Caregiver Hints

There have been several aricles about this from different sources, but they all say essentially the same thing. Excess belly fat, and being overweight, may be a factor in the onset of dementia. While not too many details were offered, initial studies have found that fat accummulating around the waistline in particular, has a detrimental effect on the brain.

This has a two-fold implication…one, that if you are caring for someone who is overweight, you may end up dealing with dementia, and two, if your family has a history of dementia or Alzheimers, you have another reason to watch your health more closely.

Bulging belly now could mean dementia later

Tags: dementia, Alzheimers, health, family, weight, brain

I’ve just installed the article commenting commenting system from DISQUS!

What it means for visitors, hopefully, is that it will provide a better community experience, and an easier way to post questions and follow responses. Another cool thing is that if you visit other blogs using DISQUS, you can use the same user profile.

Please try it out and let me know what you think!

I recently saw a report on the news about what happens to left-over medicine at hospitals and care facilities once the patient no longer has use for the prescriptions. Sent back to the pharmacy…no. Recycled….no. In fact, the pills and other items are literally flushed down the toilet.

Here is the report from the CBS news affiliate in San Francisco.

Millions In Unused Pills Going Down The Drain

The report says that because there is no policy dictating the redistribution of such medicines, most facilities elect to flush them while millions of elderly and sick who can’t afford medication go without.

I plan to follow this story further and update this post. I’m hoping there is a petition or something in place to put a policy in place to get these kinds of medications to people who need them.

UPDATE:
I looked for other references to this issue and so far nothing. Unbelievable. I’ve submitted this to DIGG.com. If you have a Digg account or don’t mind creating one, be sure to go to this link.

Digg this article!

A friend recently brought this service to my attention. CaringBridge is a non-profit web site/service that offers free tools for creating a website to keep family and friends informed about loved ones who are ill.

In their own words…

“CaringBridge® is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit web service that connects family and friends during a critical illness, treatment or recovery.

A CaringBridge site is personal, private and available 24/7. It helps ease the burden of keeping family and friends informed. Patients and caregivers draw strength from loved ones’ messages of support.”

Friends and family can go to the site and leave messages and wishes, while the creators of the page can post details and progress about the loved one’s condition and progress.

While the services are free, donations are requested to help fund the site. This seems like a great service, and from what I can tell, is easy enough for anyone to use.

Tags: websites, nonprofit, free, donation, service, support, caregivers

I hope to be adding a new feature to the web site…podcasts! Since I am an avid podcast listener myself, it occurred to me that having the option to listen to articles in the car, or on the bus on the way to work might be really useful for busy people. If you are a caregiver, you are definitely busy. Personally, podcasts are the only way I can keep up with news.

So, as soon as I can work out some of the bugs (I’ve never done a podcast before), look for a link on the site to start downloading to your iPod.