We hope your summer is off to a good start and you are able to enjoy some time in the sunshine. This week's stress relief photo was taken along Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois. Caregiverlist invites you to enjoy the photo and share it with loved ones. At Caregiverlist we know the realities of caregiver stress. Thank you caregivers and certified nursing aides for your hard work and caring for our seniors. Please refer your friends to apply for part-time and full-time job positions on Caregiverlist.com and visit our career center for additional career tools. Have a great week.
"Insist on yourself; never imitate....Every great man is unique."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Now that it's officially summer, the optimal time for outdoor activities has come. Why sit inside all day when you can head out for an hour and soak up some sun? For senior caregivers looking for low-impact activities to partake in with their senior clients, the Gardening Companion app offers a way to get outside and connect with nature.
Gardening proves to be optimal for senior clients because it doesn't require much physical labor. There may be some digging and pulling weeds, but a senior caregiver can work with their senior client to take care of the more strenuous tasks. It also offers a way for senior caregivers to bond with their clients, over planning which plants to include and actually planting them. Having a hobby also gives senior clients something to work towards and keeps their brains active while incorporating light physical activity.
When caregivers first open the app, they must create an account. The process takes a few seconds if you connect an existing social media account to the app. The homepage of the app features popular articles for users to scroll through. The topics range from spotlights on specific types of plants, such as Dogwood, or more general topics about gardening, such as Soil & Fertilizers.
The articles focusing on specific types of plants go into great detail by introducing the plant and then breaking down what's necessary for its care. Caregivers can search by plant name in the upper right corner if they have a specific plant in mind. Users can also favorite plants and articles to save for later.
Reading through the profile and seeing the tips for growing that plant will help senior caregivers and their clients determine if it's a good fit for their home garden. The tips even offer differentiation between growing the plant indoors versus outdoors, so senior caregivers can take that into consideration. The only function missing from the app is a suggestion tool for which plants grow well when planted in the same bed.
The Journal and Reminder areas offer tools to stay on track with tending the garden. In the journal, caregivers can record events such as flowers blooming or vegetable plants being ready to pick to keep historical data for future years. And in Reminders, caregivers can set a reminder to water their plants based on its needs.
Senior caregivers should remember to take into consideration the elements of working outside. Check the weather forecast before planning to spend an hour or two outside. Bring water bottles out for continued hydration, wear a hat with a brim to shade your face from the sun and wear sunblock or bug spray as needed.
The Garden Companion app is available for
Apple platforms.
Senior caregivers, let us know your feedback on this app and keep us posted if you discovers additional apps that assist with caregiving duties and help relieve caregiver stress. You may also refer-a-friend to a senior caregiving job and win prizes weekly and monthly on Caregiverlist.
-Paige Krzysko
Senior caregiving has become one of the fastest growing professions because seniors are living longer than any previous generation while needing some care services for some of those year. In addition, technology has allowed seniors to age-in-place in their own homes while still staying in communication with friends, families and medical professionals.
Senior caregivers can take basic caregiving training courses to become certified as a professional caregiver and to be able to understand how to safely care for seniors. In addition, professional caregiver training.teaches caregivers to know how to identify elder abuse and how to maintain client privacy information.
California caregiver training now requires 5 hours of Orientation and Safety training prior to beginning to work with a senior client and an additional 5 hours of annual training in core competencies such as managing daily care plans, understanding elder abuse, assisting with daily activities of living, safe transfers and caring for age-related illnesses.
Find senior caregiver training requirements in your state and take an online caregiver training course to be a professionally certified senior caregiver.
Online Caregiver Training Course
In Italy it is customary to take an evening walk called the "passeggiata" to end the workday and socialize with family and friends. This week's photo was taken in the Piazza San Marco in Venice, Italy. We invite you to take a moment to relax and enjoy the photo and inspirational quote and share them with loved ones. Thank you caregivers and certified nursing aides for your hard work and the care you provide for our seniors. More caregivers are always needed as seniors in America are living longer. You can learn more about becoming a senior caregiver and apply for a job near you. We hope you have a great week.
"Count your nights by stars, not shadows; count your life with smiles, not tears." -Italian Proverb
Caregiverlist has updated the daily rates of nursing homes in Montana. With about 92 nursing homes, the average cost for a shared room is about $200 a day. Montana nursing homes holds an average rating of 3.0 out of 5.
Caregiverlist's nursing home directory provides the daily rates for nursing homes nationwide. We found the daily rate, for both single and double rooms, and acceptance of Medicate and Medicaid to help you find a nursing home that fits your needs.
