Family Support

4 Tips for Preparing for Car Disasters

If you own a car, then you know that nothing raises the blood pressure and puts you into a complete panic like an accident. It’s what you spend all your hours on the road trying to avoid, but one lapse in judgment by you or someone else on the road and all that goes to waste as your car is totaled and you are left trying to figure out what to do next. The key is that you should have been thinking about what to do before it ever even happened. Here are some ideas that will help you prepare for a car disaster.

Insurance

The key to surviving any accident financially is to have car breakdown insurance. Most of the time, having collision or comprehensive coverage is pretty affordable. With so many plans to choose from, you can find some rather competitive rates. This will ensure that no matter how bad the accident is, you are prepared for it financially.

Safety Kit

Of course, if an accident causes someone harm, then you will want to call an ambulance or have someone do the same for you. Still, in the moment you might need to help yourself while you wait for professionals to give you a good once over. For that, you need an emergency kit that you know how to use. The best thing to do is buy a small one consisting of gauze, antiseptic, scissors, and anything else you deem essential. Teep the kit in your glove box. This will ensure that you can patch up minor cuts and bruises, or, in the event of something more serious, you can help the situation until professionals arrive.

Pad and Paper

Having a pad and paper isn’t the first thing you think of when getting into an accident, but it’s a good idea to keep them around. Often the two participants don’t carry anything to write information on. Having this resource will help you to take down relevant insurance information so that you can properly file a claim with your insurance company. Failing to obtain the proper information could hurt you financially as you might end up having to pay the deductible for an accident that wasn’t your fault.

Information

This is your catch all, but make sure you have the proper information prior to any accident. This means that you have an idea of what your insurance covers, pertinent information in regards to insurance and anything else that might be covered in an accident. You can log most of the information in your smart phone if you have one. Also, don’t forget to take pictures of the accident for insurance purposes. A lot of times what is said or admitted at the scene of the accident is told in a very different way later.
Being prepared in the event of a car wreck is important to your mental state and making sure you handle the situation correctly. Follow these steps to make sure you are always prepared.

Filed Under: Family Support

Hospice Care: Is it Time to Call?

A patient having his blood pressure taken by a...

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Hospice Care: When to Call

One of the most difficult decisions a caregiver has to make is if it is time to call in for hospice care. Hospice care can not only help the caregiver during their difficult time but also help the quality of life for the patient. Here are some signs that it may be time to call.

Disease Progression

A big sign that it may be time to call in hospice care would be if their condition has worsened or if they have a disease, it has progressed, especially at a rapid pace. Some patients will reach a point where they themselves choose not to seek additional treatments for their condition or disease. At this time ensuring they are comfortable is the best option and hospice can help make that happen.

Doctor’s Suggestion

Some doctors may make the suggestion for hospice if they are under the impression the condition has gotten worse or the disease has progressed beyond their help. In these cases it may be wise to listen to their suggestion. They may also be able to help make any referrals needed and give advice.

Your Loved One Asks

In some situations it is harder for the caregiver to ask for help. The patient may be the one who decides it is time to call in for help. While it may be difficult, it is important to listen to them and respect their decision. Many patients known when their condition has worsened or when they are ready to let go and quit treatments.

Filed Under: Family Support, Health & Medical, Nursing Homes & Hospices Tagged With: Hospice, Patient, Quality of life

What Would you Want?

When you get to the point in your life where the tables have turned (where your parents depend on you for their physical needs, as opposed to the other way around), it may be tempting to take a little revenge on them by putting them in the first second rate home you can find, and then never visiting them again. But when those evil thoughts pass you by, you realize that this is not a set of decisions which should be taken lightly. After all, just “dumping” the people who raised you is more than just a cruel thing to do to someone who most likely did the best that they could with the knowledge and experience that they had. It may also be a bad influence on the future.

You need to consider what you would want, if the situation were reversed. When your parents raised you, they most likely did all that they could to ensure that you had access to all of the programs you wanted to participate in. They probably taxied you around from after school activity to lesson to recital to practice to whatever. And how often did you so much as thank them for all of the time and energy they used in helping you to grow up to be the person you are today? If you are able to read this article on your own computer, you most likely turned out reasonably all right.

Do you really want to return all of the favors which they did to you, by simply dumping them like an unwanted kitten or a bag of recyclables at some facility where they might be treated as nothing more than a monthly check, to be kept alive like cattle in the worst of the industrial farms? Would you really want to do that to them? Well, if you do, some therapy might be in order. Keep in mind, some day it’ll be your turn.

Filed Under: Family Support Tagged With: After-school activity, Health, United States

To Move, or to Renovate?

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If you have taken up the mantle of caring for an elderly loved one, you are a good person who deserves success. However, being patted on the back for taking up what may prove to be a seriously difficult, at times thankless side occupation will not help you to overcome the various logistical problems which may present themselves within your home. Believe it or not, a lot of older people are just not as spry as they were at the age of eighteen. So with that in mind, you are going to have to evaluate your home, not on the basis of child proofing it, but on the basis of navigating it like an elder would need to. In many cases, you will find some serious issues.

When you find that your sleek, narrow doorways will not easily accommodate a wheel chair, or that you need to install support rails in your bathrooms to protect your elderly loved one from falling over (or to help them to get up on their own if they happen to fall down), you might be facing a seriously expensive decision which will not be easy to make. Will you choose to rearrange the home you pretty much already had the way you like it, so as to accommodate the reduced physical capacity of your elderly loved one? Or will you move somewhere else, which would be more accommodating by design?

