Helping Your Loved One Cope With Being in a Nursing Home
In the United States there are 17,000 nursing homes with a total of 1.8 million beds. Slightly over 5% of the 65+ population reside in nursing homes, assisted living facilities, congregate care or boarding homes, according to the U.S. Bureau of the Census. Population estimates show that these numbers will continue to rise drastically for the next 30 years as the baby boomers (1946-1964), the largest segment of the population move into their 70s and 80s. For those families with loved ones already in nursing homes, it is very important that they reach out to their loved ones especially during the holiday season. Below are several tips for helping your loved ones cope with being in a nursing home.
1. Visit
It is estimated that 60% of nursing home residents have no visitors. If you live in the area you are encouraged to visit your loved one, even if only for an hour or so. Sit with them, hold their hand and spend some quality time.
2. Share memories
If you do visit be sure to bring old family pictures. Sit with your loved one and go through the family albums. For many seniors these memories from their childhood and young adulthood are the last memories to fade with age. Listen to their wonderful stories and share some of your memories as well.
3. Keep them up to date
Make sure to share any good news with your loved ones. Tell them about the birth of any new family members, weddings, job promotions etc. Send pictures if you can so they can still feel like part of the family.
4. Call
Some family members don’t live locally and can’t visit regularly. However, call the facility and have them put your relative on the phone. Try to be mindful of the nursing home schedule as many residents have to be transported to the dining room for meals and/or may need assistance with eating their meals. Try to avoid calling during meal times if at all possible. Residents also participate in speech and physical therapy and attend social activities so they may be out of their room. Try to call back if you don’t reach them the first few times. Even if your loved one has a hearing impairment try and talk to them on the phone briefly. The staff can let them know you called and they will feel loved and remembered.
5. Send a small care package
Everyone loves gifts! Try to send your loved one something for the holiday from the family. Remember it doesn’t have to be anything extravagant because it really is the thought that counts. Family photos (plastic frames), a shawl, baseball cap, small throw blanket, pajamas, housedress, and warm socks are wonderful gifts ideas and not expensive.
Seven Tips for Staying Healthy at Work
You worked like a dog for your new body. Every solid, toned inch is 100% you. But those Jabbas at the office, they just don’t get it. They ooze from cubicle to cubicle, pizza-stained ties and pasty, unhealthy skin, happy to slurp sticky sodas and lead a life less extraordinary while you strive for more.
And they want you to come back into the fold! They want you to eat junk and spend leisure hours doing a whole lot of nothing. Don’t do it! Unlike poor Michael Corleone, you don’t have to be sucked back in. We’ve come up with a few tips to keep you fit at the office, despite the bad habits of your coworkers.
1. Head ‘em off at the pass. The thing is, if someone brings in a box of bear claws, they’re going to seem a lot more attractive if you’re hungry. So eat that balanced breakfast and have those healthy snacks on hand for the time between meals.
2. Find food that stays fresh. The frustrating thing about healthy food is that it doesn’t keep; so, unlike Oreos, which would keep in your desk well into the next eon, a lot of fresh fruits and veggies, yogurt, and cottage cheese go bad quickly if not refrigerated. And if you do have a fridge at work, going there to get your healthy eats can be quite an ordeal when you have to walk past a caravan of crud sitting on the kitchen counter. So here are a few things you can keep at your desk that might last a little longer at room temperature:
* Uncut fresh fruit
* A handful of raw nuts (be careful with this one—less is more)
* A tub of protein powder (just add water!)
* A handful of whole grain cereal
That may not seem like much, but there are hundreds of variations of at least three of those.
3. Get the heck out of Dodge. It’s 11 AM. You’re sweating bullets. It’s “Pizza Friday” and, in about one hour, the walking dead will be shuffling to the kitchen for multiple slices of gooey cheese and sausage on Chicago-style crust. Even if you stay in your cubicle, the savory scent will find you. How will you resist?
Well, when the going gets tough, the tough scram. At 11:50 AM, grab your good walking shoes and go for a stroll, have a picnic, go shopping, whatever. Just get out. That way you’re avoiding the horror and getting a little cardio and vitamin D all in one fell swoop.
4. Hook up to a slow drip. You have the lunch and two snack times sorted out, but you never know when some supposed good Samaritan is going to swing by your office with a bowl of bite-sized Snickers, tempting you when you still have two hours until your next official eating time.
