Sonoma Elder Care

For seniors who struggle with sleep problems, these tips can help.

A restful night’s sleep isn’t easy for many seniors – and for those who provide care for them. When the sun goes down, seniors can find it is a challenge to relax and fall asleep, or to remain asleep through the duration of the night. Sleepless nights then lead to sluggish days that can do more than just make someone feel sleepy. In fact, a chronic lack of sleep can impact a person’s overall health, making good sleep on a regular basis vitally important.

Taking steps to proactively prepare for a restful night’s sleep can help older adults and their caregivers get the sleep they need now to prevent health problems in the future. Try taking the steps below to improve sleep patterns:

Get regular exercise: Exercising several hours before … Read More »

Join us on March 14, as we celebrate Latinos in the Workplace!

Over the past Twenty Five years, we have had the honor to work with literally hundreds of amazing Latino Caregivers.  Today, Latino employees make up a considerable portion of our Caregiver team, making a significantly positive daily impact on the communities we serve.  Hired Hands is honored to support the upcoming 14th Annual Latinos in the Workplace conference, empowering and celebrating Latinos that make our community so strong.

Please join us for the 14th Annual Latinos in the Workplace Conference at the Flamingo Conference Resort & Spa.
Thursday, March 14, 2019, 7:30am  –  11:30 am.  Breakfast will be served.  An educational forum that seeks to help all employers provide a safe, productive and enriching work environment for Latino employees and empower Latinos to become tomorrow’s leaders.
Presented by Michael D. Lopez of … Read More »

Learn tips on how in-home respite care can help you steer clear of caregiver burnout.

Providing care for an older loved one, in spite of being incredibly rewarding, can also include a high level of caregiver stress. The full-time responsibility of meeting a loved one’s needs can quickly escalate to caregiver burnout – a dangerous condition which can cause loss of patience and emotional outbursts. This has an impact on not only the caregiver herself, but on her senior loved one as well.

It’s crucial to discover if you might be in danger of developing caregiver burnout, and seek assistance if needed. The questionnaire below from Hired Hands Homecare, experts at in home care in Walnut Creek and surrounding areas, can help you determine if you might have crossed the line from caregiver stress to caregiver burnout:

Do you … Read More »

Try out some of these fun activities for seniors with dementia.

As our senior loved ones advance through the stages of Alzheimer’s disease (or any other form of dementia), their ability to engage in everyday activities lessens, in spite of their need to remain busy and to feel productive. As a result, discovering ways to engage in fun activities for the elderly can be a challenge.

If you’re encountering this now, you know that each stage of Alzheimer’s disease presents its own unique challenges. The first obstacle may be helping your loved one remain interested in an activity – even one that had been a favorite hobby at one time. Another concern may be finding an activity that matches her physical ability. Reading, for instance, may have been a beloved pastime when she was younger. But if her eyesight is failing … Read More »

Learn how to better communicate with a person with Alzheimer’s disease.

Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia have a strong influence on language. The disease has an effect on speech and making use of words, as well as the comprehension of words. As the disease advances, language as a method of connecting will become less effective, and family and friends may need to choose different methods for communicating to interact with their loved one.

Hired Hands Homecare, top providers of the professional elderly care Santa Rosa families need, offers the following tips to help in communication and understanding with a loved one with dementia:

Make sure to use a kind tone – slower, lower, smiling.
Always treat the individual as an adult with the utmost respect, and make your best effort to be patient, flexible, supportive and calm.
Be sure there are … Read More »

“Here, I can help you with that.”

“Don’t overdo it now!”

“Why don’t you sit here and rest? I’ll handle that.”

How often have we made comments such as these to older adults—with the very best of intentions, of course? We want to do what we can to help our older loved ones, to help them stay safe and to take care of them in the same way they took care of us when we were growing up. However, there’s a concealed risk in trying to do too much for older individuals and depriving them of the ability to do as much as possible for themselves – the threat of harming their self-esteem and sense of purpose in life and making them feel robbed of their senior independence.

Take, for example, an elderly gentleman who spent his entire life … Read More »

Search online for “activities for seniors” and you’re likely to find numerous crafts, games, memory stimulation puzzles, and of course, the requisite bingo. However, what you won’t discover—unless you dig a little deeper with your searches—are the meaningful, beneficial activities that give significance to our lives. And yet, if you ask older individuals what they most want to do, the majority of them won’t mention bingo, crafts and games. What they want more than anything is to feel useful.

The University of Minnesota reveals details on how the most vulnerable times in our lives are a person’s first year of life, and our first year after retiring. The loss of the sense of purpose found in a fulfilling profession can cause significant health issues – and even an earlier fatality rate, if that awareness of purpose is not maintained … Read More »

When an older adult needs in home care services, there are a number of available options, and deciding where to turn can be intimidating. For instance, should you work with a professional home care agency, an independently hired caregiver, or utilize a caregiving registry? And how can you identify which home care solution is best for your loved one’s unique needs? There are benefits and drawbacks with most choices, but when it comes to senior care at home, the solution is clear: hiring a professional agency for the in-home senior living Santa Rosa CA families need, like Hired Hands Homecare, is the ideal choice for the highest quality care for numerous reasons:

You don’t need to perform a search for a safe, trained caregiver. A reputable home care agency not only checks references and performs in-depth background and driving record … Read More »

When our parents were younger, telephones were wired to walls, mail was delivered by postmen, and if grown children lived at a distance from their parents, checking in on them meant asking a neighbor to stop by to see how they were making out. If seniors were housebound as a result of illness or frailty, they could very easily start feeling isolated and cut off from the rest of the world. Social circles grew smaller, and distant family members often felt at a loss because they weren’t able to be there to help. But the world has changed dramatically over the past few decades and technology has changed how we communicate and function with our everyday tasks. Technology has also allowed for a revolution in home care for older adults and those who ordinarily might not have been able … Read More »