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Questions to Guide the Assisted Living Decision

Submitted by administrator on Sun, 05/06/2012 - 5:52pm

Graceland Assisted Living Garden Ridge Texas

The decision to make a move into assisted living is enormous. Seniors and their family members struggle to decide the best living situations when age begins to limit a person's abilities to care for themselves at home.  The decision to leave one's home and transition into assisted living is actually more a series of decisions than simply one big one.

When the realization hits that it is no longer feasible for someone to live by themselves at home, it can be more easily managed by thinking carefully through variables and issues as one makes the best plan possible.  There are resources in the community to help provide guidance through this process.  While it may seem overwhelming at first, it is an important thing to remember when faced with this kind of decision is that inaction is not a solution.  A good first step is to accept the reality that a change will have to be made, and then begin to explore the options that are available.

One of the biggest questions families ask is How can I make the move easier on my loved one?

Spend the first day, move-in day, with them. Set a realistic expectation about how much time you will be able to spend with them afterward. Help them get to know others in their assisted living community by engaging in structured activities. Take another resident along when you take your parent out for a visit, shopping, or for a meal.

Get them as involved in the decision, and in the move, as they can possibly be:

Aging: Alone, In place, how long?

Submitted by administrator on Thu, 05/03/2012 - 12:48pm

Sodalis Cuero

By 2020 there will be more Americans over 65 than under 15.  By 2030, the number of people over 65 will have increased two times, and the number of people over 80 will have nearly tripled.  No doubt about it, American is definitely a graying society.  One of the aging issues that we aren't discussing all that much is the issue of senior housing.  Where are seniors currently living?  What can we expect to change for seniors as the number of seniors increase?  How will the difficult financial downturn of the last few years be experienced in relation to these issues?

Very few seniors express a desire to move into assisted living as they age. Most Americans have an image of themselves as aging in their own homes.  Our society has even invented a term to describe this; "aging in place."  Currently, quite a few American seniors are managing to "age in place," but we're discovering that doing so for most means doing so alone.  

One-third of older Americans live by themselves.   Only 10% of seniors live alone due to the death of a spouse.  Since 1990, divorce rates for those over 65 have doubled.  According to a Bowling Green State Unversity study, nearly one-third of single seniors never married to begin with.  While this may sound sad, researchers say that most older singles are alone, but not lonesome.  Due to better health and better financial resources than in the past, they are able to very active socially.  

Resveratol and Anti-Aging Research

Submitted by administrator on Mon, 04/30/2012 - 12:12pm

Graceland Assisted Living San Antonio Texas

For some time, we've been hearing about the benefits of moderate intake of red wine.  David Sinclair is a professor of genetics at Harvard University Medical School in Massachusetts and is the lead author of a recent study on the benefits of resveratrol, a compound found in red wine.  Dr Sinclair and his colleagues have now confirmed that this ingredient indeed is beneficial.  Offering proof that it can counteract the harmful effects of aging and potentially increase life span.  Resveratol in studies has been show to increase healthy life span by limiting cancer and heart disease.  The research team believes that this finding and others could lead to the development of an anti-aging pill in the near future.

Now, scientists for the first time have created a mouse model that could lead to the development of an anti-aging drug.  

"Work from our lab, and now some companies, is aimed at finding medicines and developing medicines that could use the body's natural defenses against disease," says David Sinclair, a professor of genetics at Harvard University Medical School in Massachusetts and senior author of the latest study showing the health benefits of resveratrol in mice, "and, hopefully, one day have medicines that could delay multiple diseases and hopefully slow down aging."

Human trials involving resveratol are currently being conducted.  The hope is that the within five years, the concept of an anti-aging drug will no longer be just a concept, but a reality.  

Read more here

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