If this is a problem, parse out your snacks. The trick is, you have to plan out the size of said snack in advance. So after breakfast, set aside X amount of whatever and graze on that—but when you’re done, you’re done. That’s the key.
The exception to this is raw, green veggies. It’s really, really hard to eat too much broccoli or celery, so if that’s your snack, eat yourself sick.
5. Give in to the dark side. What? What? WHAT? Never! Calm down. It’s okay to be a little naughty sometimes. It keeps you sane, it makes a diet more palatable and, well, it tastes good. The key is moderation. First off, pick the amount of cheats you have in a week. For someone trying to lose weight, one or two is a good number. For those who have already reached their goals, more are okay.
When the pizza comes, if this is going to be one of your weekly cheats, get your piece, love it, lavish it, pray to it, build a monument around it, and eat it—but then you’re done. That’s it. That was your cheat. No more. No, not another “half piece” or “cut off little bite.” Just be done. Same goes for the candy bowl. Eat your mini Almond Joy and then walk away. Birthday? Eat a small piece of cake. If they give you too much, cut it in half and dump half on someone else’s plate, or pass it on until a smaller piece comes your way.
6. Back against the wall. Sometimes, there’s an eventlunch with a client or an office partywhere all those “goodies” are unavoidable. When this happens, much of the above advice applies. Eat beforehand, use it as a cheat, etc.
If it’s at the office, make yourself a conservative plate, picking foods you know are at least sort of reasonable. A pasta salad is probably a better call than marshmallow salad, for example. Once you’ve finished your plate, throw it in the trash and be done. Get a glass of water in your hands so they aren’t tempted to wander into the M&M’s bowl and relax.
If it’s an outing, a few simple rules help with any restaurant experience. Choose a lean meat/protein. Eat half of whatever they serve. Choose salad or fruit instead of fries. Order water instead of Coke. You should be all right.
7. It’s a matter of public record. Put your “Before” and “After” photos on your desk. When temptation calls, have a look. Remember how far you’ve come. Reaffirm that long-term happiness outweighs a temporary sugar rush.
It was hard work getting this far, so follow these few simple tips and it won’t be for naught. The only thing you’re going to get pulled into is a size 2 (or 30-inch waist) pair of jeans, you sexy beast you.
Multi-Dimensional Criteria in Evaluating E-Health Services
The most efficient e-health evaluation framework is based on several criteria. They serve as tools to enable the development of successful e-health initiatives because they assist the healthcare organization in identifying and thus addressing multiple areas of concern.
In order to reveal the full value of e-health initiatives, which are dictated by complex regulations, a certain criterion has to be selected when analyzing a specific e-health service. The group of criteria employed in the evaluation of the mentioned field is divided into three classes depending on the technical dimension, the economic dimension, holdem rules and the social dimension. Hence the three categories of criteria are: usability, direct costs and benefits and trust.
- The set of usability criteria – it represents perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness; the first is defined as the degree to which an individual considers using a particular system is free of effort, whereas the latter refers to the degree to which one thinks that resorting to a particular system enhances one’s performance. In order to assess the extent of usability the following notions have to be taken into consideration: accessibility, compatibility, functionality, user’s satisfaction, user interface. All these represent assets of the usability principle. In the field of e-health services, these notions are applied to the technologies used by the healthcare system.
- Criteria of costs and benefits – the cost-benefit analysis is based on the concept of relative advantage, which denominates the degree to which an innovation is considered to be superior to its predecessor. Some specialists criticized this set of criteria as being limited because they target only direct tangible costs and benefits and are based only on accounting and financial instruments. Applied to the e-health services, these standards evaluate the efficiency of e-commerce with products and services provided by the earlier mentioned domain.
- The trust criteria – seen as a crucial property of information systems that offer e-services, trust can be defined as the willingness of an individual or group to be vulnerable to the actions of a party based on the expectation that the latter will perform a certain action important for the former, regardless of the ability to monitor and control the trustee. Applied to e-health, the trust criteria is tightly related to the security and confidentiality of medical data.
The usability criteria is associated with the technological dimension, the criteria of costs and benefits corresponds to the economic dimension, whereas the trust criteria is related to the social play free casino dimension.
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