Senior Home Care Giving is hard whether you live near by or at a distance. WebMD has some GOOD NEWS for those of us in the Sandwich Generation who are dealing with this on a regular basis!

Their article describes a wide variety of new technologies available now or soon to come to help caregivers and aging parents. Some of these ways include:

• A virtual check-up with the doctor
• Using motion sensors to track whether seniors are eating regularly, alert you to falls, and even help you discover such things as urinary tract infections!

Using these fascinating technologies and others described in the article can be wonderful ways to save money and time – something we in the Sandwich Generation really appreciate. Hopefully some, if not all, of these will be covered by insurance. And they are all useful for both near by and far away care giving! Be sure to read the whole article to get the full scoop! I’m going to add this to my list of questions for our next doctor’s visit.

Many of us in the Sandwich Generation are providing dementia care for aging parents. One big concern as the disease progresses is the safety of our senior parents. Every few days you read about a patient with dementia who has wandered off and is lost. Currently, there is no national system in place to help find them, such as the Amber Alerts which help find children. As I wrote in my original post on silver alerts and in my Twitter updates about Silver Alerts,  it’s vital for us to contact our elected representatives and ask that they support H.R. 632 which would provide an inexpensive and easy way to send Silver Alerts out across the nation. Since it is not uncommon for a dementia patient to be found many miles and several states away from home, this is a definite need.

Since I recently moved, I just contacted my new senators via email. It took me about ten minutes to find their email addresses and type short notes. Thanks to RefDesk, you can do it even faster for this and other issues of importance to you. They just sent me a great link that did NOT turn up when I was doing my Google search. It would have made it much easier and faster for me! As busy Senior Home Care Givers and grandparents, we all need as much help in that area as we can get.

The website is a government site, USA.gov. You’ll find email and snail mail addresses, phone numbers, website addresses, and even info about being able to “tweet” your representative. While you’re there, be sure to send an email to each of your senators to support H.R. 632 to provide help finding missing dementia patients, and any other cause you support.

As I wrote yesterday at SandwichINK Real Estate Info, I also highly recommend RefDesk. You can visit there daily to see their latest “Site of the Day” or sign up to have it mailed to you daily. I do find the most interesting sites from them. It’s one of my favorite resources! 

Once you’ve contacted your senator, you can check here often to see if there has been any movement on this bill. I have a button on the far right side that shows what is (or is not) happening. And do sign up for the SandwichINK free email so you don’t miss out on any of the resources provided here for great Sandwich Generation Senior Home Care Givers and Grandparents like you!

For the last few days, everywhere I look I have seen the headlines, “Halloween Safety for Kids” and with good reason. Halloween is only a couple of days away and we definitely want to keep our kids and grandkids extra safe. I was interested to read that kids going out to enjoy Halloween trick or treat in the neighborhood is actually down in many areas, with private parties, mall options, and church harvest festivals serving as a safe and fun replacement. Even so, there will be plenty going house to house and it’s good to be well-prepared, with plenty of candy for the Halloween trick or treat-ers, and with good Halloween safety tips:

1. If your grandkids do go Halloween trick or treating from your house, it’s best to escort them, take flashlights and wear reflective tape. Did you know that “on average, twice as many kids are killed while walking on Halloween compared to other days of the year!” That’s especially good info this year since Daylight Savings Time isn’t changing until after all the trick or treating is done, so it will be dark earlier than the norm.
2. It’s wise to cross at crosswalks and street corners rather than in the middle of the street. Don’t forget, some of the people out driving could be senior citizens whose eye sight is not as great as it used to be. Crossing at the crosswalks is much safer ALL YEAR LONG!
3. Don’t forget to check all your grandkids’ candy and treats when you get home. Sadly, a few bad people poisoning treats in the past make it a vital necessity for us all to do this each year!
4. Be sure to take your ID with you and if you are taking grandkids who don’t know or can’t communicate their phone numbers and addresses, I would make sure they have some identification on them as well, just in case you accidentally get separated! One great idea we learned at an amusement park is to write your phone number high on their arm in permanent marker. It’ll come off in a couple of days, but then there is a safe way to help reconnect y’all. Hopefully you will never need it, but better safe than sorry!
5. If your grandkids don’t live close or are doing a party instead, and you find yourself out in the car on October 31, be extra alert and careful! Keep your eyes open in all directions as you never know when a wee one may dart out in front of you! It’s best to try to limit distractions anytime we are driving. That’s especially true on a night like this when we will need all our senses working overtime!
6. Something I always used to do for my aging parents before we lived together is to make sure they remembered to turn off their lights if they didn’t want to hand out treats. They loved handing out the candy and admiring the costumes when they were younger, but once dad’s Parkinson’s got worse, he couldn’t move that quickly so they had to stop.
7. If your aging parent has dementia, be aware that the doorbells, knocking, and costumes could be confusing or even frightening for some patients. It might be a good idea to talk about it ahead of time and see how they react and then making your plans accordingly. EONs’ HippyGirl52 has more Halloween Safety Tips for combining a fun time with a parent who has dementia.

