your judgment of satisfaction from such care may be complex. Do you feel the cost of caring doesn’t reflect the quality of the care received? Do you feel your relation with your love on is deteriorating? Majority of people express dissatisfaction with their caring arrangements and turn to personally take up the task, this can upset your daily activities as well as your personal life.

35 Best Caregivers Support Groups You can Find on Social Media Today

Karl

Social media today is considered as one of the best places to find support as a caregiver.

Back in the days, forums where a big deal, but now social media has taken center stage.

Social media groups have seen a rise over the years and that surge has killed some popular forums you use to know. Good forums still exist, in fact, I have made mention of the best in this article.

Now a days, professionals caregivers from have migrate from forums to social media sites like Facebook groups and Pinterest community’s because their high engagement potentials.

Most people say support groups on social media have been of great support to them as they go about the difficult task of taking care of their love ones.

In this post I have handpicked the best social media caregivers support groups every care giver should join.

I myself I am part of these groups and I can personal testify that this group have help me go through the head aching task of being a caregiver.

But first…

Who is a care giver?

Many people are not familiar with who care givers are and I must say they aren’t many in the world. If you have an elderly love one who is handicap, or who has been diagnose with dementia, and you spent time taking care of their needs like helping them out with their medications or finances, then you are a CAREGIVeR, and be proud because helping others is helping yourself.

How I Came Up with This List

There are tons of caregiver support groups and communities on the different social media platforms I mentioned here, so coming up with these groups and boards was a very difficult task.

I followed some criteria’s before putting up each group and board on my list. I took into consideration:

The number of members and followers on each support group and board (a rough estimate since people are still joining even at this minute as you read this post).
Target audience (in this case inexperience caregivers like you and me).
The value of the content posted on these support groups, boards and communities daily.
Spam-free activities.

Note: Membership and follower-ship numbers aren’t valuable criteria’s to determine how valuable these groups and boards are, what matter is the content quality and if their activities are spam free.

Source

Souirce

Benefits of caregivers support groups and communities

Care givers support communities or groups can be found online and most importantly, some support groups are dedicated to specific health conditions like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson, spousal care giving etc. care giving support groups offer benefits like:

Reduces isolation, loneliness and empowers you.
Care giving support groups can forged friendship, and increases socialization.
Care givers support groups help lessen the burden of handling problems alone.
Great place to meet like-minded people, to ask questions, share ideas or tips and learn new things.
Care givers support group can increase your coping skills.
Care givers support groups accommodate everyone including shy people who only participate at odd hours.

Type: closed

Topics: Children’s Care, Care giving support

How to join a Facebook group

Step 1: Go to facebook.com and log in to your account.

Step 2: Go to the search bar and search the kind of group you want to join.

Step 3: Click the join group button and a dialogue box will appear with questions for you to answer, after you submit this answers wait for the admin to approve your membership. The reason for this dialogue box is because most of these groups are closed.

Step 4: Facebook suggest related group you can join directly, this save you the time of searching other groups.

10 Best Caregivers boards on Pinterest

Few years back, Pinterest was seen more as a social media site but now the site is shifting more to becoming a search engine. But as of now it operates as both a search engine and a social media side.

Pinterest offers lots of great collaborative boards where some of the top bloggers, brands and experts create rich pins on well researched topic that re-directs you to their websites.

To join any of these boards, all you need to do is click on the follow radio button and become a follower so as to receive notifications in your feed.

And if you want to join as a board collaborator, you will have to send a message to the person who created the board.

Quite often on the page of some of these boards you will see rules on how to join the board. You may be told to comment on any of their latest pins to get an invite.

Pinterest pins and board are more captivating and engaging compare to other social media sites.

I will talk more about how to join boards later.