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!

Woo Hoo! It’s that time again. A brand new edition of the Boomers & Seniors Blog Carnival with a wealth of information for you. Let’s take a peek, shall we?

Under the topic of Boomer Issues, you’ll find articles:

• with ideas to help grandparents stay in touch with grandkids, even from a long distance
• with a different spin on the controversial survey comparing daycare vs. Grandparent care
• on Grandparents raising their grandkids.

Moving on to Senior Care/Caregiving :

• there’s an interesting article, How to Stay Centered After Lilah’s Stroke , to help you understand your feelings better
• also a good article on Dementia Up Close
  
• and yours truly’s SandwichINK article on Caregiving.com’s Progressive Party as well as the two-part Power of Attorney series.

Senior Housing covers such topics as:

• retirement communities that are going high-tech (it sounds wonderful!)
• things to look for when you select an assisted living community – sounds like two excellent articles to save!
• Downsizing – to a condo or to a prefab home

Of course, they also cover Retirement and financial issues :

• Making sure you’re getting all you’re entitled to from Social Security & what forms you should save FOREVER!
• Tapping your 401k with no penalty
• More excellent advice on the Power of Attorney
• Safety for liquid savings
• Tips on what your savings plan should focus on.

Feeling healthy ? I hope so, but either way, be sure to read:

• 100 Best Wellness Blogs for Women!
• What the signs of a stroke are
• Fighting your metabolism. They have some easy ways to help you in that battle
• Regular walking breaks can help fight depression
• Healthy living tips for Seniors
• A good reminder of the importance of forgiveness – for you as well as the one you forgive

And last, but hilariously not least, be sure to check out the Hot Flash Barbie – it’s a hoot!

Well, there you have it. The latest edition of news you can use from the Boomers & Seniors Blog Carnival . Check it out, leave them notes to let them know what you liked, and I’d love to hear from you as well. Comments are always wonderfully welcomed in the space below.

Providing wise care for your aging parents when using a Power of Attorney was discussed in yesterday’s post . Today, I want to follow that up with some additional information that is especially relevant in today’s economy.

With all the changes in the marketplace, including banks buying out other banks, merging, and sometimes even closing, it’s important to stay on top of the elderly care we provide our parents by monitoring their financial situation in regards to what is happening with those banks.

A good friend inadvertently discovered this when he had to call a bank on behalf of his grandfather. They had done all the paperwork required by the bank a few years ago, including filing and notarizing the bank’s required forms on top of providing the Power of Attorney their own attorney had prepared. Now the bank has merged with another bank and has a new name. You can imagine his shock when he called the new bank’s primary call center regarding a letter he received, only to be told they couldn’t talk to him as he didn’t have Power of Attorney.

He called the branch where they had originally opened the account and discovered the manger was no longer there. Fortunately the new manager was very helpful. He discovered that the new bank had implemented a plan to have all the paperwork scanned into computers. For some reason, his grandfather’s paperwork had never been scanned in. It took them over an hour on the phone while she tracked down the original paperwork, and another hour on her part to completely solve the problem. She finally called him later that night with the good news that all was fixed. Wisely, he waited a week, then called the primary call center back where he was able to confirm that they did, indeed, show that he had Power of Attorney.

Can you imagine if that had happened in the middle of a crisis? I learned to:

1. Call any bank that has recently made a change to verify all of our information is still showing accurately. It might be wise to wait about three months after the bank changes hands, to give them time to complete their paperwork processing.

2. Keep a copy of all documents in a file at home.

3. Keep a copy of the Power of Attorney (reduced in size) easily accessible at all times in case of an emergency.

4. It might even be wise to call each bank your senior parent uses every year or two to verify that all is in order.

Even when banks don’t change hands, mistakes do happen. It’s always easier to sort these issues out when there isn’t a problem, rather than discovering a mess in the middle of an emergency situation.