Saturday webinars | Link Service Area 13 kicks off “Let’s get Tech Savvy” webinar series designed to help you get connected.
“In the USA, only 59% of people over the age of 65 use the Internet daily, as opposed to 86% of all adults under 65.”
That’s the entire reason the Pennsylvania Link to Aging and Disability Resources’ Berks-Lancaster-Lebanon Service Area scheduled the Saturday morning (March 6) webinar. This was the first in a series of planned webinars that are designed to erase and lessen the fears that many people may have about using digital technology.
It’s tough trying to deliver taking training about how to use a smart phone, a tablet or a computer to persons who may not have the technology, the experience or the connectivity. It’s also tough to not have internet access and technological skills needed to find a Covid vaccination site. Or to file an online unemployment claim. Or to schedule a medical appointment.
But the intent of this series of webinars is to lessen the trepidation and the uncertainty of the technology in small bite-sized blocks of 30 to 40 minute online webinars. The Link coordinator hopes that caregivers, family members and agency resources who interact with persons with low or no digital savvy will share the webinar information with them.
For instance, here’s a video recording of Saturday’s “Baby Steps” Webinar: https://1drv.ms/v/s!Agtzmyc10ssBgxni4YdAzYOFpFiO?e=Sdb3wR
The next Webinar will be in two weeks and will be announced at the Link Website and hopefully in local media. For more information about upcoming Webinars, send an email to blllink@mail.com or call / text: 717.308.9714.
Those who’ve ventured into owning a smart phone know “how many times a day your phone, computer, tablet, watch and other gadgets buzz or ding. It gets annoying and distracting.”
Upcoming webinars will deal with smart phone questions, but here’s a Kim Kommando column that’s especially topical: “How to stop junk text messages and spam for good.”
“Addressing Social Needs Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Survey of Dual Eligible Special Needs Plans” – Center for Health Care Strategies
by Nancy Archibald
“COVID-19 has hit some populations harder than others. This includes people of color, residents of nursing facilities and other congregate settings, and individuals with multiple chronic medical conditions. People in these groups are often dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid because they have a disability or are age 65 or older, and also have low incomes. Recent federal data show that dually eligible individuals are more likely to contract COVID-19 than Medicare-only beneficiaries and are hospitalized with COVID-19-related complications more than four times as often.
“Dually eligible individuals also frequently have significant social risk factors, which if addressed, could improve their access to care, health outcomes, and quality of life. With support from Arnold Ventures, the Center for Health Care Strategies recently partnered with the Association for Community Affiliated Plans (ACAP) to examine how its Dual Eligible Special Needs Plan (D-SNP) members were addressing their enrollees’ social risk factors.
“As a supplement to this work, ACAP and CHCS explored how ACAP-member plans, including D-SNPs and Medicare-Medicaid Plans (MMPs), are addressing existing and new social risk factors of their dually eligible enrollees during the pandemic. Information from 14 plans was collected in an October 2020 survey. Click here to continue reading this article.
Register for this special FREE interactive webinar. It’s is about compassion, patience, and loving more deeply and completely.
NOTE: DATE CORRECTION
Register in advance for this interactive webinar:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_En5vdQVrR7ya9nSVES4tCA
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.
Ruth & Erica: “A free YouTube TV series is a realistic story about the struggles, fears, and sacrifices that family caregivers often face”
Ruth and Erica is an interesting and captivating online mini-series in abbreviated less than 10 minute episodes. The comments above are from several of the episodes.
Somehow in the middle of an internet search vortex, we came across the first episode of this captivating mini-series. It is so captivating and well acted that we wound up binge watching the entire series. Know what? We don’t feel at all guilty. The characters are brilliantly cast in a riveting slice of real life for many.
What are the dynamics of aging parents with career focused children? What about the onset of the afflictions of aging? What about the senses of loss and frustration.
Here are a few articles about the YouTube FREE mini-series:
TV show about caring for aging parents: Ruth and Erica
Ruth & Erica – An Interesting Online Series for Caregivers
Lois Smith in The Americans and in Ruth & Erica
Here are links to the episodes in the entire mini-series. We hope you find the mni-series interesting and thought-inspiring.
- Episode 2
- Episode 3
- Episode 4
- Episode 5
- Episode 6
- Episode 7
- Episode 8
- Episode 9
- Episode 10
- Episode 11
- Episode 12
- Episode 13
Six tips for long-distance caregiving – National Institute on Aging
Anyone who is caring for an aging friend, relative, or parent from afar can be considered a long-distance caregiver. Whether you are helping with finances, arranging for care, or providing emotional support, long-distance caregiving can bring a host of unique challenges.