Hopefully these Halloween Safety Tips will be a big help for all of us to have a happy and SAFE Halloween, which is the best treat of all! What are some of your tips for aging parents and grandkids for Halloween? We’d love to hear them!  :)

SENIOR HOME CARE GIVING

“I Still Do: Loving and Living With Alzheimer’s.” A new book by the wife of an Alzheimer’s patient was written by Judith Fox and featured in Richmond Magazine.

Deep brain stimulation, developed for those with Parkinson’s symptoms, eases tics in Tourette’s syndrome.  Per @ParkinsonsInfo

Alzheimer’s Association Comfort Zone is a new Web-based GPS location management service that can help families
stay active. Thanks to @Caregiving for the info!

A great article by Wisconsin Senator Mary Lazich supporting the Silver Alert bill to help find missing Alzheimer’s Disease patients! Please call your legislators to support this bill!  Thank you @silveralertbill

When Should You Use Adult Day Care Services for Caregiving Help?

Is it really Alzheimer’s or something else?

Encouragement – Be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power.

GRANDPARENTING

A Jar of Fun idea for grandparents and grandkids – discovered by @heartofwisdom.

@PrepSmart lets us know that CPSC Urges Parents, Grandparents & Caregivers to Stop Using “My Baby Soother Pacifiers Due to Choking Hazard.”

National Sensory Awareness Week is Oct 25-31. Joan Graves has written an interesting article about Sensory Integration Disorder also known as Sensory Integration Dysfunction (SI) and Sensory Processing Disorder.  Per @lisajcopen

A powerful article to share with your teen and young adult kids / grandkids – Nothing Casual About Sex -   Thanks to @JulieArduini for the link!

SANDWICH GENERATION:

Obama Declares H1N1 Flu / Swine Flu ‘National Emergency’ per Fox News.

Amazon Prime is GREAT for senior home care givers  and grandparents who help family and friends who live far away. And just in time for the holidays and sick days, they are returning to 2-day delivery for Thursday orders by delivering on Saturdays! Not only that, they are also offering a free one-month trial to check out the service!

Good analysis of the health care situation from a baby boomer generation viewpoint!

Encouragement – In peace I will both lie down and sleep, for You alone, O Lord, dost make me to dwell in safety. Ps. 4:8

As Sandwich Generation senior home care givers and grandparents, we can have several challenges in melding the needs of our senior parents and our very young grandkids. One prime example is that we want to allow grandkids to play freely while at the same time keeping safe areas and fall protection for our elderly parents and/or our wobbly toddlers who are just learning to walk.

If you are one of those who are blessed with the gift of keeping things totally immaculate without even trying, you probably won’t have an issue in this area. For those, like me, who are not so blessed, it’s a constant challenge to make sure we keep things picked up so my senior mom OR another grandkid don’t suffer any falls

Some of the things we’ve learned to watch for include:

• Keeping doorways clear for senior parents and shaky toddlers. For some reason, children seem to LOVE to play in doorways. I don’t think twice walking around or over them, but aging parents and tiny toddlers aren’t able to do this safely. Now I routinely remind them not to play there at all.
• Gates are vital for young ones – not to mention puppies – but aging parents might not notice them since they are at knee level. For that matter, they might see the gate, lift their legs over it but not be able to get them up high enough, then trip and suffer falls. Since I, who am usually very spry, just did that tonight, I can testify to how easy that is! 
• Aging eyes don’t see toys as easy as young eyes, and even small toys can cause a shaky senior OR toddler to trip. Marbles are fun for the tween ages, but can cause falls for the older and younger AND pose a choking danger to the wee ones. The same goes for LEGO and other tiny toys. Keeping them picked up is time consuming but easy fall protection.
  
• Dimmed light can be useful to try to get the young’uns to sleep but make it easy for great-grandma to slip and fall.
  
• Rugs – even rubber-backed ones – can cause the very young and the elderly to slip and fall, particularly if they get turned up or rumpled. The rubber-backed ones are vital, but even they need to be regularly monitored to be sure they are flat and safe.
  

These are just a few ways to provide family safety through fall protection. I try to stop and think things through every couple of days, and look around the house for areas that might be a problem.  If you have suggestions of things to watch for, we’d love to hear about them in the comments section below. And, be sure to sign up for the SandwichINK free email for more info and ideas for the Sandwich Generation.

