Elders and Their Pets

“Elders and Their Pets”

Working with Elders has a great many rewards, and one of those rewards is the opportunity to meet new people, and to meet their pets. It seems to me that Elders with pets seem to love having a pet to help keep them company, and to give them something other than themselves, to concentrate on. The care that these elders lavish their pets with is very touching indeed. I have clients who take the time every evening to cook special meals for their animals, believing that they can offer more nutritious meals than are offered to pet owners from a can of dog, or cat food. After seeing them prepare the meals on several occasions, I too believe that they are correct. I have a client who actually has a cookbook that gives sound nutritional advice and great easy- to- cook recipes for her pets.Some of my clients choose to give their pets raw meats as treats and to supplement their pet’s diets. Overall, they seem to have healthy and happy pets who give back to them the love they so readily give.

Several times a week, I have the opportunity to walk these pets for my clients who are not as mobile as they once were, and this is a very important service I provide to them, and one that they know to be very important to their pets. Exercise is as important to our pets as it is for us, and it is important that the pets stay on a good exercise regiment. It is also good for the pets to have a different environment to explore, in order to remain sharp of mind and spirit. I usually try to take the pets to a large open field, so they are free to roam and sniff about at their leisure (if the pet is one that will obey commands), and this allows me to throw balls or Frisbees if the pet in question likes to retrieve. For pets who just enjoy a brisk walk through there own neighborhoods, I accommodate them as well. They seem to have favorite haunts they like to re-visit each time I take them out for their walks. I guess they are as much creatures of habit as we can be, as well.

Some of my clients have medicine that their pets need to have once or twice a week, and they may have trouble performing these duties for their pets for a variety of reasons, and so I have become adept at cleaning out ears, giving medication orally, and at applying medicine to their eyes. Each pet is different, but for the most part they know as soon as they see me, the routine medicine application is about to take place and they take it in stride. For some, a little coaxing with a special treat is needed in order to get them to cooperate. It is kind of funny how they seem to know that this is a task that must be preformed for their own health, and some even seem grateful afterwards.

Veterinary appointments are another task I perform for some of my client’s pets, and this is sometimes done with my client accompanying me on the task, and others choose to stay at home while I take their pets to their appointments. We are so lucky here in Tidewater to have so many great Veterinarians, and I have had the opportunity to meet many of them. Pet ownership is a huge responsibility for anyone, and sometimes for our Elders, it is very hard to get their pets to a Vet, and I love to accommodate this request for any of my clients.

There have been so many studies showing how pet ownership increases longevity, helps maintain a healthy lifestyle through exercise with a pet, and how it gives people a sense of purpose when they have a pet to care for on a daily basis. I have also seen in many of my visits to nursing homes how a therapy dog can brighten the day of so many residents just from spending a few minutes with an elder. I have also seen how some homes have a cat, or two, who roam the halls visiting with one resident after another and seem to thrive on having 2 dozen, or more owners.

Pet ownership has so many rewards for all of us, and it seems to really help our Elders have better days filled with purpose and a reason to get some much needed exercise. If you know of an Elder who needs help caring for a pet, whether it is a daily, weekly, or bi-weekly walk, pet-sitting, or help getting them to a Vet appointment, please refer them to my services. I will do all I can to help them enjoy pet ownership.

I think one of the greatest gifts we have been given is our pets. Let’s make sure they are cared for properly, and have everything they need to remain healthy and happy! Life is so much more fulfilling with a pet to share it with. Please feel free to share your Elder/Pet stories with us here on this blog.

Article found in the Huffington Post

Health Care: 8 Ways Baby Boomers Are Transforming The System

I ran across this article yesterday on the Huffington Post website, and thought my readers may want to see this. I have had some experience with Doctors On Call Services here locally, and it is a wonderful service. My suggestion to anyone who is responsible for caring for an elder is that they familiarize themselves with all the benefits their elder’s insurance company offers. Never hesitate to ask the elder’s Primary care physician for a Home Healthcare evaluation if you believe it may be needed. Always ask questions of any Doctor your elder is currently seeing, for if you do not ask…they will not tell. Enjoy the article, and please feel free to comment if you have something to ad to this information.

First Posted: 02/ 6/2012 8:41 am Updated: 02/ 6/2012 9:47 am
Every day in 2012, another 10,000 boomers turn 65. Back in 2003, only 5.7 percent of the U.S. population was 65 or older. Pretty soon, it will be 17.5 percent. And you know what that means (besides a big spike in hair-coloring sales and instant billionaire status for whoever makes the first pair of comfortable high heels)? It means that what the Internet did to brick-and-mortar retailers, boomers are about to do to doctors: Rock their world -- and make them come to us, either in their cars or virtually.
Yup, house calls. Some of them might be video house calls using Skype or a videocam, but still you get the idea. No more driving Mom to the doctor and cooling your jets while she waits to be seen. No more rearranging an entire day around the need to get a flu shot.
Boomers are reshaping the health-care delivery system and doctors who visit their patients in their homes -- or nurses doing blood pressure screenings at senior centers or giving flu shots at drugstores or drawing blood for diabetes tests at churches -- are just a part of what the future of health care looks like, experts say.
Community-delivered services will take over for a lot of routine screenings that are now done in a medical-office setting. And as for the doctor driving to our homes, there are already starting to that through services, like Mobile Doctors, whose doctors have made 250,000 house calls since the company's inception in 1996. The service, which accepts Medicare's assignment, operates weekdays between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Patients are seen within 24 to 48 hours and most diagnostic tests are performed right in the patient's home.
It's the sheer force of boomers' numbers that will demand these and other changes, says Regina Herzlinger, chaired professor at Harvard Business School. Dubbed the "godmother" of consumer-driven health care by Money magazine, Herzlinger notes that boomers as a generation are busier and better educated than previous generations and not shy about voicing their unhappiness. They've seen how effective they can be when they stand shoulder-to-shoulder and are absolutely turning their sights on health care.

