My Wow to Medicine!

I met with a business associate today. Laughingly, I was telling her about my sensitivity to medicine. There was the time that I was put on a high powered antibiotic and a serious cough medicine - I am up at 5 am leaving screaming messages on people's phones. Oh did I have some serious apologies.



Then there was the time when I was saving money and had my blood work done at a health fair. You would think after all the years I have been around the medical field I would remember that I should have fasted for 12 hours....... Result the wrong medication for high cholesteral and a crazy woman driving around town crying - and thinking she needs psychiatric help. Within three days of being removed from the medication.......I woke up excited it was winter and there was snow on the ground. I have even had to give up generic medicines where the stabilizers and I do not like each other and I have to use a more expensive formula.



Reminding myself of my personal inability to have positive reactions to many medications makes me much more compassionate with my clients. Some of our clients will be placed on multiple medications for multiple problems and reactions, discomfort, digestive issues are not uncommon. There can be a total change in personality and it is not always clinical depression it can be medicines reacting not only to each other but to the client's chemistry.

I have had clients who threw chairs across rooms (at the young age of 85) just to find out their medications had caused a serious change in personality - (and maybe strength). In helping others, one of the primary needs is to be a good observer. To recognize as we introduce change into peoples lives that they are not always so crazy.........Speaking of crazy, I think I will always make sure to tell at least 3 people before I start any new medications. I need their eyes and ears (hopefully not at 5 am) telling me if I am changing because of the medications.

40 days of Positive Thoughts!

The family pug had to visit the vet today. I had known that her teeth were not doing well but much to my chagrin, once she was under I was told it was worse than I thought. I am anticipating a horrible outcome. I think immediately I have been a horrible pet owner and then reminisce about all the dogs my family owned who only went to the vet for broken bones and terminal illness - and upon learning of the illness were put down. Wow it is expensive to own a pet today! But I don't own a "pet" . I have an animal who is a friend. She has taught my children so much. She has taught responsibility. Safety and behavior modification. She has taught them unconditional love - how to spoil someone and lick them to death and be spoiled. Our home is a safe haven - for we know she will protect us. She makes us laugh and plays with us. I rethink my first thoughts and know I am so lucky to be able to have a pet and be able to take care of it the way my parents could not.

I will pick up Em today with a light heart knowing that she will feel like her old self soon and be back to that playful friend I love.

Assisted Living Question and Answers

Assisted Living is a relatively new option in the Senior Market. Nursing Homes, as we know them today, improved with changes in medicare and medicaid laws during and since the 1950's . Assisted Living started even later. The term appeared in a proposal to the state of Oregon for a pilot study on new residential settings in 1985. Initially most assisted livings were non medical and only offered a minimal amount of care and the government did not have many regulations regarding them. The smaller private suite with 3 meals a day, bed changing, monitoring of medicine has become a standard. Over time homes realized that without additional services they would not be able to keep their clients in the assisted living environment for longer periods of time and soon adapted to meet the increased demand for continuum of care and individualized needs.

Having RN's or LPN's to oversee the care and/or contracted licensed services on the property became more and more standard. This allowed for additional medically licensed services to be offered to the client.

Why should I be concerned when placing my parent or loved one in an assisted living?

Each assisted living facility is designed to help in different ways and each dictates their requirements in order to maintain those standards. Is the Assisted Living you are looking at modeled on a residential, medical, dementia or nursing care Level?

• Can your parent have incontinence and still live in the Assisted Living?


• Will someone alert them of the time for dinner?


• If my parent needs someone to come and get them for the events will someone come?


• Do other residents wander?


• Will they be in my parent's room?


• If my Mom is high functioning but needs assistance in the bathroom how quickly will you respond?


• How much assistance will you give my Mother in the bathroom?


• What constitutes additional charges?


• Do you use an inclusionary approach?

Being aware of what care options are available makes for a better decision and an easier and more successful transition for all concerned people involved.

Retirement Communities Become Creative

With the economy just in its initial stages of rebound, Retirement Communities are becoming highly creative. Financially it makes sense. An empty room does not generate profit and can be an overhead burden.

Some of the interesting approaches have been to have deferred entrance fees which are not due until your home sells; teaming with realtors to get homes sold and lower initial rates till homes sell. All of these work to offset the losses that families have encurred and allow their investments to stay invested until they pick up again.

Most important though is that people who need to move are not being held back by financial concerns. They are able to transition in to a community with less worry and focus more on taking care of themselves and their care givers. Moving Services such as Elder Moves, Inc. can assist with the transitions. For more information in your area contact a care manager who has experience and can point you in the right direction.

On a bright note that Butler Basketball team made us proud! We also were able to devote a 1/2 day to helping at the Generseat sponsored homeless clinic held at the Indianapolis Convention Center.

ELDER MOVES, INC. LAUNCHES NEW AREAS!!

We are so excited to launch two new areas of Elder Moves, Inc. We will be offering a service called EM Moving Services. This service area will be for the slam bang thank you mam type moves. Offering a quick solution for the few items needed to be moved or the standard approach that most moves are about. Fast, Efficient and we will make sure it is done right!

The other is Executive Moves . A white gloved approach for the too busy executives and with specialty items which are offered through Elder Moves, Inc. We will sort, organize, move and set-up your home as if it were our own. From hanging your pictures to setting up your china cabinet and closets. Specialty needs will be met - i.e. closet build outs and designs/floor plans or a counter top which needs to be changed.

As always we will continue to offer our Elder Moves, Inc. a specialty company helping the elderly through transitional moving. You can visit our website at www.eldermoves.net

This one is for you Katy!

Slumdog Millionaire what a movie! Katy asked me what I thought of this and I said it was rather deep. She said she wasn't getting it and I told her that to me, I believe that if we are following a spiritual path often we don't recognize when God is working through us till much later.

I do not know what the movie director or the writer were attempting but felt the movie conveyed not only that Good conquers evil but a sense that the main character's decisions were filled with integrity, honesty and compassion. He was doing the next right thing and he was given an answer towards the winning prize each time he did.

Confronted with life's inequities and the extreme in evil he still managed to maintain his goodness. When Saline chose his path he fought the fight of good vs. evil and ultimately chose good by giving up his life for his brother.

To me it is like Julia Roberts in Pretty Girl. Would we have liked this movie as well if she had decided to accept the paid girl's role from Richard Geer? It would not have imparted the feel good, yes we can beat it, feelings it did.

In the long run are we not all just trying to do the next right thing to attain the winning prize - in my case that is peace and acceptance - love and compassion - service and surrender.

Inauguration Thoughts!!

No matter what you believe or whom you have voted for a dream for many have been realized. The hope that is occurring with the inauguration of the first Malotto Man to ever lead our country is beyond the hope of the crisis that needs solving, the wall street greed or the wars that are happening. To me the hope is that just as Ghandi, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, Bill Wilson or others who have carried torches which burned bright with what is good (even beyond their humanness) so too does this event.

It is a visual testiment to the ability for God to empower us even as we do wrong things. Of taking what was evil and transforming it into a living statement of what can be. Slavery is wrong. Hate is wrong. Judging on creed and beliefs is wrong but what is right is seeing people from all races, creeds, beliefs, abilities, disabilities come together meld as one and celebrate what we can be what we can strive to be.

If we can lead through challenging others to goodness - Looking back that is what the 60's were about. It is what we can come full circle to be. We can lose entitlement and gain respect through example. I feel empowered today - I feel as if those who have worked so hard to have all people heard are being vindicated. May all of you enjoy this and may it bring a beacon of hope to the world's problems a jumping off into the goodness we can be.