A WAY TO STAY Home Care Yardley Newtown PA

JUST CLICK ON THE CARD TO ENLARGE IT!

One of our great joys is to create cards that celebrate caregiving.   We want the reader to smile and connect for a moment with the notion of how Devon and I see what a Home Care agency does.  Devon is a punster and came up with the title of this card!  The caregivers we work with, and the clients and families we work for, are so full of love.  

We use the “occasion” of the card to make a donation to a non-profit we think is the Bomb.  For Valentine’s Day our donation is to the Alzheimer’s Association of the Delaware Valley. They do such important work and are so encouraging to our team. Among many other things the Association helps us direct our dementia clients to resources in the local area as well as having a 24-hour helpline 800.272.3900.

Home care counselors at A WAY TO STAY Home Care are available to talk with you about your needs.  A WAY TO STAY is a home care agency providing In-Home Care in Yardley

Shingles can dive bomb your quality of life – no matter what your age.  Several older members of my family and young friends have suffered mightily from shingles. I can’t imagine one of our elderly home care clients being tormented by this nasty disease so I was glad to read that there is a vaccine.

According to Paula Span of the New York Times THE NEW OLD AGE blog, the vaccine reduces your odds of getting shingles by 55% and lessens the suffering for those who do get it. The vaccine (Zostavax) is made by Merck and recommended for all adults age 60 or older with normal immune systems.

For those of us under 60 who want the vaccine (count me and my sister in this group) we can get the shingles vaccine if we can find a doctor or pharmacy who stocks it and are prepared to pay for it ourselves if necessary. The cost is usually close to $200. To find pharmacies that provide the vaccine, plug your location into the Merck’s vaccine locator or call Merck at 1-800-261-5579.  Good luck!

If you want to know more, THE NEW OLD AGE blog has thoughtfully collected up-to-date links to more information on shingles.

Home care counselors at A WAY TO STAY Home Care are available to talk with you about your needs.  A WAY TO STAY is a home care agency providing In-Home Care in Yardley

Kristen Gerencher from MarketWatch gives 5 questions to ask before hiring a home care aide or taking on the role yourself.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — The signs can hit you quickly or sneak up on you gradually. But what do you do if Mom or Dad isn’t safe living alone anymore?
“The worst thing you can do is ignore it,” said Bob Mecca, principal of Robert A. Mecca & Associates, an independent, fee-only financial planning firm in Hoffman Estates, Ill.
If an elderly relative starts to need help to get through the day, families who want to avoid institutions often face two choices: hire a home care aide or become one yourself. Both these options allow the older person to remain at home where he or she may be most comfortable, experts say, but each has its own pitfalls.
Families who choose outside help must decide what level of care their loved one requires and whether they want to go through an agency or hire a caregiver privately. And people who join the ranks of the 65 million unpaid family caregivers in the U.S. can face health-draining burnout if they don’t budget for respite care for themselves.
There are two main kinds of in-home care. Personal or home-care aides provide companionship and support a person’s activities of daily living such as dressing, bathing, preparing meals and doing laundry. Home health care aides may do all those things plus tasks such as administering medication or recording changes in a client’s condition. They also may work under a nurse’s supervision.
Here are five questions to consider when thinking of hiring or becoming a caregiver.
1. What kind of care do you need and can you afford?
If you don’t know what kind of care is needed, a specially-trained geriatric care manager can help you assess the situation by doing a site visit. Assessments cost $500 to $800 depending where you live, said Stan Samples, communications director for the National Association of Professional Geriatric Care Managers. Its website, Caremanager.org, can match you with local geriatric care managers.
The Alzheimer’s Association offers an always-open phone line at 1-800-272-3900 and an online CareFinder tool at www.Alz.org/carefinder. And Medicare’s website has a Home Health Compare tool at www.Medicare.gov/HHCompare.
Before looking for a home-care worker, families need to make sure they can afford to hire one, Mecca said.
Families typically pay for these services out of their pockets unless the older person meets Medicare’s coverage conditions or has a private long-term care insurance policy that covers such needs.
Agencies’ hourly rates often are towards the top of the scale while caregivers who work independently are typically less expensive.
Rates vary widely but are often $14 to $22 an hour for nonmedical in-home care, said Jim McCabe, president of Eldercare Resources, a geriatric care-management company in Scottsdale, Ariz. Still, home care is often less pricey than assisted-living facilities, which can run $2,800 to $4,400 a month, he said.
2. Should you hire an independent worker directly or go an agency?
The advantage of using a home-care agency is it takes responsibility for screening and supplying aides and paying their wages, taxes and insurance in the event they get hurt on the job, said Ethan Kassel, a geriatric care manager and co-owner of Garden State Eldercare, a home-health agency in South Orange, N.J.
Agencies also run criminal background and driving-record checks, and they provide back-up aides should your main caregiver get sick or go on vacation.

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Home care counselors at A Way to Stay are available to talk with you about your home care. A Way to Stay is a home care agency providing Home Care in Yardley. Call 215.321.5100 to speak with Home Care Advisor today!