One of the best ways to prevent the onset of dementia is to keep the mind active as we grow older. This can be accomplished in many ways, such as crossword puzzles, reading books on a regular basis or playing little brain games. The Peak - Brain Training app gives senior clients a series of games to play to sharpen their memory skills, improve mental agility and keep their brain active.
When users first download the app, they need to create a profile from a Facebook account or with an e-mail address. The app asks which areas they would like focus on from problem solving, memory, language and focus. Caregivers can help their senior clients pick categories, but there's no issue with selecting all four.
Then, to establish a base point, users need to complete a series of intro exercises. The first exercise shows users a series of three or four tiles with numbers on them and asks them to tap them in order from lowest to highest. This exercise focuses on speed and accuracy.
Another exercise presents a tiled board and shows spots where little mines are hidden. Senior clients need to remember where the mines are hidden because then it shows two dots and the goal is to connect the dots without hitting one of the squares with a hidden mine. This exercise focuses mainly on strengthening memory.
As users move through the exercises, they app assesses their skills and gives them a ranking, from beginner or novice up to expert. As senior clients use the app over time, the app creates personalized workouts to improve their skill sets based on prior performance in the games.
Senior caregivers can sit down with their senior clients a few times a week and take turns playing the games or simply cheer their senior clients on while they complete the exercises. For optimal brain exercise to help offset dementia, use the app about three times a week and pepper the day with other small brain activities, such as reading the newspaper or doing a crossword puzzle.
The Peak - Brain Training app is available for Apple and Android platforms.
Senior caregivers, let us know your feedback on this app and keep us posted if you discovers additional apps that assist with caregiving duties and help relieve caregiver stress. You may also refer-a-friend to a senior caregiving job and win prizes weekly and monthly on Caregiverlist.
-Paige Krzysko
This week's stress relief photo was taken from a boat cruising through the Thimble Islands, off the coast of Connecticut. Caregiverlist invites you to enjoy and the photo and inspirational quote and share them with loved ones. Thank you caregivers and certified nursing aides for your hard work and caring for our seniors. Senior care training assists caregivers to better manage a senior's care needs and manage caregiver stress. We hope you have a great week.
"We build too many walls and not enough bridges." -Isaac Newton
When it comes to understanding dementia and Alzheimer's disease, we can read about the various symptoms and glean together an understanding from people we know who dealt with them. However, it can still be difficult to piece together the thought patterns of someone with dementia as they navigate through their daily life. A new app called "A Walk Through Dementia" aims to bridge the gap between those living with dementia and those on the outside by giving a glimpse into the thoughts of a person with dementia.
The app focuses on creating a virtual reality experience for the user. Alzheimer's Research UK created the app after interviewing several people with dementia to understand how their symptoms affect their daily lives. The app features three different environments for the user to navigate through: at the supermarket, on the road and at home.
The app uses Google Cardboard virtual reality to immerse the user in the experience. For this reason, the app is available exclusively for Android, but the app creators put together a set of YouTube videos to help people without Androids experience the app as well.
Watching the YouTube videos, we see first-person the narrator walking down the street and encountering a decision point of which way to walk home. As the narrator walks, we hear her inner thoughts change from recognizing her surroundings to deciding to take an alleyway as a short cut. Then, we hear her realize it's not the right way home and increasing panic as she does not recognize her surroundings and cannot find her son.
As the walk continues, we realize further difficulties in perception as the narrator comes across a puddle, but her mind cannot correctly identify it. To her, it looks more like a gaping hole in the middle of the sidewalk, and only her son's confirmation helps her recognize that it's just a bit of water. We hear her attempt to cover put he fact that she thought it was something else, but from first person it lends us the recognition that she truly could not tell the difference.
This sort of first-person recognition will help caregivers better understand how senior clients with dementia experience the world around them. By having this app or these videos to watch, we can clearly see how to a person with dementia, a shallow puddle of water can look like a hole in the ground because of the brain's distortion of reality.
If your senior client has dementia or Alzheimer's Disease, talk to them about their experiences with the world. It can be difficult, but letting them know that you will listen and support them through these situations can only help them feel more comfortable about opening up about their dementia.
Senior caregivers, let us know your feedback on this app and keep us posted if you discovers additional apps that assist with caregiving duties and help relieve caregiver stress. You may also refer-a-friend to a senior caregiving job and win prizes weekly and monthly on Caregiverlist.
-Paige Krzysko