What The Heck Is A Gerontologist And What Good Are They?

Its a fair question. What exactly makes a Gerontologist any different from other quasi-medical professional?

P.S.  For a short period of time you can get personalized care and coaching from a gerontologist for less than $40 a month!  (This is about a 90% discount).
But its a little complicated.

First sign up for a free membership at http://dementiacaresecrets.com

Second once inside look to the bottom of the page for the words Ultimate Care
and click on the entire paragraph...

Fight or Flight: The Result is The Same

If there is one thing in common for all caregivers it's STRESS! It doesn't seem to matter if you are caring for a parent or spouse or friend; if you are doing it long-distance or you are living in the same house - all caregivers suffer from stress. Call it "worry" , "anxiety", "fear" or any other word, the result is the same.
By result I mean the toll it is taking on your body and on your health. It is proven that long-term stress triggers the HPA response in your body. The HPA response refers to the Hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis. The end result of which is a triggering of the same hormones and neurotransmitters that are released in the "fight or flight" response.
"Fight or Flight" is the bodies emergency response system designed to survive an immediate threat to life and limb. Which is great, except when it does not turn off. The same response system when left on too long starts to eat away at our immune system, thus increasing the chance of catching colds, flu, and other illness. But that is only the beginning. it also starts tearing away at the body so that what helps us in the short term, starts damaging us in the long run, increasing our chances for heart attack, stroke, diabetes, and much more.
Almost every caregiver I ever met, was a caregiver for the first time, on a steep learning curve, and was thrust into the roll unexpectedly. Naturally, it is very stressful: financially, emotionally, and physically. It strains family relationships and disrupts plans and goals.
However, caregivers must remember to take care of themselves. If you are a caregiver you are probably struggling on your own, with little or no help. But if something should happen to you what will happen to your loved one? Do you see why controlling stress is so important. Half of all caregivers pass away before the person they caring for. I don't mean to be an alarmist, but you need to start taking better care of yourself.
How? By taking advantage of all the programs and services that are available for caregivers. Many of them for little or no money. You may be an expert in your field. But I am an expert in this field. If you need to do taxes you go to an accountant, if you go to court you need a lawyer, if you are building a home you go to a contractor. Why would you try to delve into the world of caregiving without guidance?
Do you know how much money you are losing going it alone? First, there are services, products and ideas that you missed because you did not know about them, then there are the cheaper (and sometimes better) alternatives to the things you DO know about, and finally there is the value of all the lost time you spent researching the tasks and services that you did find.
Consider signing up www.EasyCaregiving.com . You may very well be glad you did, and if you learn nothing new or helpful, it cost you nothing to look. In addition, as a Gerontologist, I have website with free membership: SIGN UP Just put your name and email address and get a free stress management recording that can de-stress your day to day frustrations. Later you will get a free ebook on how to handle "sundowning" or wandering, a very dangerous symptom that happens to about 70% of Alzheimer's sufferers.

Stress Is Not Permanent, It Only Feels That Way

take 2 minutes, sit back and let a little tension dissolve:



If you liked that, you can jump over to StopStressCold.com and check out some great articles on anxiety, hypnosis, stress management and more. I know the author, tell him Donahue sent you!

Assisted Living: taking my own advice

A PLACE FOR MOM is a national referral agency. As an executive director of a large assisted living, I am contracted with about a dozen different agencies like this one.

My dad, who is on a limited budget and cannot afford to live in my building (how's that for irony), was begging me to help him find a new place where the weather is not so hot. He has a sister in Central California, but I did not know anything about communities that far away. So I contacted A Place For Mom as a client, and the shoe was on the other foot, so to speak. I cannot tell you how pleasant the experience was! I did nothing special, I just went on the website, and followed the prompts, and answered the questions.

