After 67 years of marriage, Floyd and Violet Hartwig died five hours apart from each other in their home.
If this story does not tug at your heartstrings, not sure much will.
Thanks to the support of their loved ones and end of life professionals, a couple in California were able to spend their final moments together side by side in their home before dying five hours apart while holding hands.
To read more of the AP story for the ages, go here: Couple married 67 years dies holding hands
As your mother and father continue to age, are you finding that one of them is starting to lose interest in hobbies they always loved?
Grandpa losing interest in activities he once loved? Do not jump to conclusions – there might be more going on that you realize.
Apathy might not be the problem. And do not be so quick to blame the temperament of someone with old age.
A recent study out of in the journal Neurology suggests that something else might be afoot.
According to the study’s author, apathy in the elderly may actually be a sign of dementia. How so? The loss of interest may be a sign of shrinking amounts of grey and white matter in the brain.
Does that mean that all apathy in seniors is a sure sign of Alzheimer’s or some other form of dementia? Definitely not. The key to look for? Ask yourself this one question. Does your loved one suffer from depression? According to research, seniors who experienced apathy WITHOUT depression is an indicator that the individual may be suffering from some sort of dementia.
There is still more research to conduct, but if you find your loved one lacking emotion, it might be time to schedule some time to visit with their doctor.
Fantastic performance from the Tonight Show, who owns this content.
Happiness and good memories are always a good way to start the day.
Pink is a great color. We run marathons wearing it. College and professional athletes wear it. It serves to remind us well the toll that breast cancer impacts women.
Did you know there is a disease that inflicts twice as many women as breast cancer? According to the Alzheimer’s Association 2014 Facts and Figures report, women over 60 have a 1 in 6 chance of developing Alzheimer’s. Men have a 1 in 11 chance.
Maybe it is time to start wearing purple along with pink.
There are five million people in the United States afflicted with Alzheimer’s with half a million people dying each year due to the disease.
The impact on women puts them at the epicenter. Consider these facts:
While there is currently no cure for Alzheimer’s, awareness of the disease is a great first step.
1 Assist Care of the Valley: Assisted Living at Home is partnering with the Alzheimer’s Association to bring Alzheimer’s support groups to Rexburg to serve caregivers and those in the early stages of the disease from Rigby to Driggs and everywhere in between. To stay informed about the support groups and to stay informed about Alzheimer’s Disease, fill out your information below.
And don’t forget to like us on Facebook, follow us on Pinterest, and subscribe to this blog (scroll to the top of the page and look to the right of the post)
For more information on Alzheimer’s in Idaho, click the link below.
Health, it does a marriage good.
Well, a husband’s health. And if the couple has been married for at least 39 years.
According to a study out in the Journal of Marriage and Family, researchers found that the healthier and more positive the husband was, the less likely there was to be marital contention. In the study, it was the wives who reported higher levels of conflict.
The report was not focused on violence or fighting, but rather the amount that one spouse criticizes the other, makes too many demands on the other, or gets on one another’s nerves in general.
On the other hand, the health of a wife does not impact an elderly couple’s relationship for good or for bad.
So what to do?
There are a number of things seniors can do to feel healthier. As discussed in a previous posts, that can be as simple as standing, attending peer discussion groups, or receiving home care. Those that did the latter two actually felt twice as healthy as those who did not after a period of two years.
1 Assist Care of the Valley: Assisted Living at Home will be offering support groups in Rexburg much like groups currently being offered in Idaho Falls. Additionally, 1 Assist Care of the Valley offers care at home to seniors so they do not need to go to nursing homes.
To find out more about assisted living care you can receive at home or about the monthly support meetings, fill out your information below. Or you can call us at 557-4215.
Yesterday, the Scottish Genealogy group on Facebook posted a great nugget concerning two phone calls you can make to find out additional information concerning a deceased ancestor.
When you are looking for your ancestor, don’t stop at the obituary or the gravestone inscription. Call or write to the cemetery and ask:
The cemetery office may also tell you the names of any other people with the same surname who are buried at the cemetery.
While you are at it, contact the funeral home listed in the obituary. Funeral homes keep detailed records about the individuals that they care for. This can be a valuable resource.
The funeral home will have:
If an autopsy was performed, the funeral home may supply you with the information for the name and address of the coroner as
well, which will allow you to contact that resource for detailed information on the cause of death and the details surrounding the death.
It will not hurt to ask the funeral home if they will provide you with:
In Idaho Falls and Ammon, there are four funeral homes you can reach out to. Rexburg and Rigby each have one, while St. Anthony has two.
1 Assist Care of the Valley Senior Care: Assisted Living At Home is a home care company located in Rexburg, Idaho. We provide provide weekly family history tips on our blog to help others with their family history work and genealogy.
We also provide assisted living services in the home to seniors in Idaho Falls, Rexburg, Driggs, Ashton, and everywhere in between. For some of our elderly clients, that includes doing family history with them.
To find out more about how we can help keep your elderly loved one home and safe rather than putting them into a nursing home, call us at 208-557-4215.
