yourcarehome.co.uk blog

Elderly Care news round-up for May 02

State must pay family carers to look after elderly, say MPs

02 May 2012

The Telegraph reports on the suggestion by MP's that families should receive funding to care for an elderly family member.

A group of Conservative MP’s suggested that the government could save £1.14 billion a year by giving funding to the family of an elderly person requiring care.

 

Alzheimer's nanoscope development grant for University of Limerick

02 May 2012

The BBC reports that researchers have been awarded a 5.4m euro grant for developing technology to screen for Alzheimer's Disease.

It is hoped that this will lead to the ability to screen patients and identify Alzheimer's in it's early stages which is vital for more effective treatment.

 

Exercise and computer games reduce memory problems: research

02 May 2012

The Telegraph reports on research that found computer use and regular exercise for the elderly can help reduce their memory loss.

Alzheimer's Research UK commented that this study supports belief that an active lifestyle can have positive impacts on the brain and the development of dementia.  They added that further research is needed and this area of research needs higher levels of funding urgently.

 

For the full news stories, visit yourcarehome latest news 

Louis Theroux on dementia - tonight, BBC 2

In part 2 of this series on 'extreme love' Louis Theroux visits those with Alzheimer's and dementia and asks what it is like to care for those you love day in and day out even though they may not live in the same reality and may not even remember who you are.

Louis Theroux - Extreme Love: Dementia is on BBC 2 tonight at 9pm.

Guide Dogs for the Mind...

A new scheme being developed in Glasgow - The "Guide dogs for the mind" will be trained to help people with dementia by triggering reminders to sleep, eat and take medication. The dementia dogs will be able to open a cupboard where their own dog food is stored, for example, and bring attention to a note reminding sufferers to make meals for themselves too.

Is this a good idea, or will it cause more problems for the carers? What happens when the dementia gets too bad and the dog's welfare is in question? Do they take the dog away after a bond has been built? What do you think?

http://www.yourcarehome.co.uk/news.asp?idno=1258

Isolation Week 20th - 26th June 2011

This week, a team of volunteers are taking part in an experiment run by Friends of the Elderly, to see how people cope with isolation.  For one week, they will be living alone, cut off from the world around them - no conversations, no phones, no internet or interaction with anybody else - with just a TV for company.  

Currently, over one million older people in the UK live isolated and lonely lives. A million more feel trapped in their own homes and one in five older people see other people less than once a week.

To make the volunteers' experiences more realistic, there are socks to fill with dried peas, beans and popcorn kernels which will mimic the painful sensation of walking on arthritic feet.

Distorting, fuzzy glasses give an impression of what it is like to live with impaired vision like cataracts or glaucoma.

And diving gloves will make it hard to pick things up or to manipulate simple items like a knife and fork as though you had arthritis.

"All the equipment is designed to reproduce the physical challenges of ageing as well as the mental toll that living an isolated life can bring." say Friends of the Elderly

 

Follow the experiences of the volunteers during Isolation Week 

Singing for the Brain

 

A report has just been published in the US which found that people between the ages of 60 and 80 who play music may avoid developing Alzheimer's disease as a result, commenting that "music is a challenging cognitive exercise, making people's brains fitter and more capable of accommodating the challenges of ageing."

I help out at a local Singing for the Brain group, run by The Alzheimer's Society and although I can't comment about whether the singing that we do is helping to improve the fitness of our brains, it is certainly causing increased levels of hilarity, sociability and confidence for all who take part.  We do gentle warm ups, both physical and vocal, and sing classic songs from the era's of the older clients as well as songs which are new to all of us.

However, the main benefit for those with Alzheimer's, their carers and us volunteers is the way the group has developed socially, with everyone at ease with one another, everyone looking out for one another and everyone included, no matter what their abilities.  Alzheimer's and dementia has long ceased to be an issue for the group,and for those couple of hours each week, we may be improving our brains, but we are certainly managing to forget.

 

 

A change in the market of elderly care

The Board of Southern Cross care home group have reported that they are coming under increasing pressure from local authorities to reduce fees, further reporting that some local authorities are looking for reductions of up to 20%.  All these reductions and freezes are not only for new residents of the care homes, but for existing ones as well. This next coming year is therefore looking to be a difficult one for providers of care to the elderly.

Local authorities continue to pay a good premium to fund nursing care for specialist requirements (EMI/Dementia/YPD). Indications are that this will continue as the cost of care for such clients is cheaper in a specialist home than either in hospital or in their own home.

