Have you ever seen a job posting like this?

WANTED: Caring person willing to work as necessary, from a few minutes a day to 40+ hours per week. Duties may include: meal preparation, medication management, housekeeping, transportation, financial tasks, and/or assistance with bathing, dressing and toileting.

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When children, work and household duties cease to be the center of your world, it’s time to focus on you and decide what brings you joy. For some people, jet-setting around the world and participating in leisurely activities is what would thrill them. However, others find happiness doing something they consider meaningful that fulfills their self-purpose. Their next step needs to make a positive impact on others. 

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Planning a day out/in with your grandparents can be a vigorous exercise in creative thinking: What do you do? Where should you go? What do you talk about? Thankfully, my grandma and I had very similar tastes, such as window shopping and watching “The Nanny.” However, if you don’t have shared interests or actually know much about your grandparents, besides grandma bakes cookies and grandpa listens to baseball games on the radio, then you are going to have a difficult time. The added pressures of birthdays and getting them a gift is even more stressful. You can’t make macaroni art presents if you are an adult. Trust me.

So, what’s a grandkid to do? I have made the following list of fun activities to do with your grandparents with somethingeveryone will enjoy.

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By Emily Lord, executive director, HealthCare Ready

The Louisiana floods in August of 2016 destroyed more than 60,000 homes and forced more than 15,000 people into shelters at the height of the disaster. These floods were not caused by a massive hurricane like Katrina in 2005 but by tons and tons of rain. No one expected rain to cause the damage on the scale it did. It is a powerful lesson that we need to always be prepared to protect ourselves and those we care for, especially the elderly who are more vulnerable than most because of limited mobility and additional health care needs.

While disaster preparedness sounds overwhelming and yet another thing to add to your to-do list, there are easy, low cost ways to protect the health of your family or those to whom you provide care. There are many organizations that provide preparedness training and toolkits, including the American Red Cross and the CDC, but they don’t always include health care preparedness. Here are a few key things to think about when planning.

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We have a widespread idea in our culture that receiving a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease is akin to the end of life itself. When it comes to something like early-onset Alzheimer’s, occurring in people typically in their 40s-60s, the pessimistic view about living with dementia is even stronger.

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By Deborah Bier, PhD, director of special populations

Hoarding is a complex, difficult to solve situation. It requires a deep understanding of the situation, the underlying causes and how to create workable solutions that include all stakeholders. No two cases of hoarding are the same. In fact, there are several conditions that include hoarding behavior as a symptom.These include: 

• Schizophrenia
• Diogenese syndrome
• Isolated syllogomania
• Obsessive compulsive disorder
• Various types of dementia

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Home should be a place of comfort and safety. As time passes, however, we can become a little too comfortable in those familiar surroundings to recognize emerging safety concerns. For this reason, living safely at home can turn into a challenge for older adults. 

With increasing age, vision and hearing become less acute, balance is less steady and reaction time slows. Household and personal tasks that were once easy and safe to complete can turn into difficult and dangerous activities.

Make Necessary Repairs

Make it a priority to look around your loved one's home for potential safety hazards. Take time to check that all appliances, electrical devices and outlets are in good working order. If necessary, make repairs and replacements. It's important to personally assess the situation. Your loved one may be reluctant to bring any household problems to your attention due to concerns about costs, maintaining personal independence or simply not wanting to make extra work for you. 

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Late spring and early summer mark the beginning of vacations for many people. However, while you are relaxing poolside, fraudsters are working hard to snatch your money. Here are four scams to beware during these vacationing months.

Phishing for a Plane Ticket

Have you ever received an email to confirm a purchase you made online? The same principle applies, except you never reserved a flight. Con artists create realistic email confirmations with an airline’s logo, PDF attachments, and links claiming to take you to the airline’s help desk or home page. You may be inclined to select one of the links or attachments to try to figure out this obvious error. However, once the link or attachment is clicked, malware infiltrates your computer and can gather personal or financial information. If you are concerned about a suspicious email, directly contact your airline. Delta Air Lines, for example, has a page on their website dedicated to combating phishing emails.

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According to the Alzheimer’s Association, by the end of life, 1 in 3 elders will have some form of dementia. Despite the large number of people affected, there are still many misunderstandings and myths about dementia. Knowing more can help us better understand and care for those who live with dementia. This article will address five of the most common myths.

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Some apps in the online stores can waste time, money and memory space on your gadget. This series scours the internet and finds the handiest apps that are not a passing fad. The following group of apps has been tested here in our home office.

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