We know that caregivers, whether a family member or a professional, have loving hearts.  But helping them to maintain a healthy heart can often be a more difficult challenge as they so often put the needs of the family member, patient or client first before themselves.

Nearly half of the 80 million American adults (about 38 million) who have cardiovascular disease (CVD) are 60 or older.  So it is important to keep a healthy heart at any age.  Sometimes family caregivers are the Baby Boomers, getting older themselves while taking care of an elderly parent or even grandparent while taking care of their own children who may be college age or even married with children of their own.  It’s often a lot to handle and being a family caregiver can put an extra burden on one’s heart health.

Maintaining a health regimen can be a particular challenge for family or professional caregivers.  Consider the following tips from the American Heart Association:

1. Make the time to take a 10 to 15 minute walk a couple of times a day, even if it’s just around the yard.
2. Choose a space in the house that is your “quiet space.”
3. Schedule your timeouts.  Choose a time when your loved one is typically sleeping, eating, watching a TV program or seems to be at their best during the day.
4. Insist on these moments in a gentle way and reward your loved one when you’ve refreshed yourself.

By remembering these four simple tips, caregivers can maintain a healthy heart while providing exceptional care to their elderly loved one.

And, remember, if you’re a family caregiver who could use an extra pair of hands to help out with the needs of an aging Mom, Dad or Grandparent, simply call Home Instead Senior Care of Richmond at 804.527.1100 anytime day or night.  You’ll be glad you did.

Retiring from work in no way means retiring from life. As recently as 2008 a Consumer Affairs article examined the trends of the newly emerging retirement generation, and found that a large portion of this demographic is looking for a rural area that offers an active lifestyle as well as the traditional tranquility and slow pace of retirement.

While Florida and Arizona continue to rank at the top of the list of retirement destinations, some non-traditional retirement locales, such as North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee, are becoming favorite spots as well, according to Pulte Homes’ annual baby boomer survey.

Many are looking for the same thing. They want a small-town ambiance, safety from crime, and a simpler, hassle-free life. In Virginia, the Northern Neck – surrounded by Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries – has drawn an influx of retirees and boomers who have purchased second homes, with an eye toward retirement.

And those who move to this area are not exactly looking to sit on the front porch all day. Most are seeking some form of community involvement, whether it’s a second career or volunteer work.

The four counties of the Northern Neck – Lancaster, Northumberland, Richmond and Westmoreland – are all in the process of moving from an extraction-based and agricultural economy (forestry, fishing, and farming) to one that is more service-oriented, with Lancaster County leading the pack.

The influx of retirees to the Northern Neck has created a new demand for services and amenities. In fact, the 2009 Northern Neck Housing Study cites Retirement Services as replacing Forestry as one of the top three local economic drivers in the region since 2000.

Two modern hospitals serve the area – Riverside Hospital in Tappahannock, which opened a new Urgent Care Center in late 2009 – and Rappahannock General Hospital in Kilmarnock. Private physician practices continue to grow, and there are several Richmond-based doctors that keep weekly appointments at offices in Kilmarnock and Tappahannock.  And Westmoreland County is home to a cancer center.

While there are retirement homes and assisted living communities in the Northern Neck, the region doesn’t have any more than you’d find in a typical rural area. Most retirees choose to live in their own homes.

Home Instead Senior Care is a perfect complement to the services needed by these transplanted residents, while at the same time creating employment opportunities for an economically underserved area.

For more information, simply call our Tappahannock senior home care office at 804. 443.4885. 

You can't always be there with Mom. We can help.

The Baby Boomer generation, typically, has been characterized as a block of people who think and act as one monolithic generation. However, recent data from the MetLife Mature Market Institute®, show that Young, Middle and Older Boomers grew up during disparate “eras” and are now at different stages in their lives. They should, perhaps, be treated as separate demographic groups.

In both a series of demographic profiles and a new study, The MetLife Study of Boomers in the Middle, facts are emerging about how distinct the segments are.