Keep these tips in mind to help make life more manageable:
- Learn as much as you can about your loved one’s health, treatments, and available caregiving resources.
- Organize important paperwork.
- Consider caregiving training.
“More than 1 in 5 Americans are taking care of their elderly, ill and disabled relatives and friends” – The Conversation
“Caring for loved ones is harder during the coronavirus pandemic.” – Maskot/Getty Images
by Erin E. Kent
“I’m studying how the COVID-19 pandemic is changing caregiving.
“Immunocompromised people, seniors with dementia and anyone with a chronic disease are more likely to experience the most severe COVID-19 symptoms. Caregivers face new worries due to the coronavirus, including whether they can they still assist their vulnerable relatives and friends and what they should do if they themselves or someone they live with gets sick.
“This quandary affects about 21.3% of Americans. The total number of Americans doing this unpaid work has reached an estimated 53 million in 2019, according to the latest data collected by the National Alliance for Caregiving, an advocacy and research organization, and AARP. That number, which excludes people caring for children without disabilities, is up from 43.5 million, the previous estimate made in 2015.
“Caregivers support their loved ones and friends by voluntarily performing an array of duties. They help with activities of daily living, such as eating and getting dressed, along with a range of medical needs. They change bandages, make sure the person they’re caring for is taking their drugs and monitor symptoms.”
Read this article in its entirety at The Conversation.
“COVID-19 Crisis Threatens Beleaguered Assisted Living Industry” – Kaiser News Network
by
“David Aguirre jumped in his truck and drove toward the hospital in the predawn darkness the minute he got the news: His 91-year-old mom was being rushed from her Texas assisted living facility to the emergency room.
Estela Aguirre would be one of five residents to die and six others to be sickened by the novel coronavirus at The Waterford at College Station, part of a financially strapped chain of assisted living sites called Capital Senior Living.
“So he missed seeing her draw her last breath.”
“’My mom was a sweet, kind person. People really felt like they’d known her for 100 years. She was just that kind of soul,’ said Aguirre, who lost his mother on March 28. ‘Some days, I’ll sit down and have my heart cry.’
“Assisted living complexes, home to more than 800,000 people nationwide, have quickly become a new and dangerous theater in the coronavirus war.”
Read this story in its entirety at Kaiser Health News, click here.
“Pandemic exposes low pay and scant protections for nursing assistants and home-care aides” – The Los Angeles Times
“Personal care assistant Maria Colville leaves home for her job caring for an elderly woman in Watertown, Mass. – (Lane Turner / The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
by Rowan Moore Garety
“When she heard friends working at Lowe’s were in line for $300 hazard-pay bonuses, Allanah Smit wondered why her employer, Memorial Hospital in Gulfport, Miss., had no such plans. ‘Healthcare workers deserve hazard pay too,” she declared on Twitter. “Yes, we chose this profession, but we didn’t sign up to fight a global pandemic with ONE N-95 respirator and improper PPE.’
“As a certified nursing assistant, Smit makes just over $14 an hour to bathe, feed, and reposition patients recovering from car accidents, strokes, and major surgeries like hip replacements. When elective surgeries were suspended last week as the coronavirus spread from hot spots such as New Orleans, Smit began caring for patients with symptoms of COVID-19.
“As the healthcare system braces for the full impact of the pandemic, the shortage of doctors and nurses in epicenters like New York has gotten massive attention.
“Less scrutiny has been paid to home health aides, personal care aides and certified nursing assistants — ”
“For patients and workers alike, home health visits fraught with fears of coronavirus” – The Boston Globe
“CNA Mass Joof adjusted the pillow for Eric McGuire, who is bedridden with several medical conditions in Franklin.” – JOHN TLUMACKI/GLOBE STAFF
by
“Eric McGuire relies on home healthcare workers for almost everything: helping him get from his bed to a wheelchair, assisting with bathing and dressing, checking his oxygen levels while he sleeps.
“On Monday, one his caregivers told him she thought she had a sinus infection, but had arranged to be tested for the novel coronavirus just to be sure and was self-quarantining as a precaution. She asked whether he was showing any symptoms.
“McGuire, 43, felt fine, but is worried about whether she could have passed something along to him during a visit to his Franklin home. And as he battles to regain the use of his legs after a nerve disorder nearly killed him two years ago, he worries how he would get by if his aides stop coming by.”