There is no right or wrong answer here, only the best answer for your individual situation. If your loved one is not mentally aware, they may need additional security measures to keep them from wandering into a physically dangerous area of the house (such as to basement stairs). In cases where your budget is high and your home is already on one level, you may be able to easily make the necessary changes to your existing home without much difficulty. But in some cases, moving is the best idea.

Filed Under: Care Giving Guidance, Family Support Tagged With: Health, Home care, Old age, Seniors, Wheelchair

The Company of Those in the Same Boat

A lot of times, nursing homes can actually be the best option for an elderly person. And not just because of the attention that the staff can show them when they need it, either. A lot of times, people actually prefer to be in the company of other people who are in the same boat as they are, if for no other reason than to forge a sort of comraderie between them. In situations like a nursing home, at least everybody needs taking care of equally to each other. That is some kind of basis on which to forget the various sorts of relationships that we all need, after all. This is why nursing homes can be a boon to some of our elders, while not to others.

Consider cases where you have a house full of people already. If no one in your home has anything to speak of in common with your elderly loved one, you might find that any sort of relating that you do together is a little on the awkward side. Is this really how you want your interactions with your elderly loved one to be, as they at least try to enjoy their golden years? Cooping up someone with a group of extremely different people can actually be a cruel action on your part, especially if you end up leaving your loved one alone a lot of the time.

In a nursing home, a lot of people can actually forge very robust social relationships with the other inhabitants of the home. While in your home, you might be gone ten to twelve hours in the day, people in a nursing home can see each other all of the time. So if they want to sneak off in the middle of the night and conduct nursing home shenanigans, they can do so with their own crew. It’s rather like the Little Rascals, only how they would end up being today.

Filed Under: Family Support Tagged With: Health, Home care, Nursing home, Old age, United States

A Custom Poker Table for the Family

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We have been thinking about starting a new holiday tradition that involves a family gift for the house that everyone can enjoy. There are lots of possibilities, such as a video game system, blue ray DVD player, flat screen TV or game table. We want it to be something that gets a great deal of use and can be used to bring the family together.

The game table is at the top of the list because of its versatility. I have seen custom poker tablesfor sale that would be perfect for what we want. They feature a felt top for playing cards, a flat solid surface for having lunch or playing board games, and a recessed bumper pool table. The three-in-one design allows for the top to be flipped depending upon what you want to do or to be completely removed if you want to play pool.

Families are torn in so many different directions these days that it is tough to spend quality time together. A game night centering around our new game table is the perfect way to say that family time is important. The kids can also use the game table when they have friends over to play. You can find a design to fit the décor in any family room or basement.

The green felt card table will also make Dad very happy. He can now have his buddies over for poker night. The portion of the table that is used for cards comes with chip trays and drink holders, which will prevent spills. There is enough space around the table for eight players and is perfect for a game of No-Limit Texas Hold-em, like the ones you watch on television. The games can take a couple of hours to complete and no one is going to go home losing too much money, if you keep the buy-in low.

Filed Under: Family Support Tagged With: Board game, Game Table, Television, Texas hold 'em

Fighting Hopelessness

When a person gets older, the statistics show that they are more likely to kill themselves, most especially during the Summer months. Despite what all of the anecdotes will tell us about how young people tend to be the most suicidal, it is actually the geriatric community who most often deign to cut short their life spans. And while many people would suggest that it is an inevitable result of the physical (and sometimes mental) declines which are perceived to be an intrinsic part of getting older, there is absolutely no reason for anyone who is in basically good health and not about to get captured and tortured by an enemy to ever end their own lives prematurely. The high number of suicides is a result of feeling hopeless- nothing more, and nothing less.

The problem with hopelessness is that it often masquerades as nothing more than being logical. After all, a person can declare matter of factly that their lives are not as good as they once were. For a person who used to have a robust career, great health and a family who thought about them a lot, it could be a shock to think that they have sunken to a point where they offer no financial benefit to society, their health is either poor or always on the verge of being poor and that their family barely remembers that they exist at all. Being hopeless would definitely seem logical, given that set of variables.

However, there are a lot of different ways to keep a person from sinking into that self serving, self feeding pit of hopeless energy drain which ends in a miserable life and a premature death. The most obvious (and simple) of those ways is to simply engage with that person. Put together a puzzle with them, play a board game with them, do something that is fun and doesn’t point to their recent problems. Hopelessness is totally treatable.

Filed Under: Family Support Tagged With: Death, Health, Youth

It Will be Your Turn Soon Enough

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There is a certain sense of power which comes around the age of 30. Once all of the self consciousness of your teens and early twenties is out of the way, and your income starts to skyrocket when your career begins to take off, it is very easy to get downright cocky in your position in life. But lest you forget when you look at where you stand in this world, your parents are where you will one day be, and your children will one day be where you are. Soon enough, those who are at the top will fall, and those who are at the bottom will rise. And while you might be at the very top of the world in this moment, this moment is destined to pass.

A lot of people who do not have any desire to take care of their aging parents will simply slot them into the first nursing home which seems reasonably convenient. Of course, this may actually work out well, because being treated reasonably well by a well meaning but short staff is often better than simply being neglected by a family who all but detests your continued life. While you are probably not that way, this is only the extreme type of case. In many situations, a convenient but less than gracious lifestyle for the aged portends bad things down the line.

Do you remember how your parents dealt with your grandparents? If so, does that color your decisions at all, with regard to what you are doing with your own parents? Keep in mind that no matter how many parents tell their kids to do as they say and not as they do, this never actually works. You need to remember that your children are going to see what you do, and generally believe that it is right and acceptable to follow suit later on. Your position will one day be like your parents now.

Filed Under: Family Support Tagged With: Family Support, Nursing home, Parent