Confession time… I’m visiting family in Tennessee this week so I’ve been neglecting my blogging duties a bit. Late yesterday I remembered that I had not yet written this week’s “Friday’s Featured Facility.” (That’s the problem with starting a regular feature such as this – you create a natural deadline for yourself!) I decided I wanted to write about one of Florida’s adult day care centers, but which one? A quick search of my Florida Senior Living Advisor database lead me to All One Family Senior Day Programin Merritt Island. Two minutes into my conversation with owner Stephanie Licavoli, and I knew I had found a great senior facility to feature.

Stephanie explained that she and her sister-in-law Karen Wilkes decided to open their adult day care center after their family members had bad experiences in other facilities.

“They would come home with urine-soaked clothes,” Stephanie explained. “And she was left sitting in front of the TV all day and then be up all night when I got her home.” Those personal experiences have helped Stephanie and Karen create a facility that they say is “completely different from any other senior day care.”

According to Stephanie, Florida law only requires that an adult day care center keep its clients busy 60% of the day, so many only meet that minimum requirement. All One Family keeps its clients busy the entire day, alternating between physical exercise and mental stimulation.

“In many centers, all you see are recliners and television,” she explained. “We don’t have any recliners. We play games, we go outside and we have a Wii game that they love.” Stephanie said they also focus on treating clients with respect and dignity, regardless of their physical or mental limitations.

All One Family is open from 7:45am-4pm Monday-Friday, but Stephanie said they are very flexible because she knows from experience that caregivers have needs outside of those times. “If a caregiver wants to go out to dinner, or if you are running late, we don’t charge anything extra for that.” All One Family is licensed to care for 24 people. Their current average is 15-19 per day. The cost is $68 per day, but here again, Stephanie said they are flexible and will work with people who have financial limitations.

Adult day care can be a wonderful option for someone who wants to care for their elderly loved one in their own home, yet who has work or personal commitments during the day that get in the way. There are more than 150 licensed adult day care centers in Florida. It’s clear to me that All One Family is one that is setting a high standard for quality.

To learn more about All One Family, visit their website at www.allonefamilyseniordayprogram.com.

The more I learn about Alzheimer’s disease, the more I realize that it is one of those conditions that you really can’t understand unless you’ve dealt with it personally, caring for a friend or loved one. But I think the talented folks at HBO may have found a way to give all of us a deeper understanding of this debilitating brain disorder through their new effort – THE ALZHEIMER’S PROJECT.

According to the Alzheimer’s Association, as many as 5.3 million people in the US are living with the disease; that’s one in every eight people over age 65. And those numbers will explode as baby boomers age. Every 70 seconds, someone develops Alzheimer’s, and it is the seventh-leading cause of death in the US. Yet a survey conducted as part of the HBO project found that a majority of Americans have a “poor understanding of the fatal and progressive brain disease and the extent of its impact on individuals and society.”

HBO’s THE ALZHEIMER’S PROJECT features a four-part documentary series, 15 short supplemental films, a comprehensive website and a nationwide community-based information and outreach campaign. Best of all, you can see the films even if you don’t subscribe to HBO. They will all stream free of charge on hbo.com.

The four feature films are: “The Memory Loss Tapes” – which provides an up-close and perosnal look at seven individuals living with Alzheimer’s, providing examples of the full spectrum of the progression of the disease. “Momentum in Science” is a two-part state-of-the-science film that takes viewers inside the labs and clinics of 25 leading scientists and physicians. “Grandpa, Do You Know Who I Am’ with Maria Shriver” shows what it is like to be a child or grandchild of someone with Alzheimer’s; and “Caregivers” highlights the sacrifices and successes of people who care for a loved one with the disease.

THE ALZHEIMER’S PROJECT website also provides a wealth of information, including links to a 24-hour helpline, message boards and information on how to connect with clinical trials.

Maria Shriver served as executive producer of the series. Shriver’s 93-year-old father, Sargent Shriver, the first director of the Peace Corps and 1972 Democratic vice presidential nominee, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2003. THE ALZHEIMER’S PROJECT marks the third time HBO Documentary Films has made a focused attempt at public health education. In 2000, there was the Peabody Award-winning series “Cancer: Evolution to Revolution,” followed by the “Addiction” series in 2007.

I’m starting a new segment on the Florida Senior Living Advisor blog today called “Friday’s Featured Facility.” Every Friday I’ll tell you about one of the more than 3700 senior living facilities in Florida, everything from assisted living facilities, to nursing homes, continuing care retirement communities, hospice, skilled nursing units and adult day care centers. If you’d like to recommend a facility for me to feature, send it to me at mitra@flseniorlivingadvisor.com.

