Digital strategy for families

Fear of technology in the home should not paralyse us, much less leave us behind. We must be well aware of its advantages and disadvantages in order to use it correctly and get the best out of it. Experts say that good training and joint use by all members of the family help as everyone learns at the same time and the technology becomes a more natural part of the home.

BeHome Blog

Fear of technology in the home should not paralyse us, much less leave us behind. We must be well aware of its advantages and disadvantages in order to use it correctly and get the best out of it. Experts say that good training and joint use by all members of the family help as everyone learns at the same time and the technology becomes a more natural part of the home.

Again the word training. Once again, we insist that if planning is necessary to manage the home, a digital strategy is needed to incorporate technologies into the home and has to be an important part of that plan. What company in today’s world that wishes to progress has not already thought about its digital strategy? Well, the home is no exception.

We could think that this is a fad and stay on the sidelines, but the truth is…

View original post 441 more words

People with dementia contributing original content to the online educational offering of a new University course as part of everyday citizenship

Association for Dementia Studies Blog

Our blog this week is by Dr Chris Russell who has been working with Jennifer Bray to enable a variety of people to record video content for his forthcoming module. Here, Chris discusses the process they put in place to work with ‘J’, a lady with dementia. Over to Chris:

The voices and viewpoints of people living with dementia are fundamental to underpinning and informing our distance learning Postgraduate Certificate in Dementia Studies. Capturing insights has been made challenging by the Covid-19 virus and its consequences, however. Nowhere more so than in preparation for the module ‘Engagement and Empowerment in Dementia Studies’, where the original insights of people affected by dementia are essential to learning.

View original post 2,113 more words

How to Prevent Falls and Provide Comfort in a New Home for Seniors

“… advice for setting up a safe living situation in your twilight years.”

the National Association of Senior & Specialty Move Managers® blog

(iStock)

By Estelle Erasmus, Washington Post, January 25, 2022

My parents lived together their whole lives, first in their suburban home, later in an apartment and even later in an independent-living apartment in a senior community. But last year, when my dad, suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, had to be placed in memory care, my octogenarian mom had to live by herself for the first time in her life. She is not alone in facing a change in living situation in her older years.

For the millions of seniors in the United States (predicted to grow from around 58 million to around 88 million by 2050), life transitions such as experiencing widowhood, having a partner with dementia or downsizing after decades in the same home can be a huge challenge. One way to ease the adjustment is to ensure that any new home is comfortable, safe and adaptable to physical limitations.

View original post 1,082 more words

Treasuring Work at 75

“I have seen many changes in the way older adults are cared for over the years, mainly focusing on patient-centered care. Also, there are now more housing options, programs for travel, volunteering and socialization.”

the National Association of Senior & Specialty Move Managers® blog

By: Jane Oderburg, Generations (American Society on Aging) , January-February 2022

I have worked in the field of geriatric social work for 40 years in a variety of settings: senior center, nonprofit mental health organizations, private psychiatric hospitals, assisted living, long-term care, dementia-specific facilities and a cancer nonprofit. When I was in grad school, there weren’t any courses focusing on geriatrics, so I learned by attending workshops, conferences and reading as often as I could. I found I had a preference for dementia patients and their families/caregivers and developed several training programs for family and professional caregivers.

I have seen many changes in the way older adults are cared for over the years, mainly focusing on patient-centered care. Also, there are now more housing options, programs for travel, volunteering and socialization. Of course, people are living longer than before, and most are living an active lifestyle. There were no separate…

View original post 359 more words

Anita Pallenberg – by Suzanne Moore

Both Pallenberg and her friend Marianne Faithfull have had to live with constantly being compared to their 20-year-old selves and found wanting. It is heartening that these women maintained a close friendship despite the coming and going of the men; that they are survivors not victims.

Source: 2) Anita Pallenberg – by Suzanne Moore

The Wild, Wonderful World of Estate Sales

“I got into this many years ago because I saw the elderly being taken advantage of, especially those with dementia,” Julie Hall, the director of the American Society of Estate Liquidators and a thirty-year veteran of the estate-sale business, told me. In one of her numerous books, which include “Inheriting Clutter: How to Calm the Chaos Your Parents Leave Behind” and “What Am I Going to Do with All My STUFF?,” she describes a woman with Alzheimer’s whose friends and neighbors, hearing that she was going to be institutionalized, showed up at her house and began looting the place. “What I witnessed,” Hall wrote, “was like watching a vulture strip a bone.”

the National Association of Senior & Specialty Move Managers® blog

The estate-sale industry is fragile and persistent in a way that doesn’t square with the story of the world as we have come to expect it.