With Alzheimer’s Disease being the sixth leading cause of death (1) in the United States – with the statistics only getting worse, any signs of a breakthrough are a great thing.
This week, a team from Georgetown University may have done just that.
The team have found a blood test that just might help with detecting Alzheimer’s disease up to three years before the onset of 
symptoms.
While, there is still no cure for the disease, this may help individuals and families prepare to cope with the disease and may help with research. Also, the test is only 90% accurate in its current form – meaning that up to one in ten people could be wrongly diagnosed. But more tests are coming.
There is Help
Alzheimer’s does not just impact the individual diagnosed. In Idaho alone, there are 76,000 family members (2) caring for someone afflicted with the disease. The emotional toll is difficult. One in three residents in assisted living in Idaho are suffering from Alzheimer’s (3).
The Alzheimer’s Association offers support groups to families and friends providing care to those inflicted with the disease as well as support groups for those at the early stages of the disease.
The toll is also economic in nature. These are unpaid caregivers, whose care is 87 million hours of care (4). When monetized, that equals $1 billion a year (5). That is a B. And that is just in Idaho alone. Those are also hours that are not spent at work. No wonder scholars are calling this an economic crisis.
The numbers should be sobering, but with the knowledge, researchers can continue to work towards a cure.
The Numbers May Be Worse
On the other side of knowing is denial or misinformation.
A reports has also just come out in the journal Neurology that suggests that Alzheimer’s is often under-reported as a cause of death. It may even contribute to nearly as many deaths as heart disease or cancer. According to the study author, there were “approximately 503,400 deaths from Alzheimer’s in the U.S. in people over the age of 75 in 2010 (6). This is five to six times higher than the 83,494 number reported by the CDC based on death certificates.”
Why the error? Because death certificates often do not list multiple reasons for death.
Remember, There is Help
If you are afflicted with or care for someone afflicted with Alzheimer’s, there is support. The Alzheimer’s Association was in Idaho
Falls last week training elderly specialists and working hard to start support groups to help people in Idaho Falls, Rexburg, Rigby, Ashton, Driggs and beyond.
These are support groups for both those suffering from the disease or those caring for someone with Alzheimer’s.
If you are interested in a support group or are needing help caring for someone with Alzheimer’s, fill out your information below.
Ready to provide your loved one or yourself with the best care possible while staying home?
We will work with you to find a fantastic match from our trained and screened team members to provide that care.
Tell us a little about your situation so we can start the process.
Or you can simply call us at 208-557-4215 and start the process that way.
This March, 1 Assist Care of the Valley: Assisted Living At Home is offering two deals for you to choose from.
The Eastern Idaho Family History Conference
Going from 9 until almost 5, 1 Assist Care of the Valley will provide you or a loved one with a ticket, provide transportation to the conference in Rexburg, and accompany you or them to any class you or they would like.
Does not matter if you are in Ashton or Driggs, we will take care of you.
Be sure to mention the Family History offer when you call to start services. You will need to start services by March 12th to enjoy this offer.
The Three International Tenors In Idaho Falls
Your second option is to enjoy two tickets to see the Three International Tenors in concert on March 25th in Idaho Falls. 1 Assist Care of the Valley will provide you with two tickets to enjoy the evening.
You need to start services by March 20th to enjoy this offer.
Call us today at 557-4215.
And of course, you can always ask us how veterans or their spouses may qualify for free or discounted assisted living care at home services.
This was too fun not to share. Well, these two things.
First, turns out that eating dark chocolate may actually help seniors increase how quickly their brain processes things. Mind you, the study was sponsored by Mars, the company responsible for giving us M&M’s and Snickers bars. Nevertheless, it worked.
<a href=”http://www.valleyhelpathome.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Senior-Drinking-Hot-Cocoa.jpg”><img class=”size-full wp-image-491″ alt=”Elderly Hot Chocolate Improve Health” src=”http://www.valleyhelpathome.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Senior-Drinking-Hot-Cocoa.jpg” width=”198″ height=”296″ /></a> A little bit of chocolate may make your brain go a long way.
The study, published in August 2012’s American Heart Association’s journal, <em>Hypertension, </em>followed 90 seniors with mild cognitive impairment broken into three groups. Each group was given a certain amount of hot cocoa to drink. The group that drank the most hot cocoa actually saw “significantly higher overall cognitive scores.”
Now the only question left is, which chocolate to choose?
Fortunately, last November, Cook’s Illustrated published which chocolate they recommend to use when cooking.
And that can be found by clicking here: <span style=”text-decoration: underline;”><strong><a href=”http://bit.ly/1ic7zzz” target=”_blank”>Cook’s Illustrated Dark Chocolate Taste</a></strong></span><span style=”text-decoration: underline;”>
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<em>1 Assist Care of the Valley Senior Care: Assisted Living At Home provides assisted living services to seniors living in East Idaho from Idaho Falls to Rexburg to Driggs and everywhere in between. Part of our services include preparing meals, which can include dark chocolate recipes.</em>
<em>To find out more about our assisted living services that allow seniors to stay in their own home, give us a call at 208-557-4215.</em>