The inaugural “Friday’s Featured Facility” is Guardian Home Health in Spring Hill, Florida, about 60 miles north of Tampa. This is actually an assisted living facility, but the name “home health” refers to the fact that it is located in a single-family home. The facility is licensed to care for six residents. Of the nearly 3,000 assisted living facilities in Florida, about half have a capacity of less than 10.

Owner Elaine DeCiutiis runs Guardian Home Health, along with her husband Frank and daughter, Paulamarie Aurigemma. DeCiutiis and Aurigemma are both certified nursing assistants and have backgrounds in health care administration. They opened the home last October, with the goal of providing very personalized care to each elderly resident.

“When I’ve gone to big nursing homes, I see people just sitting there and doing nothing,” says DeCiutiis. “We try to keep them active. We play cards.  We discuss current events. We go to the movies or out to lunch.”

DeCiutiis also tailors each meal to the residents’ taste as much as possible.

“You could say we spoil them,” she says with a laugh. “But at their age, they deserve to be spoiled.” Residents are also offered a shower every day, a service that is often not possible in larger facilities where there may not be enough staff to accommodate residents in this way.

For more information on Guardian Home Health, you can visit their website at www.guardianhomehealth.org. You can also call 352-688-8832 or send an email to edecuitiis@tampabay.rr.com.    

It’s no surprise that elderly couples that have been together for decades can take on each other’s traits – developing similar political views, taste in food and music, sense of humor and even physical appearance. But a recent study suggests something remarkable – spouses of people with dementia are at substantially increased risk of developing dementia themselves.

No, dementia is not contagious. Rather, researchers say that the stress involved in caring for a person with this condition is huge and stress is a known risk factor for dementia. In addition, people who are stressed are less likely to eat a healthy diet and exercise, both of which are critical to brain health.

The study was presented at the Alzheimer’s Association 2009 International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease.

Researchers followed more than 1,200 couples for 10 years. They found that wives who cared for husbands with dementia were nearly four times more likely to develop dementia than wives of men who didn’t have the condition. Husband caregivers were almost 12 times more likely to develop dementia than husbands of women who were cognitively healthy.

Why are male caregivers at greater risk of developing dementia than female? Researchers say it’s because elderly men tend to rely on their wives to keep up social ties with relatives and friends. Also, men often fail to go to the doctor without some nudging from their wives, according to the study. This places them at higher risk for high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and other conditions that may raise the risk of dementia.

Researchers offer this advice for adult children of people with dementia:

• Visit frequently and relieve the caregiving parent from his or her duties so he or she can get some rest.
• Make sure the healthy parent gets out and engages in social activities.
• Ensure both parents get to the doctor regularly.

These are good reminders for all senior citizens, not just those caring for someone with dementia.

Adult day care centers are an option for some families caring for a relative with dementia. These facilities offer a respite for caregivers. Most operate during normal business hours Monday-Friday, although some do offer evening and weekend hours. For a complete list of adult day care centers in Florida, visit Florida Senior Living Advisor.

Our regular Sunday night dinners with my elderly father and his friend Ginny always include a drink with our meal. Usually it is red wine, although sometimes, particularly if we go out to eat, they opt for a vodka martini (with an olive AND a twist please). At ages 84 and 90, respectively, I figure they can do what they want. And after all, we provide the ride to and from their Florida continuing care retirement community, so no worries there.

But it never occurred to me that those drinks might actually be helping them. That’s right. According to a new study one or two alcoholic beverages a day may reduce a senior citizen’s risk of developing dementia by almost 40 percent. The study was presented this week at the International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease, currently being held in Vienna, Austria.

These “moderate drinkers” who are 75 years of age or older had a lower risk of developing dementia than people who had more than two drinks a day and also a lower risk than those individuals who abstained from any alcohol completely, Dr. Kaycee Sink and her colleagues found. For the study, they asked more than 3,000 adults how often they drank and examined them every six months for up to six years for signs of memory loss or mental decline.

The findings aren’t a free pass for drinking among the elderly, the results showed. People who were already showing signs of memory problems deteriorated significantly faster if they drank alcohol, and the more they consumed the worse the symptoms became. Heavy drinkers, defined as those consuming more than 14 drinks a week, were almost twice as likely to develop dementia, researchers said.