Sandwich Generation news

This week’s Sandwich Generation news is for grandparents. There is a recall of some varieties of Children’s and Infants’ Tylenol. If you have some at home in case any of your adorable grandkids get sick while visiting, be sure to check the packages.

Tylenol has a complete list of medications involved in this recall and explains the reasons behind the recall. It’s also good to note that they have not included “Children’s TYLENOL® Meltaways and Junior Strength TYLENOL® Meltaways. The voluntary recall applies only to select lots of Children’s and Infants’ TYLENOL® liquid products.”

It’s always best to be safe rather than sorry when it comes to our grandkids’ health, so I’ll be checking my stock tomorrow as well.

I recently learned a new tip to help all of us senior home care givers who have to be away from their aging parents for a time, or who help seniors who live far away.

Make a list of each fuse box’s location, which fuse controls which parts of the house, and write up directions for how to reset a breaker. I am planning on sending it to my email in my computer AND my cell phone so I have it at all times, along with the location of each of the sockets that have RESET capability on them.

It’s very rare that a fuse is blown or a breaker is tripped. When it does, however, it can be a real problem for your senior parent, who may not know or remember how to reset them. Couple their being upset or frustrated with your not knowing, or remembering, the step-by-step instructions you need to give them, and you could have a mini-crisis on your hands.

We discovered this idea when a senior friend who lives out-of-state was so upset because the microwave had broken. I explained to him that it was probably the breaker and had him check various things, such as the refrigerator and the garbage disposal. They all worked, though, so he was planning on buying a new microwave and really upset with himself for what had happened. Fortunately, before he got a chance to go shopping, he decided to use his blender. When he plugged that into a different socket, it didn’t work either. “Ah ha,” he thought.

He called his apartment manager and they tried to talk him through it by telling him to push the reset on the socket above the garbage disposal. There was no socket above the garbage disposal, though. Then the front office employees sent the maintenance staff over and they helped my friend get everything back in running order, by resetting the socket that turned out to be behind the microwave.

If he had lived in a house instead of an apartment, he might never have been able to figure out how to fix this until friends or relatives came to visit months down the road. Spending half an hour to compile a list of all the sockets and fuse boxes turns a bad problem into a simple and easily dealt with problem, no matter how many miles separate us from our aging parents and relatives.

Are you in the throes of dealing with Swine Flu? Are you wondering if it is still around? Do you think you or one of your aging parents or grandkids has it? First and foremost for the first and last questions is to make sure you call your doctor and get their recommendations.WebMD has a fascinating article on where the latest Swine Flu outbreaks are After you talk to them, if you want more info (or while you are sitting on hold ), and the fact that college campuses are showing up as a signal for the hot spots.

A friend who has been dealing with it commented that he just wanted to know what Swine Flu complications to be concerned about. Turns out WebMD has an article with excellent tips to cover that as well, along with who is most at risk.

For the latest news on what medications are or are not being recommended, you can head over to the Wall Street Journal to read Swine Flu Update: Most People Don’t Need Antiviral Meds. There you’ll find an easy to read and understand summary of the CDC’s newest guidelines about the use of antiviral medication like Tamiflu.  The article also lists warning signs to watch for in children, so if you have a grandchild with the Swine Flu and you want more information after already talking to your doctor, this would be a good resource!

If you don’t have the Swine Flu and the grandkids are coming to visit, Flu.gov has created four short videos with tips for kids on how to prevent Swine Flu and other germs – starring everyone’s favorite Muppet – Elmo!  I bet your grandkids would have fun watching these a few times, and as they do so, some important lessons will wrap themselves around their adorable little brains.   Here’s one:

Be sure to check out the other three at the Flu.gov site.

While there, I discovered they also had a fun contest for the best videos to help educate young and old alike and we get to pick the winner. Educational videos were submitted, the best were weeded out, and now we get to pick our choices for best (or worst). My favorite video was Flu Sounds with Chainsaw as a close runner up. I was looking for ones that will hold a person’s attention while teaching them. These two kept my interest and made me laugh. I’ll stop my TIVO for commercials that make me laugh! That’s why I LOVE The Mac vs. IBM commercials!

Flu Sounds did all that AND got their point across very well. Chainsaw also accomplished all that, but most of the educational meat was at the beginning so I gave Flu Sounds the #1 spot in my voting. My least favorites, being a grandma, included Bagman – Kids might not understand it’s not serious and put plastic bags over their own heads, putting themselves at much worse risk from suffocation than from the flu! I also did not care for Hazmat – as I would rate it (on my conservative grandma scale) PG-13 for a bathroom scene and drinking scene.

