SENIOR LIVING SOLUTIONS

February 25, 2009

Senior Living Solutions Overview:Once submitted, you can sit back, relax, and leave the work to us! Within hours, we will email you valuable information that will help you not only understand the different senior housing and care options available but also supply you with vital information that will educate you on what to look for and what questions to ask before making any commitment. And once your request has been assessed, a qualified retirement counselor will contact you directly by your preferred method of communication, via phone or email to further discuss how to best address your senior housing and eldercare needs.

Our mission is to offer you the very best in Senior Living and Senior Care service. To help ensure this, all providers are screened and vetted prior to participating in our program, so you can feel confident knowing that you are being referred only to quality and safe organizations.  And unlike most online referral programs, with Senior Living Solutions you are under NO OBLIGATION to buy anything, ever.Senior Living and Senior Care Services Available to You:
When it comes to caring for an elderly loved one, a variety of different services may be required.  Senior Living Solutions is ready to help with each and every one of them. Here are just a few of the services available through Senior Living Solutions:

*Assisted Living Facilities
*Alzheimer’s and Dementia Care Facilities
*Independent Senior Apartments
*Home Care

 

*Short Term Respite and/or vacation staysFrequently Asked Questions About Senior Living Solutions:

*Am I obligated to buy anything?
No. Never. By completing a Needs Assessment survey, you are under NO obligation to purchase anything.  We simply provide you with options and leave the decision entirely up to you as to whether you would like to follow up with any of the network service or product providers who respond to your request.

How are Senior Living Solutions providers screened?
Depending on the particular industry, each eldercare provider specialty has its own set of standards and certifications.  In order to participate in the Senior Living Solutions network, providers must provide evidence that they are legally authorized to provide the services and/or products they sell to consumers. Furthermore, each and every provider is required at all times to meet Senior Living Solutions Provider Participation Standards and abide by Senior Living Solutions Terms of Use. If, for any reason, Senior Living Solutions learns that a provider has failed to meet or abide by before mentioned Standards and/or Terms of Use, the provider will be disqualified from continued participation in the Senior Living Solutions program.

What if there are no participating providers who meet my needs in my geographic area?
If there are no providers in the Senior Living Solutions network that meet your specific requirements, we will promptly notify you and give you the option to either save or permanently remove your information from the Senior Living Solutions secure database.  By opting to save your information in our database, we can notify you at a later date if a provider enters our network and is right for your personal needs.

What if we’re not satisfied with the service we receive from the provider?
Because all providers who participate in the Senior Living Solutions network are independently owned and operated, all customer satisfaction issues and/or complaints must be handled through the individual provider or company. To help make sure you receive the appropriate level of attention, Senior Living Solutions requires all participating providers to have a published policy regarding customer dispute resolution. If your complaint has gone unaddressed or you are dissatisfied with the response from one of our participating providers, please let us know. Providers who demonstrate a pattern of unresolved customer satisfaction complaints and/or problems can be terminated from participating in our program.

If I don’t pay for this service, who does?
Senior care providers pay a fee to be able to participate in the Senior Living Solutions program, allowing us to offer you the highest quality matching service at absolutely no cost to you.

Find local Senior Living Solutions providers and senior services

AGELESS – REALITY OR MYTH? Senior Living Insights

December 20, 2008

AGELESS – REALITY OR MYTH? Senior Living Insights

 

By Ruby MacDonald

 

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. – unknown

 

For the last few decades I’ve been teaching people how to think in a way that keeps them feeling ageless. And now, suddenly my friends and I have all become seniors. And that’s a good thing! Being a senior demands that we learn to flow with the tide or we shall drown in the sea of life. Some of my friends who are not yet seniors are also struggling in the waters of change as an only child, or children, swim away from the warm sands of home to find their new adventures. Then the parents must learn to walk the beach alone. My older friends experience the death of a loved one, divorce, illness, moving to a new community to be near adult children, and the list of changes we must face are endless. We’ve always gone through changes at every age but somehow in these golden years, the waters we wade in seem deeper.

 

Most of the major changes create high stress levels. However, change is the name of the game of life. Whether we can adjust to the many changes is what determines whether or not we will become “aged” or “ageless.” Given the choice, becoming and staying AGELESS is the ideal goal. Too many of us seem to reach a certain age and then never again venture into the oceans of life. Yet the ocean still beacons to us to jump in and swim.

 

Of course, circumstances change over the years and our health may in reality slow us down or even stop us from being as active as we once were. However, what we do with our attitude about any circumstance is totally up to each of us. Fortunately there are many who never see any limitations to living a full life. One of my favorite people who exhibited strength and courage was Christopher Reeves who not only fought to live life as fully as he could, but also helped others while doing so. He could have given up, felt sorry for himself and created misery for all those who loved him, but he displayed courage and determination instead.

 

Helen Keller, being both blind and deaf had more to overcome than most of us, but she said that, “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” She didn’t include an age limit in her statement, and we should not set age limits to our quest for adventure. She knew that her character would be formed and strengthened by surmounting the difficulties she faced.

 

WE ARE THE MASTER, EVEN IN OUR WEAKEST AND MOST ABANDONED STATE – James Allen

 

There are so many advantages to being a senior. Yet we seldom hear the positive side. Let me name a few. By this time we don’t care anymore what people say or think about us. We’ve earned the right to be us and we don’t have to meet the expectations of others. We can simply relax and be. We don’t have to “do” unless we want to. As someone wisely said, we are not human do-ings, we are “human be-ings.” But we often forget to take the time to simply BE. Seniors have more time to BE.