“If you’re already drinking, you don’t need to cut back if you’re cognitively healthy, but we don’t have enough information to recommend you start drinking,” Kaycee Sink, assistant professor of medicine at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, said during a press conference. “The benefits increase as people move from mild to moderate levels of drinking, and then start to decline.”

Maybe this study will convince the folks in charge of senior living facilities to add a regular happy hour to their activity calendars!

I suppose these results also have implications for me and my fellow 40-something friends. We’ve known for a long time that a glass or two of red wine is good for our hearts. Now to think it can also stave off dementia is reason to celebrate – with a toast!

Lately, whenever I put on a pair of shoes, I think about my elderly father. As I stare at my choices – high heel, low heel, sandal, sneaker, black, white, pink or blue – I think about him putting on the same pair of brown fisherman sandals day after day, month after month. He only has one pair; not because he’s particularly picky, but because we have not been able to find another pair that meets his needs for comfort and function. Like a lot of senior citizens, his feet appear slightly swollen most of the time. Not enough to cause concern but enough to make it difficult to find suitable shoes. He needs them to be wide; he needs them to have a high rise (the opening from the sole to the top of the shoe); he needs them to be easy to put on; and most importantly, he need them to be safe. When he first moved to Florida about a year ago to move into a continuing care retirement community, he primary footwear was a pair of slip-on sandals. They met all the criteria except the most important one – safety. Without any support around his heel, the shoes forced him to walk in a shuffle, not really picking his feet up and often snagging on carpet.
 
Last September, he took a fall (unrelated to his choice of shoes), that forced him to spend several weeks in the nursing home section of his ccrc. Upon his release back to his independent living apartment, I decided it was time to get him new and better shoes. The pair we selected is a leather fishermen’s sandal with one very helpful feature- a velcro closure strap. At 84 years old and having had double hip replacement surgery several years ago, my father’s mobility is limited. There’s no way he could bend down long enough – and steady enough – to tie shoelaces. But he also can’t wear slip-on shoes that can’t be opened and then closed; they are just too tight for him to get on. So these fishermen sandals have been the perfect solution. He can sit in his chair, position the shoes just in front of his feet, and with some patient wiggling, get his feet in. Then he slowly reaches down and closes the velcro. The holes in the sides of the shoe also offer much-needed ventilation.

I tell you all this because it has only recently hit me how something that I take largely for granted – the ability to wear whatever shoes I want – can become a huge issue for senior citizens. Shoes that seem sturdy may actually contribute to falls for the elderly, according to a study by Dr. Carol Frey, an orthopedic surgeon. Dr. Frey studied 185 men and women. Among those who fell and were injured during the year of the study, 28% said that the shoes they were wearing had caused the fall. Sixty percent of those wearing sneakers said they fell because their shoes caught or dragged on the floor.

Here are some safety tips from orthopedic experts:

• Never wear shoes with slippery or worn outer soles. Also avoid shoes with smooth leather or plastic soles, which can be slippery on carpets, wood and tile floors, and wet surfaces. Some athletic shoes made with synthetic soles, which may be ideal for exercising in a gym, can be extremely slippery on a damp or wet surface.
   
• Avoid wearing shoes and slippers that are loose or ill-fitting.
   
• When walking on carpets, avoid wearing shoes with heavy rubber lugs that can catch on carpets, especially when they are worn by people who barely pick up their feet when they walk (exactly my father’s problem). The rubber tips on the toes of running shoes can also cause a stumble on a carpeted surface.
   
• For an all-around shoe, consider walking shoes, which provide good traction and support but do not have heavy soles or rubber over the toes.
   
• Although shoes with a lot of cushioning can make you feel as if you are walking on air, they can also make an older person unstable and are best avoided.
   
• Shoes that tie are safer than shoes that slip on the feet. Laced shoes can be adjusted to accommodate orthotics, braces and swelling of the feet. For those who lack dexterity, consider replacing cloth laces with elastic ones that hold the shoe firmly on the foot, but stretch enough to allow shoes to be slipped on and off without tying or untying the laces. (I am planning to have my father try out this type of laces on his next pair of shoes.)
   

I am currently talking to some companies that sell shoes specifically for the elderly about advertising on my Florida Senior Living Advisor website. Stay tuned for more on that.

