Golden Heart’s Lead Scheduler, Bertha, rocks hundreds of schedules every day. She manages the delicate dance of client and caregiver needs. Bertha has 26 plus years’ scheduling experience. Bertha is a tireless, passionate advocate for seniors. #goldenheartscottsdale
Golden Heart Senior Care HEARTS Vanessa, our Care Coordinator, works closely with all office team members to assure excellent care and smooth schedules for our clients. Vanessa is a CNA and has worked in memory care facilities and the field. She is amazing and puts up with all of my rapid-fire intakes and 4 am emails. She always volunteers to help get whatever needs to be done. Thank you Vanessa! #goldenheartscottsdale
Golden Heart Senior Care is proud of Brittney, a wonderful addition to our Office team. As Office Manager, she is responsible for overall running of the office; HR; recruiting and administration. We are thrilled to have her! Brittney has an excellent background in healthcare and recently moved to AZ! Welcome Brittney!
If you or an aging loved one is considering home care in Scottsdale, AZ, please call the caring staff at Golden Heart Senior Care of Scottsdale at (480) 284-7360. We are here to help!
What do you do each day? You’re probably up and at your parents’ house before they get up. You have breakfast started so that you’re ready to help them with showers and grooming. After they eat and take their daily pills, you clean the kitchen and start the housework. There are beds to make, laundry to do, carpets to vacuum, and surfaces to wipe down. You have sinks to clean, the tub/shower to scrub, and floors to sweep and mop. The tasks seem endless. Before you experience caregiver burnout, learn how to make “let it go” your motto. Bringing in home care providers to help lighten the load is one of the best places to start.
Ease stress through meditation. Put on beginner Yoga or Tai Chi videos and work out to them. If your parents want to join you, let them. These exercise routines are good at strengthening muscle, improving balance, and easing stress.
Journaling, meditation, and dance are all ways to ease stress. Crank up some music and dance around the house while you take care of routine chores like mopping and vacuuming. Your parents may want to join in, which helps improve everyone’s mood on a dreary day.
Get outside and let the power of fresh air and sun help ease stress when you can. A brisk walk around a park or neighborhood can help reduce stress and clear your mind. If there are nature trails nearby, studies show that time spent in nature is the best way to improve your mood.
One of the best ways to avoid caregiver burnout is by making sure there is time for fun activities each day. Set aside an hour or two to do things you and your parents enjoy. They love musicals. Rent a new or old musical, make popcorn, and get some drinks ready. Have a lazy movie afternoon together.
Plan one day a month to go to a local museum or historic site for an afternoon. Stop at a café for lunch and tour the attraction together. When the weather cooperates, you could tour a botanical garden or zoo.
Have fun at home after purchasing some craft kits. Purchase kits to make stained glass suncatchers, embroidered wall hangings, or papercrafts. Work on them with your parents when you have some free time.
How do you free up some time for fun? Stop trying to do everything on your own. Hire professional home care providers to help with some of the daily chores. While you prepare your parents’ meals, caregivers could do the laundry and housework.
Home care aides make it easy to let some things go. You don’t have to be the only one caring for your mom and dad. Enjoy spending quality time with them by having home care aides handle some of the time-consuming daily chores. Call to learn more.
Sources:
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/caregiver-stress/art-20044784
It might be difficult to get seniors who lack the appetite to eat. Numerous factors contribute to some elderly persons losing their appetite or refusing food. However, this does not negate your concern for them and your efforts to provide them with the nutrients they need. Occasionally, little adjustments may have a significant impact. You may be working and can’t help your senior parents out at home, or you can’t ensure they are eating adequately. Some of you may not know how to encourage seniors in a healthy way.
When you cannot be there for your senior parents, it is crucial to have someone there for them. Seniors may not want to bother their children or impose on anyone’s lives, but they will need to care for them. Personal care at home can help seniors age in place without the need to have family there 24/7. Caregivers are set to help seniors thrive when they want to age in place.