 

Another advantage of being an AGELESS Senior is that we can “BE” an inspiration to others. We can help drown the old myth that being a senior is the end of life and that we can’t keep doing many of the enjoyable things we’ve always done. The only thing that stops us is fear and an attitude that shouts that we can’t or shouldn’t at “our age.” To become or stay AGELESS, you’ve got to want it – you’ve got to have the passion – if you are to change. 

 

Lasting changes need a strong foundation on which to thrive. Just as the oceans rest on firm bed- rock, our strength comes from being firmly centered in a Higher Power. To become or remain  AGELESS in today’s world requires a vigilant guard against the myths of aging that surround and nag at us.  In the end, it’s up to each one of us to decide whether we will be “aged” and let the last precious years of life slip by, or be AGELESS, ignore the number of years of we’ve lived, and find new adventures to pursue so that life is exciting and stimulating. The choice is ours. January first is an excellent time to commit to an AGELESS ATTITUDE, renewing that commitment every single morning. What would you like to be doing right now that you’ve allowed your age and attitude to stop you?

 

“HOLD FAST TO an ageless attitude FOR IF the spirit dies, LIFE is nothing more than a boat at sea that cannot navigate the oceans of life; it is at the mercy of the wind and waves.” – Ruby MacDonald

 

Senior Living Insights

“You gotta live every day like it’s your last” -Frank Sinatra – Senior Living Insights

November 17, 2008

“You gotta live every day like it’s your last because one day you’ll be right.” Frank Sinatra

While Tom and I, Tim and Suz and friends were moored off the New Zealand coast one evening, listening to my all time favorite, Frank Sinatra singing many of his popular hits, we made a point of listening carefully to the lyrics. We found that they contained some pretty wonderful messages for our lives that triggered a lively discussion. Ole Blue Eyes may be gone but his spirit certainly is alive in our daily lives through his music.  As you read these words, think about them and what they either do or can mean to you personally.

IF YOU’RE YOUNG AT HEART
Fairy tales can come true
It can happen to you
If you’re young at heart
For its hard, you will find, to be narrow of mind
If you’re young at heart

You can go to extremes with impossible schemes
You can laugh when your dreams fall apart at the seams
And life gets more exciting with each passing day
And love is either in your heart or on its way

Don’t you know that it’s worth every treasure on earth
To be young at heart
For as rich as you are its much better by far
To be young at heart

And if you should survive to 105
Look at all you’ll derive out of being alive
Then here is the best part
You have a head start
If you are among the very young at heart. – (Music:Joseph Myrow, Lyrics: Mack Gordon 1946)

We asked everyone aboard what they thought it meant to be “young at heart” and thus this month’s column was born.

First of all, let’s begin by discussing what it means when we don’t stay young at heart:  All too often we focus on the number of years we’ve lived and give the number permission to dominate our lives, either by mimicking aging role models, or living by preconceived ideas about aging that society has handed to us.  It’s easy to forget that times change and today we are far younger than our parents were in their aging years.  If we do focus on the number of years we’ve lived, too often we use our age as an excuse to get stuck in one time zone and live in the past. Or we think we’re much too old to do certain things such as dressing more youthfully, trying a new hair style and since we’re simply afraid to try new things, we limit/deprive ourselves of being young at heart. We stop dreaming. We get stuck. Fairy tales fade away.

“For its hard, you will find, to be narrow of mind, If you’re young at heart”

On the other hand, those who remain young at heart seldom use their age as an excuse. If anything, they use their age as a springboard because they know it’s now or never and they’d better get with the program if they’re going to have fairy tales come true. They live each day to the fullest—as though it’s the last, as ole Blue Eyes said.

Those who are young at heart are not afraid to risk doing something new and different, whether it is a new card game, traveling to an unfamiliar place, or ordering something new on the menu. Or perhaps it’s a new trendy hairstyle, or daring to have our hair colored (men and women), or wearing a bright new color that makes us look alive and ready to explore life.

To be young at heart is to be limitless – that is, there are no limits set, no boundaries to which you will not cross because of fear, or risk, or age.

The young at heart feel ageless. They don’t look in the mirror and concentrate on the road map that has planted itself on their faces. They are proud of their wrinkles, knowing they’ve worked darned hard to earn them. Instead they look in the mirror and see a face that has sparkling eyes, smile lines, and a mind filled with positive attitudes that nourish a sense of enduring adventure. They still buy green bananas.

The young at heart are timeless. They don’t make plans according to the number of years they’ve lived. Their time-line is open. They can bend. They are open-ended to new ideas as the times change, and know that change is what life on this planet is all about.

The young at heart aren’t afraid to dream. They set realistic goals and watch them come true, one at a time. They know that they must have something to look forward to each day, something that is filled with hope for tomorrow. It may be as small as knitting a scarf for someone, or as large as taking a trip to a place they’ve always wanted to see on the other side of the world, or in the next town, or in the garden. There are no size restrictions to dreams and we can have any kind and as many as we want. So what are you waiting for?

Fairy tales can come true. It can happen to you – if you’re young at heart.