You can vote for the Swine Flu prevention videos every day between now and September 16^th.  I just voted for ones listed above. Per their directions, “the order of the videos is randomly generated each time you visit the page. Voting is a simple thumbs-up or thumbs-down for each video (at the bottom left of the currently playing video), and you are allowed one vote (up or down) per video per calendar day.” This would be a fun activity to do with our grandkids one or more times during the next few days. They’ll have fun voting AND be learning important health facts while they are at it. As I said above, I would personally avoid Bagman and Hazmat.

Let us know what you voted on and why. We’d love to hear your completely G-rated opinions as well.

And now, I’ll leave you with my two favorite videos from the contest:

Wouldn’t “Tim the Toolman” love that one!

Looking for a fun new game for your grandkids? My 5 and 7 year old grandsons and I had a lot of fun with games this summer and we wanted to share our favorite with you. Pictureka is a funny sounding game name, with a funny looking board, that they absolutely LOVE! There are 9 board cards that you set side by side in three rows to make one huge board. They have a “zillion” different pictures in various directions, similar to the I Spy books and the Where’s Waldo? books. There are three sets of playing cards. Very simply, you pick a card, then look on the big board to find the picture from the little card. Sometimes everyone looks at the same time. Sometimes, only the one player looks, depending on the roll of the two different dice (one with colors and one with numbers), and the arrows on the playing cards.

The rules for this version are quite simple. BUT the game is geared for 8-15 year olds and my little grand-guys are a bit younger than that. I bought it because they LOVE the Where’s Waldo and I Spy books. Trying to play the game by the rules, I found that waiting until they were 8 for the regular game would have been better. SO we made up our own rules for a younger kids version.

SandwichINK version of Pictureka Game for Younger Grandkids:

Turning this into a cooperative team-building game, we only use the red and green cards. As each person rolls the color dice, he picks the appropriate card if it rolls red or green. If it rolls blue, he gets to choose between red and green. Then he rolls the number dice, and we ALL work together to find that many items each of whatever the picture is. It’s so much fun watching them help each other. They will often share a picture with another brother first before moving on to their own pictures.  You have to understand, this is not the norm with most of our games, so I really have appreciated the good team-work lessons they are learning.

Shopping at Target this week, I discovered there are a couple of other versions of Pictureka, including Pictureka Kubes which includes a version for younger kids. I read the directions for that, in a hurry, and had a hard time understanding them, so we will hold off on that one. It did look nice, because it takes up less room, but we are having so much fun with the primary game, we’ll stick with that for now. I am eyeing the smaller playing card version of the PICTUREKA Game, though, for our next long trip…

Family Friday is back, along with exciting happenings over at HomemakerBarbi. They have a new name, HomeEverAfter.com, along with an interesting article, Pregnancy Later in Life: Does Age Matter?

You’ve probably heard about the young woman from California who turned up after being kidnapped 18 years ago!!! Such a sad story in the first place, yet with a bittersweet, happy ending which so rarely happens. Hopefully our friends and families will never experience anything like this, but it is good to use it as a learning tool.

As grandparents, we need to first discuss with our adult kids how they are teaching our grandkids about strangers safety, etc. Then, within the context and boundaries they set up, we can “come alongside them” to back them up.

I’ve always been proactive at teaching my kids and my grandkids about stranger safety, appropriate touching, etc. Disney had a great non-threatening VHS video, Too Smart for Strangers with Winnie The Pooh, that can still be found used at Amazon and in some used stores. We used that in our homeschooling programs way back when. Care Bears also had a good one. There’s a couple of others on DVDs that look interesting, though I would preview any and all, as some are more appropriate for older kids, while others do best with younger ones.

Here are some good reminders from an email newsletter from Make-A-Note, which I’ve enjoyed over the past few years:

They pointed out that, kids “should also know that no matter what was done or not done, that it wasn’t the victims’ fault. Tell your kids to use ANY phone to call 911. Tell them to go up to anyone, but especially someone in a public place and tell the person they’ve been kidnapped and to call 911. Tell them that sometimes the criminals that might hurt kids will try to pretend they are friends, but they are not. Tell them criminals will lie to them and not to trust them. And most of all, tell them that no matter what any criminal might tell them, that you love them, you always will love them no matter what bad things happen, and that you will never stop searching for them.”

I think that last statement is important information for our kids and grandkids to hear from all of us at all times. Not just in connection with stranger safety, but for life in general.

Make-A-Note also listed an excellent site with several good resources for families. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children is celebrating 25 years of working to help these young victims! There you will find many useful pamphlets, videos, and more. It’s definitely worth bookmarking!

And, of course, the most important weapon we have is God! Daily, constant prayer for our families and our friends, for all needs, including safety, is a powerful and wonderful privilege we as grandparents can joyfully take part in. While we’re praying for them, let’s also pray for this young woman and her family, and other victims – both the found ones and those who are still lost.

With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints!

Eph. 6:18