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How Can You Allow Friends and Family to Help You with Senior Meals?

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Finding Help with Senior Meals

Senior Care Plantation FL

For some family caregivers, it can be difficult to know how and when to allow friends and family members to help out with senior meals. On the one hand, it feels like an imposition, but on the other hand, it can save so much time for a busy family caregiver. Resolving the internal conflict can be all in how you approach the issue.

Be Open about Needing a Little Help

If you don’t let your friends and family know that you could use a little bit of help with senior meals, then they’re not likely to offer very often. On the other hand, if you are more open with your friends and family members, you may even be able to set up a schedule where people take turns providing meals for your senior loved one’s freezer.

Let People Know about Dietary Concerns

When you do have a system in place for other people to help out with meals, it’s extremely important that you let them know about any dietary concerns that your loved one has. If your loved one needs to cut back on salt or high fat foods, for example, be sure to mention all of that. If there are specific ingredients you’re trying to incorporate more often, let them know that, too.

Offer Recipes They Can Use

It’s entirely possible that over time, you’ve collected some recipes that your senior loved one really enjoys. But if you don’t even have time to make them, those recipes go unused. Try sharing them with some of the people who have offered to make meals for your loved one. That way your loved one gets to try favorite recipes made with love, even if you weren’t able to do it yourself.

Express Your Gratitude

You’ll keep getting help from friends and family members if you let them know how much they’re helping you. You don’t have to do anything elaborate, either. Simply call the person who dropped off a meal and let her know exactly how much that one act helped you or your loved one. If you have a few more minutes, try writing out a quick thank you note. It’ll be appreciated.

Make sure you keep reheating instructions so that anyone from other family members to your loved one’s senior care providers can reheat meals for your loved one.

If you or an aging loved one are looking for home health in Hollywood, FL or the surrounding areas, please reach out to the caring staff at Responsive Home Care. Contact us today 954-486-6440.

ELDER ORPHANS

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In today’s society, where the needs of children are top priority and where foster homes have replaced the antiquated idea of orphanages, there still remain those who are truly alone in the world and in desperate need of care and support: elder orphans.

As the baby boomer generation ages—a generation that, for the first time, often elected to remain childless—the numbers of elderly without family support are rapidly increasing. Research indicates that as many as 22% of seniors are in danger of becoming (or already are) orphaned. And with as many as 43 million seniors over age 65 in the U.S., it’s an alarming statistic.

Professor of Geriatrics at Florida State University College, Dr. Kenneth Brummel-Smith, believes that bringing caregivers into the home could be part of the solution. And one particular Medicaid-funded program, Money Follows the Person, takes it a step further, pairing disabled young adults in homes with senior orphans. Or perhaps other seniors could volunteer their support in a communal living environment, a trend that is beginning to take off in the United States.

Awareness of the issue is the first step, and the goal of Dr. Maria Torroella Carney, chief of geriatric and palliative medicine at North Shore-LIJ Health System, is to encourage aging care experts to implement new programs to provide the needed support for the anticipated surge in elder orphans.