What Does A Middle Boomer Look Like?

Born between the years of 1952 and 1958, the Middle Boomers have characteristics that make them distinct from the their younger and older cohorts beyond the obvious age differences.

• The Middle Boomers are looking forward to retirement (setting their sights on age 65), have a high net worth ($100,000 or more, excluding their home value) and are currently in their peak earning years.
• More than half (54%) say they are behind on their retirement savings goals and that many who have delayed retirement have been affected by the economy.
• One-third of the Middle Boomers expect to receive an inheritance from their parents in the amount of $181,000, slightly less than the Oldest Boomers and behind the Youngest Boomers who expect $208,000.
• Two-thirds of the Middle Boomers report having at least one parent still living, and half still have children living at home.
• They are not yet empty nesters like the Older Boomers. Fourteen percent are providing care to older parents.

How Do Middle Boomers Manage The Workload?

Let’s review. Many Middle Boomers are:

1. Still working full time
2. Have children still living at home
3. Are taking care of one or more older parents

How does this person find time to perform the daily tasks of meals, errands and housework, much less the daunting task of finding trustworthy and reliable services for information about caring for parents?  Often they try to take on the responsibility of caring for an aging parent by themselves, only to find it is highly stressful and that they don’t have all the answers.  They know they need help but are not really sure where to turn.

Why Home Instead Senior Care Can Help

Home Instead is designed to be a resource for reliable in-home care and companionship service to the active seniors, the elderly and the home-bound.  We are also here to provide links to reliable sources of information about planning for the final stages of life, common sense tips on how to plan and prioritize your needs and goals, and help in making the best decisions that will have a positive impact on you and your loved ones. 

Simply call our Richmond home care office, anytime, at 804.527.1100.  Home Instead Senior Care can be an invaluable resource to the Middle Boomers who find themselves in the stressful sandwich generation.

P.S.  Home Instead Senior Care serves both Richmond and Tappahannock.

There is a gut-wrenching scene in the George Clooney film Up in the Air where a gruff auto worker – a man who appears to be in his late 50s or early 60s – is terminated from his job.  It is, undoubtedly, the culmination of a plot buildup that had been coming for some time, and the sequence is heartbreaking.

We feel for – and, in some cases, relate to – this man because he presumably had only a few years left until he could retire, and he now has been handed what seems to be an occupational death sentence. 

The economic crisis took a major toll on American workers, and those laid off at the higher end of the age bracket may have found themselves with rather difficult life decisions: “Do I try to find another job? Can I just retire early?” 

Or what about this one: “Should I start my own business?” 

Older workers, as the (often wrong) perceptions and stereotypes go, aren’t as fresh out-of-the-box thinkers as their younger counterparts.  They lack the newest, most advanced skill sets. They aren’t as tuned in to the latest and greatest technologies. 

The fact is, getting hired at a later stage in life can be difficult. 

But, if calculated risks are taken, becoming an entrepreneur in your senior years can be ripe with opportunity and reward. 

The number of individuals starting their own companies when most people their age would be retiring in the islands (or the mountains, if that’s your thing) is on the rise.  The AARP Public Policy Institute said that in 2008, 21 percent of the self-employed were between the ages of 55 and 64, while 10 percent were 65 and older. 

BusinessWeek paints a picture of how a man who was 61 did something that most would do in their 30s or 40s. 

Wally Blume worked in the dairy business for two decades, first for grocery chain Kroger and later as sales and marketing director for a large dairy in Michigan, where he helped market new ice cream flavors. But soon after another company purchased the dairy, Blume decided that the once-innovative company was falling short, prompting him and a couple of colleagues to quit to develop and market their own flavors. In 1995 the partners had a national hit with Moose Tracks (a combo of vanilla, peanut-butter cup, and fudge), and within a few years Blume decided he’d be better off running his own company. 

