Home Care Industry Trends to Watch in 2025
From our Care Blog
Demand for in-home caregivers is on the rise and home care industry trends suggest 2025 is the year to start your agency.
Uncategorized
[caption id="attachment_138" align="alignnone" width="194"] Is ever okay to lie -- even if it saves someone's feelings?[/caption] My son Max gave me a seedling for Mother’s Day. I was supposed to plant it in the garden once it grew big enough, but instead it’s been sitting on a plate on our porch for months, looking more and more scraggly. I feel guilty every time I look at it. So, a few days ago, in a fit of cleaning spontaneity, I tossed the plant in the trash. Of course that’s the day Max went looking for it—the flower he hasn’t glanced at...
Getting Seniors to Exercise All Year Round
[caption id="attachment_619" align="alignnone" width="300"] Exercise at all ages is important and can have a significant positive effect on aging.[/caption] For the last year or so, my husband has been meeting his childhood friend for a weekly 3-mile run. They’re pretty consistent—running outside through most any weather—and in October, they ran a local race together. To anyone in town who sees them, it’s just two guys out for a run. And it is—except his running buddy lives at an assisted living facility and was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s several years ago. Not every person who is sick or aging will be...
When you have a sick or aging loved one, living just five miles away can feel like “long distance,” so what do you do if hundreds of miles separate you? After my husband’s dad moved to Florida in the last years of his life, we learned the challenges of a long-distance relationship. We’d call and get no answer for days in a row (usually because his phone had died), he’d fall and we’d hear about it later, and because we didn’t see him on a day-to-day basis, it seemed like there was significant decline at every visit. We were lucky...
Checklist For Keeping You and Your Loved Ones Safe at Home
Talk to just about anyone and they’ll tell you they want to stay in their own homes as they age, which is why it’s surprising how few people take steps to ensure their homes are safe and suitable for aging. Oftentimes, people aren’t willing to make even small changes to their homes to make them friendly for aging—and then they end up having to move out because they’re no longer safe in their homes. That’s why we recommend you make changes to your home early to prevent you or your loved one from having to relocate later. When we meet...
Learn More about Checklist For Keeping You and Your Loved Ones Safe at Home
How to Be a Good Friend in the Face of Illness
[caption id="attachment_78" align="alignnone" width="300"] We all need that friend who's willing to sit by our side at the hospital or visit us at home when we're taking care of a loved one.[/caption] A friend once told me that she no longer visits a family member with Alzheimer’s because “it’s too hard on him not to remember me.” While there may be truth to this statement, I’m guessing it’s harder on her not to be remembered. Death and illness bring on a slew of negative feelings—sadness, fear, guilt, discomfort—and it’s not always easy to be a good friend with all those...
Learn More about How to Be a Good Friend in the Face of Illness
Before my father-in-law passed away two years ago, we had the same debate many families have: Should Dad move in with us? He was struggling to live alone in Florida, feeling homesick for Swampscott, and we were here in a two-family home seemingly built for in-laws. For my husband, it seemed like the perfect arrangement. I wasn’t convinced. It’s another of the many guilts I have related to the eventual death of Dad—how could I not want him to live with us? The thing was, as perfect as the set-up seemed, I knew it wouldn’t be perfect. My father-in-law’s mental...
If you’ve gone through the process of searching for care for your aging loved one, you know how difficult it is. What are Mom’s needs? Where will Dad be happiest? What can we afford? Making it even more difficult are the intense feelings of sadness, guilt, fear, and even anger that can accompany the search. Because this search is so daunting, we often put it off for as long as we possibly can. We start having that nagging concern that Dad needs help, but then we come up with a million reasons to put it off—he’s not as bad as...
Talking Money With Your Aging Parents: What You Need to Know
I wrote last week about the importance of talking finances with your aging loved ones, but what information should be shared in that conversation? This list can grow quite long, depending on your individual situation, but the bare-minimum information falls into three categories: Financial records, legal documents, and healthcare plans. Swampscott-based estate-planning attorney Jessica Wistran (of Glovsky and Glovsky in Beverly) recommends clients document all of their account information—bank accounts, life insurance policies, pensions, annuities, investment accounts, real estate holdings, and any employee benefits or retirement assets—and keep the information in a safe place so their loved ones can continue...
Learn More about Talking Money With Your Aging Parents: What You Need to Know
The Importance of Talking Money with Your Aging Loved Ones
Of the conversations adult children usually avoid having with their parents, the one about finances tops the list. It requires an uncomfortable reversal of roles to suddenly ask your mom or dad how much money they have, what they have for insurance coverage, and who and how much they owe. We were very lucky when my father-in-law passed away because, for the most part, his finances were easy to figure out. He didn’t have a lot of creditors, his house was paid for, and he had put most of his assets in a trust. But we still ended up stuck...
Learn More about The Importance of Talking Money with Your Aging Loved Ones
Ready to get started?