Senior Guidebook, beginning its 7th year of thoughtful options for seniors, families, caregivers, and friends, is dedicated to providing information and resources for those looking to understand their choices, and the experiences of others
Our Guidebook Blog looks to provide information with a new angle; your feedback and requests. Initially, our topics cover health, nutrition, and finance, with more to come as we incorporate your feedback and interests. We will continue to bring many experts together including traditional and nontraditional experts, physicians, nurses, nutritionists, elder law and estate planners, travel specialists and many more.
Our physical and fiscal health are tied to each other. With so many people concerned about our economy, we chose our opening topic to be Finance. We have an excellent assortment of videos (clickable to videos), articles (clickable to articles) and posts to help us educate ourselves.
The increase in gas prices has people using their cars less, and walking or biking more. My hope is they are enjoying the outdoors, their neighborhoods and neighbors. Are you feeling the pinch and cutting your travel budget? Why not spend a weekend close by – frequenting shops and cafes where you live? How are you spending you travel budget? If you are fortunate enough to travel now:
Many people are touched by Alzheimer’s. How has Alzheimer’s touched your family? What choices have you made? How have you found support?
While Alzheimer’s has touched many of our friends and acquaintances, we did not realize how deeply it affected our own family until we were in the middle of caring for our grandpa. Though it happened over time, our grandfather’s behavior became challenging. We scrambled to understand and deal with him leaving the house at all hours, and phone us asking for grandma and how to get home. He bathed in cold water at 3 am and checked the mail several times a day long after the mail had been delivered. Even with these difficult challenges our family was reluctant to find care for him, as we felt we could manage the situation ourselves. We realized it was time to change how we were dealing with grandpa when grandpa lit a fire in the kitchen cabinets. The fireplace in their home was only steps away from the kitchen, and was the heart of the house where grandpa had made many fires to welcome many friends and family. Luckily the fire fighters extinguished the blaze before major structural damage was sustained. When the contractor was done fixing the damage from the fire with new carpet and a cabinet to match – Grandpa was combative and insistent that we take him home.
It was at this point the family focused on his need for care, and searched for referrals in the community. This was not an easy process! Once he was in his new environment a new set of challenges arose. Grandma spent hours driving to visit her husband. The man she had raised 9 children with over the last 53 years had become a stranger. She found the schedule to be exhausting, and was where she was mentally and physically fatigued. Grandpa’s dementia care community was prepared and efficient in providing support to our family, at the point of need
Even when we are focusing on nutrition as a topic in itself, it is amazing how nutrition, health, physical activity (including yoga and stress management through breathing excercises), finances, travel, etc. are all connected in each of our Big Pictures. Many of my boomer family members in Arizona recently went for a heart PET scan. The local hospital was offering a 2 for one deal where the scan was $99 for two, an incredible savings. There was much anticipation as they all shared their numbers with each other. When my uncle announced his number was 400 (a high score) it unnerved those still waiting for their score. My father’s number was 10 and the nurse told him to do what ever it was he was doing. He laughed, because he still had a couple of cigars in his humidor that he was not quite ready to give up. Kidding aside my father’s commitment to healthy eating and exercise are what makes his score not a surprise. He eats grapefruit, oatmeal, veggies and lean meats. This reformed bachelor with a penchant for eating out now uses his crock pot more often, and has the family over for pots of bean & veggie soup, bread and red wine in moderation. He also meets regularly at the dog park with other neighborhood dog lovers in their 60’s, and makes time for being outside. All of these things are cornerstones to his health, and are what enable him to enjoy his life.