Personal care at home may help a senior remember to eat healthily or drive them to the grocery store to make healthy options. Here are six tips for seniors who have lost their appetite. When experimenting with these concepts, be patient, be inventive, keep exploring, and avoid becoming frustrated.
A senior may struggle to keep a meal schedule on their own, but this is another thing that personal care at home may help with. Seniors may struggle with a schedule because they have health conditions that make cooking for themselves harder. However, one of the best ways to encourage them to eat healthily is by sticking to a regular eating schedule. This can include snacks.
Specific individuals may feel overwhelmed when confronted with an abundance of food. Serve smaller amounts rather than a large dish. Alternatively, you may experiment with a daily pattern where your older adult has five small meals rather than three bigger ones.
The irritation associated with being unable to use a spoon, fork, or knife may cause some older persons to stop eating altogether. To make eating easier for them, consider presenting items that can be eaten without utensils or experimenting with adaptable utensils. Try finding finger foods that the seniors can simply pick up and eat.
Certain individuals may choose to graze rather than have substantial meals throughout the day. Keep a variety of nutritious, delectable, and easy-to-eat snacks on hand so kids may choose from various healthy alternatives.
Chewy foods can be tiring for anyone but especially older adults. Finding ways to juice vegetables, make milkshakes, or even fruit smoothies can be beneficial. There are ways to make these drinks healthy and nutritious.
Your or personal care at home providers can start keeping track of what the senior enjoys or what works best. When you begin to notice these habits, it can encourage a senior to eat healthy a lot easier.
You deserve to treat yourself to a day at the spa. However, due to the high expense, this is a luxury enjoyed only on rare occasions. Because of this, there are several options for receiving identical treatments in the convenience of your own home at a significantly lower cost. These home spa day activities are a great way to relax and unwind at the end of a long day. So, the next time you decide to throw a spa day at home, include your senior and make it a fun day for both of you!
Doing a home spa day with your senior is a great way for both of you to relax and reduce stress. If you have been struggling to make plans with your senior parent outside of caregiving, consider how senior home care providers can help. Senior home care providers can provide meal preparation, light housekeeping, laundry assistance and more, which offers you time to simply enjoy your senior’s company, Here are some fun activities that you and your senior may enjoy with the help of a senior home care provider.
A senior may not want to do this with you, but you may have a tub that is big enough for them that they don’t have access to. Have a senior home care provider come over with your parents and set them up a nice relaxing tub to bathe in. You can provide them with special products to help them battle dry skin or other problems that a bath can fix. The caregiver can do all of the work, making you and the senior feel more comfortable with the idea.
There is no better way to spend time with your mom or dad than by doing a facemask and turning on a good TV show. This may not be something you typically do with your senior parent, but it can be fun once in a while and make them feel good about themselves. You can even try making homemade face masks for body scrubs for your senior!
This is a chore that is not usually fun for seniors to do. However, you can easily make it fun and relaxing for your senior mom or dad. Give them a manicure or pedicure at home, complete with a massage and everything. There are cheap packs of manicure sets at local drug stores, just be sure you sanitize them before using them on your seniors.
Once your spa day is complete, do something relaxing together. Listen to spa music and read a book or turn on your favorite cooking shows. It is important for you to take time to spend with your seniors and it can be a good way for them to also focus on hygiene and stress levels.
You might worry that if you and your senior live in different areas that you won’t be able to be there for her in the ways that she might need. But as her long-distance caregiver, you may be able to offer so much more help than you believe you can. What you really need to do is to be thoughtful about the help that you can truly offer, and find answers for the things you can’t help with yourself.
In its simplest form, being a long-distance caregiver simply means that you’re providing care for your elderly family member from wherever you are, even if that’s far away. So many caregivers find themselves in this situation and it can be overwhelming at first. What helps is to be as organized as possible and to make sure that you and your senior have as much support as possible.