A very nice counselor called and emailed me, she was not pushy, she listened carefully, and on Wednesday I took my dad to the train station to go see the places that were recommended. My dad returned on Friday, and reported a wonderful experience.
Whether he moves or not is a story that remains to be seen. But I have to share with you that I can with confidence refer you to A Place For Mom

Learning to Relax with Anxiety: Alzheimer's Caregivers Need To Do This

Learning to Relax with Anxiety

Many anxiety sufferers are learning the proper cognitive tools to overcome their anxiety.  It isn’t easy. It takes commitment. Learning to relax with anxiety takes daily practice and commitment. Here are some relaxation tips to get you started:  

1.    Acceptance - Whatever we resist will persist. Try not to see yourself as fighting your anxiety. Instead, see yourself as moving toward your goal of relaxation.

2.    Talk to someone - Many anxiety sufferers feel better almost immediately when they have a supportive person to talk with.

3.    Knowledge - The more you know about your condition, the better equipped you’ll be. Things work better when we understand why we are doing them. 

4.    Breathing Techniques - Practice belly breathing. Breathe in to the count of 3 and out to the count of 4. 

5.    Meditation - Listen to guided meditation tapes or CDs.

6.    Journal - Keep a notebook handy during the day, and when you recognize a “what if this happens?” thought forming, write it down. Review it later, when you are more relaxed. Ask the trigger question again, as if it were true. What would you do? Keeping a journal helps you discover possible hidden issues.

7.    Take a nightly news vacation - Before bed, listen to relaxing music or read a book. If your habit is to watch the nightly news, try watching it first thing in the morning instead.

Learning to relax with anxiety will command your daily dedication. Be sure and celebrate even minor improvements. They are likely to be permanent ones!

Please make sure you jump over to www.EasyCaregiving.com and sign up for the FREE stress management CD, and you will automatically put on the newsletter notification list. 

caregiver stress revisited

If you're like many people with Alzheimer caregiver stress, it means you're either the adult child or the spouse of a loved one with this devastating disease. Like many other people in your position you probably worry, "What happens if I become critically ill or succumb to heart attacks, strokes or maybe cancer?"

For many people with these medical conditions (including influenza, diabetes, cancer, etc.) stress played a large role in their circumstance.

An in-depth analysis can be found at www.caregiverrelief.com

Alzheimer Caregiver Stress Is Chronic Stress

First, let's look at chronic stress. Alzheimer caregiving stress, for example, is considered chronic stress because it's the result of constant exposure to circumstances and conditions often beyond your control that cause a hyper-alert state. You're frequently dealing with unpredictable and/or volatile situations and irrational behavior. To compound the problem it's often without reliable recourse that is dependable and consistent.

Living under such trying, emotional pressure has long-term effects on your mental health, with ailments like clinical depression. But it also has bearing on your physical heath.

In fact, the past 20 years of research shows that people who suffer from chronic stress, like caregiver stress, are at much greater risk FOR heart attacks, strokes, and even cancer than others in their age bracket. In fact, according to the Alzheimer's Association, 50% of caregivers die before the person they are caring for. It's theorized that chronic stress, which weakens the physical body, (and dampens the immune system) is one the main culprits for this high mortality rate.

What Happens Physically During Caregiver Stress?

First realize that stress is not an emotional state, but rather a physiological reaction that occurs in your body. Doctors refer to it as the hypothalamic pituitary axis; the connection between the hypothalamus, pituitary and the adrenal gland.

These three 'elements' work together in a stressful situation to put the body into a heightened state of preparation to overcome a potentially life threatening event. This stress reaction is actually a left over from a survival mechanism called, "Fight or Flight."

When faced with tremendous stress, where survival might hang in the balance, humans have one of two instant reactions – run from the situation (flight) or meet the challenge head-on (fight).

How a person reacts will differ from one to the next. But the thing that is consistent is the hypothalamic pituitary axis (HPA) itself. Everyone has the HPA and it regulates:

• Blood Pressure
• Heart Rate
• Body Temperature
• Sleep Patterns
• Hunger and Thirst
• Among many other activities

When stress becomes great, the HPA system takes over in a matter of seconds. Blood circulation is diverted from the extremities to internal organs. Adrenaline is secreted in massive amounts for instant energy. The adrenal gland starts producing and releasing steroid hormones, including the primary stress hormone cortisol. This hormone travels to all areas including the heart, lungs, circulation, metabolism, immune systems and skin.