Last night, like most Sunday nights, my 84-year-old father came over for dinner. And as is usually the case, he was accompanied by his girlfriend  Ginny, an amazing 90-year-old woman who lives in his continuing care retirement community. We all have different ideas of what constitutes “old age” or “elderly”. Ask my young children, and they would probably tell you old age starts in your 50s. Most of my 30- and 40-something friends would probably say anyone 75+ falls in that category. But there would be little  debate that a woman of age 90, like Ginny, is elderly. After spending nearly every Sunday evening with her for the past eight months, I am here to tell you otherwise.

Ginny is a vibrant, fit, sharp-minded woman who exemplifies everything I hope to be if I am fortunate enough to live that long. And I’ve finally figured out her secret. Ginny has discovered the Fountain of Youth. It’s not a place, and it’s not in a cream or an injection or a surgical procedure. The Fountain of Youth is in her head – and in all of our heads if we allow it to be.

Ginny is always “up.” Everything is wonderful in her world. Every week when she comes over, she gushes about how the meal is the best she’s ever had (even when I opt not to cook and order take-out), my children are amazing (as she listens to my three girls argue over the Wii), the weather is beautiful (not the word I’d use on a sticky hot Florida summer night), etc. Her favorite phrase is, “This is such a treat” – and she uses it often. Last night as she was saying good-night, she touched my arm and said, “This is really heaven in this home. Your kids, your family, it’s just heaven.” She verbalizes positive thoughts and she says them with sincerity. I believe her optimism is the secret to her youthfulness, and it’s starting to rub off on the rest of us as well. When we first started hosting my father and her for dinner, I think we thought of it more as a favor to them, to give them a chance to get out of their continuing care retirement community and have a change of scenery and food. Now I realize that my husband and I are the ones reaping the benefits.

What Ginny has taught us – or at least reminded us – is that there really is power in focusing on the positive. She has had her share of heartache, outliving three husbands, her first who died fairly young. Through it all, though, she has never lost her love of life and living. She has held interesting jobs, traveled the world, and continues to seek out new experiences (she is currently trying to convince my father that they should take a trip to Key West). Until recently, Ginny was an avid swimmer; now she stays fit by using the equipment in her senior facility’s exercise room. According to this article from WebMD, exercise is a key to staying sharp in old age.

Thanks to Ginny, I have clear evidence that I don’t need to buy into the fancy creams and procedures to retain my youth. Those are only superficial treatments (and one way or another – by 90, the wrinkles are there). The real secret to a vibrant, youthful life comes from within, from fostering a positive  attitude and mental acuity. The Fountain of Youth is much closer than I ever thought!

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For a comprehensive online database of senior living facilities in Florida, visit Florida Senior Living Advisor.

This made me smile. I just heard about a wonderful exhibit at the Museum of Florida History in Tallahassee. “Art from the Heart” is a display of artwork from 35 nursing home and assisted living residents from throughout Florida. The elderly residents created the artwork as entries for the Florida Health Care Association’s “Art from the Heart” 2009 calendar competition. According to a news release from the FHCA, some of the artists have been creating art their entire lives, while others have recently discovered their talent. Some of the individuals who submitted pieces for this year’s calendar include:

• 82-year old Helene Kereluk’s passion is painting, as demonstrated by her “St. John’s River” artwork featured on the 2009 calendar cover. She studied art in Chicago and continued her studies after moving to DeLand, Florida, where today she resides at The Cloisters independent and assisted living facility (ALF) and teaches a monthly class for her fellow residents.
• 84-year old Sally Darcangelo never realized her natural talent for painting, ceramics and crafts until entering Palm Garden of Pinellas in Largo, where she has lived for over a year. Her “Starry Night” painting is the featured artwork for May.
• 56-year old Bruce Landers is a C5, 6, 7 quadriplegic who is paralyzed from the chest down and has no hand or finger function. He used a hand adaptation to create his “Lighthouse Keepers Home” painted jigsaw puzzle that is the featured artwork for September. Bruce resides at Park Meadows Health and Rehabilitation Center in Gainesville.

The artwork will be on display in the Museum’s Heritage Gallery through September 7. The 2009 Art from the Heart calendars sold for $7 each, with proceeds used toward FHCA’s Quality Credentialing Foundation. The Foundation focuses on improving services and quality care for those living in Florida’s nursing homes by offering long term care providers mentoring, information and resource sharing and advocacy. The Foundation also promotes increased customer satisfaction and employee retention in long term care facilities and offers continuing education and scholarships for long term care nurses, nursing assistants (CNAs) and other professional staff.

For a comprehensive searchable database of senior living facilities in Florida, visit Florida Senior Living Advisor.