Unfortunately if the proposed cuts come in to force we could see a number of care home operators struggle, especially those who are highly leveraged with debt, as they will still have to sustain increases to the minimum wage, food and the general utilities.  Despite the commitment from the Government for £2Billion extra cash for social care within their spending review, elderly care is fast approaching crisis point.

Nationally the average occupancy rate for all types of care home including residential, nursing, respite, dementia and EMI care homes is around 90%. Approximately 12,000 people per month move into care homes, and around 40% are self funding, yet only around 7% of people get any financial advice.  A wise care home operator would ensure that their residents are referred to specialist financial advisors to ensure that their residents can afford the care of their choice for the rest of their lives, and continue to pay the much higher rate charged to people who are self funding.

There are many care home operators who only accept residents who are self funding and the rest of the care homes should look to these companies to see what they can learn from them.  Whether the care homes choose to, or are forced to, it may well be time to change their approaches to the elderly care market.

Coming up this week on radio and TV ...

Two things to look out for on the television and radio this week...

Thursday 20 Jan - Radio 4 afternoon play, " Notes to Self" ... Doreen has been in a care home for two years. Her son Robert visits but finds it hard to have a meaningful relationship with his mother, unlike his partner Karen. A performance at the home reveals music to have a powerful effect on Doreen. Can it offer an opportunity for Robert to make a new connection with her? A drama about Alzheimer's disease based on real experiences and interwoven with recordings of music sessions carried out in care homes and day centres.

Friday 21st Jan - BBC Two - Can't Take it with You ... Sir Gerry Robinson helps two families torn over what to write in their wills, exploring favouritism and the effect that can have on tearing families apart.

A dementia ward - tough to see, with lessons to learn

In December, The Guardian published a set of photographs by Maja Daniels depicting life inside a dementia ward.  The pictures are accompanied by thoughts, feelings and recollections by Andrea Gillies, who has written extensively about caring for her mother-in-law who had Alzheimer's.  The photographs and comments alongside are pretty hard hitting and hard to look at, even remembering that these are pictures of a ward, not a care home.

However, Andrea's final comments suggest that there is plenty to learn from these pictures - essentially, the need for purpose-built dementia residences (more like hotels than hospitals), art and music therapy, dedicated and imaginative staff, and a network of these residences so that they can be accessed by all.

Andrea admits that the spend for this "vision" would be enormous, but she argues that with the rapidly escalating numbers of those with Alzheimer's and dementia, what is the cost we pay for not spending?

 

The Guardian's gallery, featuring Maja Daniels and Andrea Gillies

Announcing our new shop!

Yourcarehome and Amazon have come together to offer you a place where you can find all the care products you need, without having to browse through hundreds of unrelated items!  From wheelchairs to grabbers to talking scales, from books on coping with dementia to gardening tools for the elderly to personal alarms, we only list items which will be relevant or useful for those needing care or those providing care.

The shop, run in conjunction with Amazon, is automatically updated with current prices and directs you through to the regular amazon checkout, giving you the peace of mind that your details will be kept private.

If you choose to buy any of the products we feature, we get a small commission (tiny, really!) from Amazon, which goes toward the running of the yourcarehome site.  It does not cost you any extra!

Happy Browsing!

Visit the yourcarehome shop

 

Dementia vs Cancer? What a choice...

Today, a report by The BBC highlighted a massive difference in the spending on cancer research and the spending on dementia research - for every pound spent on dementia, twelve pounds are spent on researching cancer.

Fair enough, some might think, as cancer is widespread - yes, it is, but so is dementia and interestingly, every dementia patient costs the economy five times more than a cancer patient, and eight times more than a patient with heart disease.

So why the difference in government spending in research?  It has been suggested that dementia care falls more with the relatives than cancer care (cancer is medical care, therefore covered by the NHS, dementia is social care and in most cases is not NHS funded), so there is more pressure to fund research into cancer - the charity and heart charities are also larger.

But there is also the issue of public perception - as the report suggests, most people have personal experience of someone they know suffering from cancer of heart disease, and as both diseases can also affect younger people, they somehow seem more relevant.  Alzheimer's is usually hidden away in care homes.

I am not suggesting that there should or ever would be a real choice to make between funding cancer or Alzheimer's - but both are growing and both are costly to the economy - surely research on both should be fully funded as a matter of urgency?