Now, if a bear in the wild (or a thug on a street city corner) attacks you, then this HPA system can literally be a lifesaver. But here's the problem as it relates to Alzheimer caregiver stress…

When stress is routine, so is this constant biochemical release that, over time, actually harms the body in various ways such as:

• Decreased immune system
• Greater chance for infection and disease
• Digestive tract problems like ulcers
• Lung problems like asthma
• Heart disease, which causes strokes and heart attacks

The HPA system is an intelligent design within the human race. The problem is it doesn't automatically distinguish caregiver stress that is continuous, day after day, from a bear attack, which is temporary. That means the stress that caregivers endure is chronic, and therefore, more debilitating to the human body. The good news is there are ways to combat its effects.

It's called stress management.

How Does Stress Management Help with Alzheimer caregiver stress?

Good question! And that's the main purpose of my website www.caregiverrelief.com, because caregiver stress is practically unavoidable.

2008 Report from the Alzheimer's Association - Caregivers

The Alzheimer’s Association, a national non-profit organization, devoted to the elimination of Alzheimer’s disease and the care and comfort of its sufferers and their caregivers, has released a comprehensive survey. The results of which are amazing. If you want to see the whole study, go to their website: alz.org. However, over the next few posts, I want to present you with some of the more interesting findings, especially focusing on what they learned about caregivers.
First off let’s start with some basic statistics. There are almost 10 million caregivers in the United States. The term caregiver, as we use it here refers to family members, friends and neighbors that provide unpaid care for a person with Alzheimer’s or another dementia. On average, these 10 million caregivers give nearly 8½ billion hours of unpaid care per year, with an approximate value of 89 billion dollars. I am always curious how they come up with these numbers. Well in this case, they tell us. The work you do as a caregiver is estimated to be worth $10.58 per hour. (Well at least it’s not minimum wage). But how does that compare to the paid caregiver? The average wage of a home health care aide is $15.32 per hour.
But let’s break that down to. Are you running the average? If, last year, you provided 16.6 hours per week of care for your loved one you’re in there. But I bet you beat that. One study found that almost 1 in 4 caregiver’s provided more than 40 per week. Perhaps that better describes you.
The study goes on to state the obvious. At least it’s obvious to caregivers…As the Alzheimer’s sufferer worsens the caregiving hours go up. So that caregivers find themselves providing help and supervision 24 hours a day, 7 days per week. As caregivers you are profoundly aware of such around-the-clock care because your parent or spouse cannot be left alone for even a few moments. Often you are getting up with the person worrying about them wandering or other unsafe behaviors.
Caregiving, by the way, is much more than helping with “Activities of Daily Living” (ADLs). ADLs, if you don’t know, are helping with bathing, dressing, eating, toileting, etc. But as you DO know, caregiving doesn’t stop there. Caregivers wear many hats. They make arrangements for medical care, the manage finances and legal affairs and they do shopping for groceries, provide transportation, help a person take medications correctly.
The study confirms what we knew that most caregivers are women. About 60% are wives, daughters, daughters-in-law, granddaughters and other female relatives, friends and neighbors. The largest percentage is ages 50-64, at 37%. The next largest group is ages 35-49 at 29%. Interestingly, about a quarter million children ages 8-18 are in the caregiving role, and as caregivers they too assist with bathing, dressing, feeding or helping the person to the toilet. I doubt they are sole caregivers; that would be ridiculous. But mostly they live in homes with adult caregivers and help provide care for the afflicted person.
Long-distance caregivers make up about 10% of unpaid family caregivers …but there’s more to say about that and other fascinating statistics in the next installment of this blog (which I am trying desperately to put up new posts on a weekly basis). So if you don’t want to miss them, simply look to the right hand side of the screen and look a place to “subscribe” to this blog. You can do that safely, as Blogger.com will not sell or give your email address to anyone, nor will they bug you either. You will simply get all future blog posts in your mailbox when they come out. Try it. If later you want to opt out, it’s just as easy.