In 2000, Blume mortgaged his house and every other asset he could, plunking down what he says was “seven figures” to buy out his partners and start anew. That same year, he launched Denali Flavors, a marketing and licensing company that creates new ice cream and dessert concepts for independent regional dairies, allowing them to compete with the big national dairy brands. Looking back, Blume says: “I knew I could run it better than my partners. In my opinion there was just no downside to the risk.” 

Blume makes it sound easy.  He’s now 71 (a decade after he started his business), paid off his loans in 25 months, and sees revenue of about $80 million a year.  His 40 ice cream flavors can be found in 50 states and Canada, and he’s launched two other ventures that have nothing to do with ice cream (saunas and boats). 

Sounds great, doesn’t it? Not so fast. 

It’s important to be smart if you plan to start a business.  Us older types may have more money than our younger counterparts, but that’s not to say we should be dumping our pensions or 401(k)’s into a new venture this late in life.  Realize these things could take years to get off the ground, and even longer to turn a profit.  The more moving parts, the higher the chance of failure. 

But don’t let the risks deter you.  Just be smart about it.  Do the research. 

And those perceptions about seniors being too old to work?  Set out to prove the status quo wrong. 

P.S. Oh, and when you’re starting that business in your 60s, 70s, and even 80s, don’t forget that Home Instead CAREGivers can prepare meals, do light housekeeping and help you run errands.  ’Cause you’ll have enough to do as a business owner.  Check out our website and digital brochure at http://homeinstead.com/richmond-va.

If you’re not familiar with it, The New York Times has a well-written blog column in the health section called The New Old Age.  The column often features topics of caring and coping with stories of people who are being full-time family caregivers either for a spouse, a parent of other loved one.  There are often senior health related topics as well.

Home Instead CEO Paul Hogan quoted in The New York Times's New Old Age Blog

Last week, writer Paula Span featured a caregiver column entitled, “Will Boomers be any Different?”  In the column, she says that “…the the No. 1 question I encounter when I speak to family caregivers is how to cajole old people into adapting to increasing disability when they are, to be a tad euphemistic, “fiercely independent.”

“In 20 or so years, when we baby boomers enter the ranks of the “old-old” ourselves, will we be any different?,” she asks.

She interviewed our very own Home Instead CEO, Paul Hogan, who was in Richmond last week meeting with the Boomer Project, a market research firm specializing in marketing to Boomers.  

“We’ll see more seniors coming directly to us for help in the next 10 years, versus the past 10 when it was a daughter or son calling us and tearing their hair out,” says Hogan.

With the Depression generation…agreeing to home care “takes a doctor’s ultimatum: ‘You’re not going home from the hospital unless you get help, because you’ll break that other hip.’” But Mr. Hogan’s own mother, a businesswoman in her 70s, has long paid financial advisers, child care workers and housekeepers. “She sees getting help when she’s older as just another in the long line of services she’s taken advantage of throughout her career,” Mr. Hogan reported.

For boomers, though,“the concept of reaching a certain age, leaving work, and disengaging from our lives and social networks is anathema,” said Matt Thornhill, president of the Boomer Project. “We get a lot of our self-fulfillment from work – and we’re going to need the income,” Mr. Thornhill said.  So we may not be so amenable to leaving our homes, either — or giving up our cars.

Whether Boomers will really be any different than our parents in the next 20 years is yet to be seen.  But we certainly are more willing to outsource and pay for services that are parents didn’t.  And, as Ms. Span points out, 

“In fact, we’ll probably have to accept hired help. As a generation, we’ve had far fewer children than our parents, and we’re less likely to be married. Even if we prefer to rely on unpaid care when we’re sick or frail, our smaller families may be stretched too thin to provide it.”

“The reputation of older people is that they get stuck in their ways,” Mr. Thornhill mused. But that may not pertain to boomers. “We’ve always been so adaptive. Life for us has been change.”

If you’d like to read the full blog post and the comments, you can simply click on this link:  NYTimes New Old Age Blog – Will Boomers Be Any Different?

If you would like more information about Home Instead Senior Care, please call our Richmond home care office at 804.527.1100.