Welcome to the September 8, 2009 edition of boomers and seniors - News you can use.

Gina LaGuardia presents A Caring Workplace: Employee Benefits Related to Caregiving posted at Seniors For Living, saying, “Caring for an elderly relative can impact work productivity and Caring Workplace is a unique benefit that provides employees a referral service and counseling.”

Elisha Knackwood presents Top 50 Healthcare Policy Blogs posted at Nursing Assistant Guides.

Boomer Trends

Debra Joy presents True meaning of happiness, as taught by our grandchildren posted at B celebrated, saying, “M.J. Essenmacher, successful career woman, learns what true happiness is from her grandchildren”

Carebuzz presents Healthy Aging posted at WorkingCaregiver.com Researchers recently identified four healthy lifestyle factors that could go a long way toward reducing your father’s risk of contracting common and deadly diseases.

Senior Housing

Kaye Swain presents Caregiver’s Checklist When Time to Relocate posted at SandwichINK Real Estate Info, saying, “What if one of your loved ones has to head for the hospital unexpectedly and you need to be closer? Or an aging parent not-so-unexpectedly needs to move in but your house is too small? For many, moving will be a necessity. Here’s a helpful checklist for Senior Home Care Givers to help winnow out the inappropriate properties as we go out apartment or house hunting in the area we are preparing to relocate to.”

Patricia Grace presents Adult day care…the best kept secret in eldercare posted at Aging with Grace CareConnection.

Health and Wellness

Gina LaGuardia presents Exercise Improves Spatial Memory in Seniors posted at Seniors For Living, saying, “Can the right exercise program help seniors improve their spatial memory, allowing them thier independence for longer? The answer is encouraging!”

Viki Kind presents A Timeline Tool For When You Are In The Emergency Room posted at KindEthics.com, saying, “Make sure you are listened to in the Emergency Room. By Viki Kind at KindEthics.com.”

Kaye Swain presents Seniors Staying Busy Having Fun posted at SandwichINK.com, saying, “Staying busy is vital for all ages, including senior citizens. Here’s some fun ideas to share with our aging parents, along with a great resource with even more ideas. Bridge anyone?”

Carolyn Friedman presents Top 50 Oncology Blogs posted at Nurse Practitioner Schools.

Heartstrong presents Carotid Artery Stenting Can Prevent Strokes posted at Healthy Hearts with Heartstrong.

Brooklyn White presents 50 Social Sites to Connect With Other Patients Online posted at Nurse Practitioner Schools.

Jimmy Atkinson presents 25 Free Open Courseware Classes About Your Health posted at Medicine. Technology. Web..

Taylor Coburn presents The 7 Areas of Life posted at Motivia, saying, “All areas of our life are interconnected. Shifts in one area can have a profound impact on other areas, like your health.”

Kate Hopkins presents 50 Great Tools to Double Check Your Doctor posted at Online Nursing Classes.

Charles Chua C K presents All About Living with Life: Baby Boomers – The 7 Ingredients of Happiness posted at All About Living with Life.

Yield to Pedestrian presents Grandparents, Grandchildren Tip #4: Spend Your Time posted at Extra (Hour)dinary Parenting.

Senior Care/Caregiving

Dale Carter presents Five Reasons You Should Contact an Ombudsman for Your Aging Parent posted at Transition Aging Parents, saying, “Did you know every state has a long-term care ombudsman? One of their roles is to respond to problems and complaints. But, their main role is to educate the public and assist families when they are contemplating a new living option for their aging parents. Read more about the value they offer.”

Debra Joy presents Celebrating Grandparents posted at B celebrated, saying, “This article is a sweet memory I have of my own grandmother and an announcement of a contest we are having to celebrate grandparents”

Carebuzz presents 6 Ways Caregivers Can Make Mealtime Easier for Seniors posted at Minnesota Care, saying, “In order to help ensure that seniors eat properly at every mealtime, and that it becomes a more pleasant experience, then here are a few tips that caregivers can follow.”

Carebuzz presents Adaptive Clothing: Reducing the Physical Demands of Caregivers posted at Minnesota Care, saying, “As caregivers, one of our most physically challenging jobs is to help a Minnesota senior who is relatively immobile with dressing.”

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of boomers and seniors - news you can use using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags: boomers and seniors - news you can use, blog carnival.

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Carebuzz loves Twitter! Yesterday we found an interesting tweet by @ElderCareRN. She referred to an article written by MacKenzie Kimball, an Associate Editor in HCPro’s long-term care division. Kimball came across a number of informative Twitter feeds related to long-term care and made a list of HCPro’s top 20 Twitters (is that such a term? Or would those of us who tweet be called Twitterers or Twitees?). If you haven’t seen the list go to Top 20 LTC Twitter Feeds, each of the selected top 20 includes a brief description.