By Lizzie Feidelson, January 7, 2022, The New Yorker

An estate sale is only a true estate sale if the homeowner is dead. If the owner is living, then it’s a tag sale, though many people use the terms interchangeably. When I went to one of my first “estate sales,” in Hewlett Harbor, Long Island, roughly two years ago, just before the pandemic temporarily forced much of the industry online, I was surprised to discover that the owner was not only alive but there, in her soon-to-be-former house. A recent widow, she wandered through the rooms, dazed, dressed in a fringed denim vest.

The house was a beige Colonial-style four-bedroom with prim hedges and a small, sloping lawn. I arrived thirty minutes early, but a…

View original post 5,587 more words

Ethics Alive! The Ethics of SocBots: Imagining Siri and Alexa as the Next Generation of Social Workers

Can Siri and Alexa be programmed with social work values, knowledge, critical thinking, and communication skills? Is this the “new” social worker of the future? Can SocBots learn and adapt to provide better, more ethical services?

Source: Ethics Alive! The Ethics of SocBots: Imagining Siri and Alexa as the Next Generation of Social Workers – SocialWorker.com

Deaths of visually impaired people sparks questions about safety at railway crossings in Japan

Barrier Free Japan

By Barrier Free Japan

January 9 2022

JAPAN – Recent incidents at railway crossings in Japan involving people with disabilities have led people to ask how such incidents can be avoided.

Such tragedies are becoming a common occurrence in Japan. For example, on January 28th 2021, a local group for visually impaired people submitted a request to Tobu Railway to strengthen measures to prevent falls after an accident in which a visually impaired man fell and died at a station in Itabashi Ward, Tokyo.

This accident occurred on January 28 2021, when a visually impaired man in his 60s fell on to a railroad track at Shimo-Akatsuka Station on the Tobu-Tojo Line in Itabashi Ward and was hit by a train and died.

Three months before the accident, groups representing the visually impaired in Itabashi Ward and Toshima Ward submitted a request to Tobu Railway to strengthen fall prevention measures…

View original post 270 more words

Living a sustainable lifestyle

Renegades Escapades

 I have to admit I’m struggling. Life here in the U.K. is relatively easy compared to Hawaii but it’s so far from sustainable, it’s scary! Most of the population continue living like the party will never end. They listen to the government rhetoric about climate change, trusting everything will be taken care of, while switching TV channels to watch soaps or stupid reality shows and they then go on to place their next Amazon order.

I’m living in the quaint port town of Rye where our local authority talks about the future implementation of a sustainability program. They talk about climate change action requiring large scale mobilisation and behavioural change but, as the breakdown of the fragile supply chain inches closer, I don’t see much really changing here. Aware citizens know that the technology exists to resolve problems but the political will is failing us. It appears that only when…

View original post 2,005 more words

Shady Towers, Social Care, Nora and Whitey on the Moon.

“Some patients stay weeks, even months in hospital beds because of complex issues relating to the interplay of their health and home situation.
I have a man who has been stuck in bed too long because he has eight cats…”

Dr Rod’s Odd Blog (almondemotion)

The government and, in particular the NHS are masters at inventing arbitrary names, often allayed with acronyms to describe obscure pathways and processes. It is what they do best. I imagine a conversation between the regional manager for NHS Y (can’t be NHS ‘X’ as that is, unsurprisingly already a thing) and their child:

Freddy: What do you do when you are on the computer in your office?

Mummy:  I organise things.

Freddy: Are you a key worker?

Mummy: Yes, I suppose I am.

Freddy: What do you organise?

Mummy: I find ways to move patients and staff around a diminishing system to maximise output, retention and wellbeing of staff and patient care. I also invent acronyms.

Freddy: Can I watch Disney?

OK, what is this about?

Well, I want to focus on patient experience – in layman’s terms, and depending on your age and state of health, that…

View original post 1,712 more words