I remember when I was helping my elderly father select a Florida senior living facility, one of the biggest issues for him was cost: What does it cost up front? What does it cost each month? And most importantly – will those costs increase every year? As someone living on a fixed income, he didn’t want to move into a senior community where he couldn’t afford to stay – forever.

The facility he selected guarantees only nominal increases each year, which gave him the peace of mind he was looking for. But I just learned about a Florida senior living provider that is going one better: Aston Gardens, which operates six senior communities in Florida, has enacted a three-year rent guarantee for new independent living residents.

“We know that times are uncertain and many seniors are faced with the worries associated with living on their own. Seniors who live on their own never know if the property taxes on their residence will skyrocket or when they’ll be hit with an unexpected, expensive home repair bill. Our three year Peace of Mind Rent Protection Guarantee means seniors will never have to stress about their monthly bills — everything remains the same month after month,” said Diana Ferrante Thies of Aston Gardens.

Aston Gardens has senior facilities in Parkland, Naples, Venice, Tampa and two in Sun City Center.

Maybe there are other senior living facilities around the state offering this type of rent-control program. If you know of any, please let me know.

An Orlando-area senior living facility is awaiting test results to determine the source of a virus that has sickened more than a dozen elderly residents. According to Dain Weister of the Orange County Health Department, last week 16 elderly residents at Emeritus at Crossing Pointe developed gastrointestinal problems such as diarrhea, vomiting and nausea. With today’s heightened awareness of swine flu, that was the first concern, but Weister told me they have  ruled that out. He said they have  also determined it was not a food-borne illness. He said they suspect it could be norovirus, sometimes known as stomach flu.

Emeritus at Crossing Pointe offers independent living, assisted living and Alzheimer’s care to 179 residents. This past weekend, the facility was closed to visitors in an effort to stop the spread of the illness. As of today, just the second floor memory care unit is still closed since that is where the outbreak occurred. A few of the sick residents had to be hospitalized but all are now back at Emeritus, according to Weister.

Weister said norovirus outbreaks are not unusual in nursing homes. According to the Centers for Disease Control, norovirus is highly contagious. The symptoms usually include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and some stomach cramping. Sometimes people additionally have a low-grade fever, chills, headache, muscle aches, and a general sense of tiredness. The illness often begins suddenly, and the infected person may feel very sick. In most people the symptoms lasting for about 1 or 2 days. One of the most common complications of norovirus among the elderly is dehydration.

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.

According to the Jacksonville Business Journal, an international senior living development company is building a senior living facility for people with Alzheimer’s disease, its first project in North Florida.

Sunrise Senior Living  plans to open the 65,000-square-foot facility this fall at 4870 Belfort Road next to St. Luke’s Hospital. The assisted living and Alzheimer’s care facility will be able to offer more than 90 residents a variety of amenities and services. Sunrise Senior Living operates about 450 facilities around the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom and Germany, including eight others in Florida.

As many as 5.3 million people in the United States are living with Alzheimer’s. According to the Florida Alzheimer’s Research Center, the following is a list of early warning signs of Alzheimer’s disease. However, if someone has several of these symptoms, it does not mean they definitely have the disease. It does mean they should be evaluated by a medical specialist trained in memory disorders. The seven warning signs are:

1. Asking the same question over and over again
2. Repeating the same story, word for word, again and again
3. Forgetting how to cook, or how to make repairs or how to play cards- activities that were previously done with ease and regularity.
4. Losing one’s ability to pay bills or balance ones checkbook
5. Getting lost in familiar surroundings or misplacing household objects.
6. Neglecting to bathe, or wearing the same clothes over and over again, while insisting that they have taken a bath or that their clothes are still clean
7. Relying on somebody else, such as a spouse, to make decisions or answer questions they previously would have handled themselves.

There is no way to guarantee that you or your loved one will not get Alzheimer’s. However, many of the things that are good for your heart are also good for your brain. Quit smoking, get regular exercise, and eat foods such as fruits, vegetables, and fish. Avoid foods high in saturated fat or cholesterol. Other helpful lifestyle changes include keeping mentally active, staying socially involved with others, reducing stress, and wearing seatbelts and bicycle/motorcycle helmets.

When I was younger, I used to read articles about the challenges faced by “The Sandwich Generation” – people trying to care for aging parents while supporting their own children at the same time. Even just a few years ago, that seemed like a foreign concept to me. My mom had passed away in 1989 from ovarian cancer. Her battle with the disease happened during my final year of college, so I never had the opportunity to truly take care of her.  My dad, now 84, has lived a fully independent and active senior lifestyle until recently. It was about 18 months ago, around his 83rd birthday,  that it became apparent that it was not in his best interest to live all alone in an apartment, without any built-in support system. Our family became concerned that he was not eating regular meals, he was not keeping up with necessary housework and, most importantly, he was not getting any social interaction.

It didn’t take much persuasion to get him to consider a move into some sort of Florida senior living facility near my home in Orlando. But finding the right senior facility in Florida - one that provided the amenities and atmosphere he wanted but that would respect his independence and dignity – that was a much bigger
challenge than I ever expected. Since he is still fairly independent, we knew he did not need a nursing home. My initial thought was an assisted living facility, but after visiting  a few I realized those types of Florida senior living facilities provide more care and less independence than he wanted. After educating myself about the  different types of senior living facilities that are available, I decided that he would do best in a continuing care retirement community – a property that provides different levels of care based on the needs of the individual.

As a former journalist, I pride myself of being able to quickly and thoroughly gather information on any given topic. So I was surprised and frustrated at my inability to find a comprehensive list of continuing care retirement communities in the Orlando area. I did find a few online, and a few in the phonebook. In the end, though, it was good old “word of mouth” that lead us to the continuing care retirement community he now lives in. That’s when I decided to develop a website that would offer a comprehensive database for a Florida senior living facility search.

Florida Senior Living Advisor is the culmination of nearly a year of brainstorming and research, with a healthy dose of fear and self-doubt mixed in. I sincerely hope that it will become a valuable resource for anyone interested in learning about senior living facilities across the state of Florida. I also hope to provide useful and timely information through this blog. This is most definitely a work in progress, so I encourage you to leave your comments here or send me an email at mitra@flseniorlivingadvisor.com.