What challenges are the biggest concerns for your senior? It’s crucial for you to have as full an understanding as possible about what your senior is up against in terms of her health and general life issues. Research her health issues so that you know what is happening. Talk with her doctor and talk with your senior about what you need to know.
Once you know what your senior is facing, it’s a lot easier for you to find solutions for her that actually meet her needs. One solution you should consider for a variety of concerns is bringing in in-home care providers. Caregivers are going to be able to be your eyes on the scene to understand even more about what she’s facing. In-home care is also able to be there for your senior in the practical ways that are more difficult for you.
Over time, your senior’s needs are likely to change. That’s especially true if your elderly family member has health issues that are chronic or progressive. Continue to talk with your elderly family member and with anyone else involved in her care about what she’s experiencing, what she needs, and how you can most offer assistance from wherever you are.
Being a long-distance caregiver is much easier than a lot of caregivers worry that it will be, especially with the right help. What matters most is that your senior has ways to ensure that she’s going to be able to have the quality of life that she wants to have.
Golden Heart Senior Care would like to highlight Timi, our On Call Manager! Timi is amazing and manages the 24/7 number and schedules every evening and weekend! She has been with our Company since last June.
Here is her background:
Timi has over 20 years of healthcare experience. She started out as a caregiver then inpatient where she worked in ICU and hospice. The last ten years she has worked in staffing and scheduling. Timi says,” It brings me joy to be connected and still feel like I’m making a difference although I am no longer doing bedside care.”
Timi is an amazing Office Team member. She is always willing to go above and beyond!
Bertha, our Lead Scheduler, is the Air Traffic Controller keeping client schedules running smoothly. She does the delicate dance of working to exceed client expectations coupled with caregiver needs. We appreciate her!
Bertha has been working in home health since 1988 and has more than 25 years of scheduling and office management experience! Bertha goes above and beyond everyday! #goldenheartscottsdale
One of the biggest challenges for older adults can be giving up that pint of beer, a glass of wine, or a favorite cocktail. Yet, several of the more common prescription medications the elderly take have alcoholic beverages listed in the contraindications.
The second week of January is National Mocktail Week. It’s a good time to join your parents and embrace healthier habits. Here are some of the best ways to use mocktails to get your parents to give up their favorite dinner-time beverages, and how elder care can help.
What are your parents’ favorite cocktails? Your dad loves a gin and tonic. There are non-alcoholic gins on the market, or you could make it with fresh lime juice, tonic water, and ice. Your mom’s craving for a Moscow Mule is easily met with fresh lime juice, a stevia-sweetened ginger ale, soda water, and sprigs of mint.
If they love having a pint of beer with their dinner, look into hop oil. You can add some drops of hop oil to a glass of ice and seltzer. Look into sparkling grape juice for a glass of wine and mix it with some seltzer if it’s too sweet for them. There are also non-alcoholic wines that can be pretty convincing.
Make daiquiris using pureed frozen fruits, seltzer, and lime juice. If they miss the flavor of rum, use rum extract.
When making mocktails for your mom and dad, pay attention to their dietary needs. If they are supposed to reduce their sugar intake due to diabetes, don’t use sugar syrup. Instead, use a sweetener like stevia drops and limit the amount used.
Use fresh fruits for sweetening drinks over sugar. The antioxidants are important. Pureed cherries add sweetness to a drink and count as one of their daily servings of fresh fruit.
How well do your mom and dad do with their prescribed medicines? Do they take them on time or often forget a dose? If they do forget the dose, you can’t have them taking twice as much. If they skip some medications, it could impact their health. This is why elder care is one of the best things you can arrange.
Elder care aides stop by and remind your parents when to take their next dose. They have someone to track whether they’ve taken a pill or not. They won’t miss a dose or take too much because they don’t remember that they’ve already taken it. Call an elder care specialist to get started.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-12-aha-news-year-mocktail.html
National Mocktail Week Marks the Rise of Alcohol-Free Drinks
