Forms are a fact of life for those of us in the Sandwich Generation dealing with the issues that come with caring for elderly parents. This week, I have two terrific sites who are sharing a wealth of info with us in that regard.

Matthew Johnson, CEO and Founder of HealthBridge which is a Dallas Home Care company, announced this week they had released a new and FREE guide (always one of my favorite ways to save money ), full of forms most senior home care givers will need for aging parents or themselves. It looks like a wonderful help to all of us!

As they explain on their site, “the free guide includes instructions and usable sample documents for:

• Durable Power of Attorney
• Advance Directives
• Declaration of Guardian
• Medical Power of Attorney
• Out of Hospital Do Not Resuscitate
• Appointment of Agent
• Physicians Statement of Incapacity”

I would, of course, encourage you to read their disclaimer info for full details and you might want to take the forms to your attorney so they can check for state-specific info (you can also check directly with HealthBridge for this), as well as items that may need to be tweaked to your specific needs, but what a wonderful resource this guide and the templates are for all of us in the Sandwich Generation!

Another great resource surfaced when I was visiting EldercareABC’s latest blog carnival. The blog carnival, itself, had several interesting articles. The article posted right next to it looked intriguing, as well, so I read it next and am so glad I did!

Joy Loverde has written a great post (and a very interesting looking book, The Complete Eldercare Planner) about the importance of medical histories for all of us, including our aging parents. She has also provided many useful charts, agreements, and checklists to help us help each person we provide senior home care for (whether in our home or long distance). Just follow the link from the article, Medical History in a Flash, to her book site, then scroll down to the bottom to click on DOWNLOAD.

Joy also has the good idea to put all this information on a small flash drive (sometimes called stick drive or thumb drive) to make it easy to share the information with your doctor and hospital. To that, I would add the suggestion that you take print-outs with you, as well as storing a set for yourself at home. Technology is wonderful and I am one of its biggest cheerleaders. It also has a reputation for crashing at the worst moments. In addition, not all doctor’s offices and hospitals are as up-to-date on technology as we might like. Others may have serious concerns about computer safety. If you can use the flash drive, that will, indeed, make everyone’s job much simpler. And if they are unable to do that, the printout will put a smile on your face as well.

While you are at it, I would add a copy of the various completed forms from Matthew Johnson and HealthBridge onto the flash drive as well as having printouts of them. High tech help, from great resources online and tech gizmos like flash drives, really does make our senior home care giving much easier, doesn’t it? And that's such a relief for all of us in the never-aging Baby Boomers Generation caring for our elderly parents!

Post from: SandwichINK.com

Free Resources for Senior Home Care Givers!