Please Help Me, My Mother Needs A Shower & I Don’t Know What to Do!

The call came in at 7:30 PM on a Friday evening.  John said “My mother is visiting for the weekend, and she soiled herself.  I need your help desperately!  She needs a shower and I don’t know what I am going to do, can you please help me.”  John had gone through a long list of Home Care Companies.  John was getting know where, every company he called had a minimum of six to eight hours of care.  John was very surprised when one of the companies he called said sorry we can’t help you, but try calling Always Best Care of Kane County.  John called us and we were able to send our community liaison  to their home to do an assessment on his mother and had a caregiver at their residence within the next couple of hours.  John was so relieved and surprised that we were able to respond so quickly.  John said that he could not be happier with the service we provided for his mother. 

Always Best Care of Kane County is unique from other Home Care Companies in that we offer a 30 minute response time, a minimum of one hour of care, and the owner of ABC personally stops and visits all of our clients at least once a month.

If you need care for your loved one please call Always Best Care of Kane County.  You can reach us at (630) 365-9755 (office),  e-mail us at jtait@abc-seniors.com, or visit our website @ www.alwaysbestcarekanecounty.com.

Crimes Against Seniors Increasing with Population Boom

Senior Scam Alert Blog

February 15, 2011

Scott Knowles

Starting January 1st, ten thousand Boomers will turn 65 each day, a trend that will continue for the next 30 years. This aging population will have a strong desire to remain in their homes — in fact 93% indicate this is their preference. This huge influx of people staying in their homes, most of which are in the suburbs, will mean the demand for home services and contractors will be increasing each day. Unfortunately, unscrupulous service providers are taking advantage of this trend. At SeniorChecked, our mission is to reduce these incidences of fraud and make seniors and their adult children aware of the types of crimes that occur. Below are the latest examples of crimes being committed against seniors:

Stuart woman accused of stealing $151,000 from elderly neighbor

IA woman spent more than $151,000 belonging to a 90-year-old man she convinced to let her take over his finances, the Martin County Sheriff’s Office said Friday. Vilet Ruth Weaver, 57, of the 100 block of Southeast Crestwood Circle, Stuart, was charged with elderly exploitation and grand theft from a person 65 years old or older. She was being held at the Martin County Jail in lieu of $200,000 bail. Detectives said Weaver befriended the senior citizen last year at their condominium and gained power of attorney for his accounts within a matter of weeks. Between October 2009 and July, Weaver wrote sizeable checks for jewelry, restaurants, clothing and beauty salon visits for herself and her four daughters, the Sheriff’s Office said … More

Police say ‘condo scam’ suspect duped elderly board members

A probable cause affidavit obtained by NewsChannel 5 suggests a property manager duped two elderly members of condo boards into signing checks for “cash”, bilking the condos out of more than $2 million dollars. 52-year-old Grace Cushman Cromwell was arrested Thursday morning and charged with grand theft, organized scheme to defraud, and several other counts. Cromwell worked for a property management company that managed two condo associations in the town of Palm Beach, Park Place (369 South Lake Drive) and Melbourne House (227 Australian Avenue). The affidavit cites bank records where hundreds of checks, made out to cash, were deposited into personal bank accounts of Cromwell between January 2006 and February 2010 … More

Caregiver pleads guilty to theft, Medicaid fraud

A state-paid caregiver from Ridgefield pleaded guilty Tuesday to stealing from an elderly cerebral palsy patient and wrongfully collecting money from Medicaid. Michelle L. Zabroski, 46, will be sentenced Jan. 27 for two counts of first-degree theft and three counts of making a false Medicaid statement. She reportedly stole about $12,000 from her 70-year-old former client, Dennis Campbell of Vancouver, and $60,000 from the state by clocking hours that she didn’t actually work, prosecutors said. … More

Financial exploitation tops elder abuse list

Elder abuse can manifest itself in a variety of ways, but the most common is financial exploitation, local experts say. About half of the approximately 450 cases Broome County Adult Protective Services sees each year are those in which an elderly person has been taken advantage of financially, said Supervisor John Choynowski. And that number has increased over the past several years. “It’s almost coincided directly with the economic decline,” … More

Police sound warning on rise of scams in region

The request arrived on the fax machine of a Queensbury bank one day earlier this year.
It seemed simple: a local business owner wanted to wire $25,000 from his account to that of another business. The customer’s account number and signature were on the fax. So the bank employee prepared the paperwork, and a short time later, wired the money off as requested. There were a few problems, though. First, the request hadn’t come from the bank customer, but from a Russian scam artist. The thief had found the business owner’s bank account number, and copy of his signature on the Internet, and used it to draft a fake wire transfer request … More

Mild memory loss is not a part of normal aging

Thu, 09/16/2010 – 19:05 – NLN

Simply getting older is not the cause of mild memory lapses often called senior moments, according to a new study by researchers at the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center.

The study, published in the September 15, 2010, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, found that even the very early mild changes in memory that are much more common in old age than dementia are caused by the same brain lesions associated with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias.

“The very early mild cognitive changes once thought to be normal aging are really the first signs of progressive dementia, in particular Alzheimer’s disease.” said Robert S.Wilson, PhD, neuropsychologist at Rush University Medical Center. “The pathology in the brain related to Alzheimer’s and other dementias has a much greater impact on memory function in old age than we previously recognized.”