While @Carebuzz has a great respect for the the top 20 selection made by HCPro’s, we had the brilliant idea (and we have many..) to do a poll on our own selected Top 10 Senior Care Twitter Feeds! Sound like a fun poll? Okay? drum roll, please.. here’s our list:

@Seniors4Living

“I’m Gina, an editor at SeniorsforLiving.com, here to exchange info about senior health/housing, boomer issues, assisted and independent living, retirement, etc.”

@GilbertGuide

“Gilbert Guide founder, passionate for raising the bar for high-quality eldercare, helping people find the best care for aging parents, life enthusiast, luv wine”

@ElderCareRN

“Registered Nurse, writer, caregiver 4 my father, offering Encouragement, Education, Empathy & Effective strategies to Enrich the lives of eldercare givers”

@Caregiving

“Certified ElderCare Coach, Author, Speaker. Founder, Caregiving.com. Interested in Social Media, Biking, Sports, Travel. Glad to connect!”

@AgeWiseLiving

“Barbara is founder of AgeWiseLiving, helping families struggling with Eldercare issues & author of The Ultimate Caregiver’s Success System.”

@ourparents

“Helping families with aging parents find best senior care solution that meets loved one’s unique needs. in-home, assisted living, nursing home. free & unbiased”

@mike_gamble

“Internet Entrepreneur - PASSION: Improving the Quality of Life for Aging Seniors & Family Caregivers - Loving Husband, Proud Father and Grandfather”

@ALZHEIMERSread

“The Alzheimer’s Reading Room is the number one site on the Internet for insight into Alzheimer’s and dementia”

@ECMatters

“CEO of EldercareABC - loved caring for my own parents (changed my life) want to help other do the same“

@BayAlarmMedical

“We protect the most important things in life – family, health and independence.”

The following Top 10 Senior care Twitter Feeds poll will be open for 24 hours - retweeting every 15 minutes so everyone has an opportunity to vote ! Please make your selection.. and RT the poll for your followers.. Carebuzz wants to hear from you - fellow Tweeters, or are you Twitterers?

PLEASE! Cast your vote Now! Thank you for your participation. The poll closes EXACTLY 24 hours from now!

BTW, this is not American Idol, so only one vote per Twittee.

A good resource for working family caregivers is this Elderkit brought to you by Fannie Mae. It was designed to support employees through every stage of work and life.

According to the Fannie Mae On-Site Eldercare Consultant, “often that means providing the support and guidance you need to help your loved ones progress through stages of their own lives. The fact is that for many people, the challenges of raising children come to an end only to be replaced by concerns over aging parents and relatives. And sometimes we’re faced with both responsibilities at the same time. That’s why our cutting-edge, dependent care program was expanded to address eldercare issues. The following benefits have been designed to help you navigate your way through the difficult challenge ahead.”

Kudos for Fannie Mae, directly making an impact on elder care issues at work.

Take a look at this ElderKit - it’s useful for everyone dealing with elder care issues.

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Carebuzz wants to know how many family caregivers are on Twitter and Facebook! Please take a moment and tell us! We’re nosy!

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We’ll keep you posted on results… because you may be nosy too.

Okay, I’m on a roll here - I am determined to find out what HR department’s focus & chart of responsibilities are in the medium to large companies? Why is that important to me?

Well, I’m wondering if HR has changed since the time I was a family caregiver for my aging mom and dad (a long distance caregiver)? At the time, both my parents were getting up in years and slowing down a lot. Mom’s health took a dive and dad became weaker and more feeble. My sisters and I were helping A LOT! Mom and dad depended on us tremendously.

Working full time, I was at a disadvantage. So, I helped as much as I could by talking with parents’ doctors and health care providers via phone to get answers for my sisters who were the “hands on” caregivers. I also did the research on health topics and senior care online. This was my part in helping and caregiving.

Think about it.. I’m full time working at a job. A lot of my time at work was spent on worrying about my aging relatives, doing research, and talking with sisters about their care.

While at work, many of my colleagues (out of 30 - about 10) were dealing with the same concerns and elder care issues. I got the bright idea.. “go to HR to set up a caregiver support group so that we can all share info and research”. I thought this made sense, since we were wasting productive employer’s time looking for similar help and resources. This makes sense to you too, right?

Well, it did not to HR! The benefits Director told me “we can’t support a caregiver group” by helping you set up a monthly brown bag luncheon!”

“What?” I exclaimed. “Why the heck not, don’t you see how you would help us be more productive here at work?”

HR said that it’s against company’s policy to support any cause! Hmm.. I remember the company supporting a drive against cancer by doing extensive marketing to employees to donate time & money for that cause! Well, I reminded HR about that..

“Oh, that’s an annual cause the Executive management decided to support. We can’t take on something a few employees want to support… if we do that, we’ll be supporting all kinds of causes.”

I remember and reminded HR that we were not asking for their support.. just a table in the lunch room to meet once a month and putting a sign on the fridge to remind those who would like to attend.

So, what’s your experience at work? Do you feel supported by HR, your boss, etc. for your caregiving needs?

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