They Have Earned Our Respect

“They Have Earned Our Respect”

I walked into an Assisted Living Facility this morning, in order to pick up a client who had a Doctors appointment at 10:00am, and on the way in, I encountered an exchange between a Med Tech and one of the Elders who resides in that facility. To make a long story short, the Med Tech was talking to this elder as if she was a 10 year old child, and that has always bothered me, but I held my tongue and proceeded to my destination. On my way back down the corridor, I heard the elder tell the Med Tech, “You know honey, I might be old, but I most certainly am not stupid.” I wanted to give this elder a high five and say, “You tell her girlfriend!”, but I refrained and just exchanged a knowing smile with her.

The point I am trying to make here, is that our Elders need to be treated no differently than the way we expect to be treated, with respect and courtesy. The smartest people I know are over the age of 70, and some of them are close to 100 years of age! I think in this culture we have forgotten the times when our ancestors truly depended on the wisdom of their elders to help make hard decisions about the welfare of the collective group; somewhere along the line, this has quit being the status quo, and now, we disregard the thoughts and opinions of our elders, as if wisdom gained from longevity is somehow outdated. I beg to differ with this way of viewing the opinions of our elders. Just because some of our elders do not text, nor go to the internet for information, or even e-mail, does not mean that they lack the capacity to make sound decisions, or give sound advice about current circumstances we, as the youngsters of today, may be facing.

I was complaining to a client the other day who I have known for several years, about this sluggish economy, and he said to me, “Sluggish, huh, in my day we called it a recession at the least, and maybe bordering on a depression. Let me tell you son, you better hope for the best, but always...always...prepare for the worse.” Now, if that is not sound advice, I don’t know what is.

Our elders are just as capable of change as we are, and in many cases, more equipped to deal with change than we are. For is it not true that they have encountered more adversity in their lives than we have? I think that is most certainly true. They may have physical limitations, but that does not equate to mental limitations...the old saying... “You can’t teach old dog new tricks,” is complete malarkey.

 About three months ago a client’s brother passed away, and she was not able to attend the funeral. Her family sent her a DVD of the funeral and the memorial service, and when I came to help her with some chores she held out this DVD to me and I simply asked what this was, and when she explained, I knew she really wanted to watch it. She did not have a DVD player, a computer, or even a VCR. I told her that I would come by the next day with my DVD player and I would hook it up, and she could watch it at her leisure. Instead, I went to Wal-Mart and purchased a DVD player for her, thinking that I might be able to get her interested in this technology. Little did I know...?

I showed up the following day with her new DVD player and proceeded to hook it up to her TV, and I must add here that she did, indeed, have an excellent flat screen HD television set. After I had it put all together, she then immediately wanted to watch her DVD, and I did’nt give it much thought at the time and simply placed the DVD in the machine; we began to watch, and before I knew it, we were both in tears, for the presentation was a fantastic memorial to her brother. I felt as if I had known this man personally, and with her reactions to the video, my empathy just escalated through the roof. After we finished watching the video, she shared more stories about her brother, and I could tell that this was her way of grieving and paying tribute to her brother. I could literally see the transformation from grief, to acceptance, of her brother’s demise, and that I was a catalyst to this transformation. After an hour or so, I showed her that I had brought some other DVDS for her to watch, out of my own collection. She showed great interest in the DVD called “Delovely” which is a film about the life of Cole Porter. I wrote down some simple instructions on how to operate the DVD player and left her to her own devices.

The next week, I showed up and she went on and on about how much she loved the DVD player, and lo and behold, she had gone to the library (I told her the library had all kinds of movies) and checked out all kinds of DVDs. She also informed me that she had read the instructional manual and that this player also played CD’S, and that she had also checked out all kinds of music from the library, as well. I could see that the DVD player was well worth the price I had paid, and that she is just as capable of change as anyone else, regardless of her age!

Our elders are just as malleable as any adult, or any child. Just as we approach middle age and realize it takes us a bit longer to learn new things, or to re-learn things we once knew, so too holds true for our elders. Just for fun, I took my laptop over to her house and quickly found a neighbor of hers with an unsecure wireless to tap in to, in order to give her a demonstration of how cool computers can be, and she loved it! I asked her, “What sights that you encountered during your world travels would you most like to revisit?” She said her trip to Ireland was one of the most memorable of all of her trips, for she is of Irish decent. I then simply typed in “A tour of Ireland” into the YouTube videos and there, at the touch of a button, was a grand tour that allowed her to reminisce about her trip. We visited many other sites that day, and I showed her my Facebook account, e-mails, and other bells and whistles that we all take for granted. She loved it! I asked her if she would like to get a computer, and she looked at me and said, “Let me get used to my DVD player first!” She then gave me a wink, and a smile!

Please remember, that our elders, with a little time and patience, can function just as well as any youngster, and that even if they are a bit resistant, it is worth your time and money to at least expose them to the things we take for granted in this technological age. To quote a wise woman, “I might be old, but I am most certainly not stupid!”

Please feel free to share your comments, and stories about your encounters with our elders. We are all here to learn from one another and all feedback will be used to further my experience at helping our elders to remain independent.