The study involved over 350 nuns, priests and brothers who participated in Rush’s Religious Orders Study and completed up to 13 years of annual cognitive testing. After death, the brains were examined for the lesions associated with dementia: neurofibrillary tangles, cerebral infarction (stroke), and Lewy bodies.

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Researchers looked at the rate of change in cognitive function over time. The last four to five years of life showed a very rapid decline. The preceding years showed a much more gradual decline that would be described as normal aging.

As expected, pathologic lesions were related to the rapid decline, but researchers were somewhat surprised to find the pathology was very strongly predictive of the mild changes in cognitive function.

Higher tangle density adversely affected all forms of cognition at all trajectory points. Both Lewy bodies and stroke approximately doubled the rate of gradual memory decline, and almost no gradual decline was seen in the absence of lesions.

“Our study finds that Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias are the root cause of virtually all loss of cognition and memory in old age. They aren’t the only contributing factors; other factors affect how vulnerable we are to the pathology and to its effects. But the pathology does appear to be the main force that is driving cognitive decline in old age,” said Wilson.

According to Wilson, recognizing that the earliest changes in memory are related to Alzheimer’s pathology can lead to early diagnosis and will be critical information if a treatment is developed that can alter the pathologic course of the disease.

Blood Test for Alzheimer’s in Sight, Say U.S. Scientists

Published January 07, 2011

| NewsCore

Alzheimer’s disease could soon be detected by a simple blood test, following the development of a new technique by  U.S. scientists.

Florida researchers said Thursday that they tried a new way of testing the immune system’s response to abnormal substances, known as antigens, released during diseases like Alzheimer’s and identified a pattern of antibodies specific to Alzheimer’s.

The method could also be used to test for early stages of other diseases, including multiple sclerosis, neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and various forms of cancer.

Dr. Thomas Kodadek, the research leader from the Scripps Research Institute in Florida, is now using the technique to develop a test for pancreatic cancer, in which early diagnosis is critical to survival.

“I don’t want my enthusiasm to get too far ahead of the data, but it sure seems to be a general approach that would work for any disease to which the immune system responds,” Kodadek said. “If this works in Alzheimer’s disease, it suggests it is a pretty good platform that may work for a lot of different diseases.”

He added, “Now we need to put it in the hands of disease experts to tackle diseases where early diagnosis is the key.”

The research, published in the journal Cell, involved testing the blood of people with Alzheimer’s disease or Parkinson’s disease and a number of healthy individuals. Molecules called peptoids were then used to test antibodies, and the researchers discovered three that appeared to identify Alzheimer’s sufferers, in a development they believe could form the basis for a blood test.

“This breaks the dogma that antibodies are such specialized receptors that they are only going to bind to native antigens.

It turns out you can screen for them with peptoids that work as an antigen surrogate,” Kodadek said.

To help prevent falls, the elderly should cut down on meds, increase vitamin D

By Katherine Harmon | Jan 13, 2011 01:15 PM 

How many late-life declines can be traced back to a fall? Whether or not it involves a fractured hip or just a general shake-up, even a minor spill can precipitate a rapid loss of function and independence or even death in seniors.

“Falls are one of the most common health problems experienced by older adults,” Mary Tinetti, of the Yale School of Medicine’s Program in Geriatrics, said in a prepared statement. The majority of falls in older adults (some 70 percent) occur when no one is looking, and about 60 percent of older adults with cognitive impairment suffer at least one fall each year, according to a new report Tinetti co-authored. These tumbles often lead to an extended hospital stay or an assisted living admission. “Given their frequency and consequences, falls are as serious a health problem for older persons as heart attacks for strokes,” she said.

The report features a set of guidelines for preventing falls in the elderly, updating formal recommendations from the American and British geriatric societies for the first time in 10 years. The new recommendations were published online January 13 in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

To reduce falls among community-dwelling older adults, Tinetti and her colleagues recommended:

•    Working with a doctor to reduce the number and dosage of medications, especially antidepressants (including selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors), sedatives and antipsychotics;

•    Increasing vitamin D supplementation to 800 international units per day if a person is likely deficient or seems to be a risk for falls;

•    And careful physical activity, such as physical therapy or tai chi to improve balance, flexibility and mobility.

These interventions and others (including assessing footwear, physical environment, visual acuity and circulatory health) can help reduce a senior’s risk of falling, Tinetti and her colleagues found after reviewing nearly a decade’s worth of literature on the subject. Older adults are often on a host of prescription medications to address physical and psychological ills, and despite their recommendation to reduce the number and dosage of medications, the research team acknowledged that in some cases, “discontinuation of a particular high-risk is not possible because of medical conditions.”

Rather than focusing on just one of the recommendations, as previous studies have suggested, the researchers assert that the guidelines should be considered en masse. “Because we looked at not only what recommendations were given, but also which [were] carried out, we’re confident that multifactorial interventions is the best course of action,” said Tinetti.

Other recent research has suggested that avoiding alcohol and listening to music while exercising have helped to keep seniors standing.

Always Best Care of Kane County offers our clients a free in home assessment that includes a home safety inspections.  Our home safety inspections makes sure your home is safe and reduces the risk of future falls.  If you or a loved one needs help in the way of Non-Medical In-Home Care please feel free to call or e-mail us for more information.

Always Best Care of Kane County

(630) 365-9755 (office)

jtait@abc-seniors.com

www.alwaysbestcarekanecounty.com