Assisted Living San Francisco Bay Area, Ca

March 7, 2009

The Chateau of Pleasant Hill, California is a senior living community that offers assisted living, Alzheimer’s care, dementia care, home care and a whole host of senior care services.

Ruby MacDonald writes a monthly column in the Senior Insights Newsletter and it has become a favorite amongst the elderly residents who say that Ruby’s positive words and inspirations make them feel wonderful.

Ruby’s word for the day:

EMPOWERED LIVING   by  Ruby MacDonald                                                     

HOW WELL ARE YOU . . .   HEARING ?                                                                                          

Empowered living includes the use of our very important five senses. “Hearing” is one of those senses. It’s one fifth. For those who cannot hear, one-fifth of their senses are impaired.
I do not take hearing for granted because my hearing became impaired around midlife. I speak from experience when I say that not being able to hear easily causes many problems and changes in lifestyle. For instance, do you hesitate answering the phone? Or do you only use the phone when it’s an absolute necessity? Has your social life receded and slowly turned you into an introvert? Do you stay away from social gatherings because you can’t hear in a crowd?

Rush Limbaugh, the nationally syndicated radio talk show host, experienced a rapid loss of hearing and within three months he was deaf in one ear and had an 80% loss in the other. He could no longer understand radio, TV, or the voices of call-in listeners. He has a severe bi-laterial sensorineural hearing loss due to an autoimmune inner ear disease. AIED causes less than 1% of all cases of sensorineural hearing loss; most cases are due to aging, noise exposure, or inherited hearing loss and develop very gradually. Most patients respond to early treatment of steroids and benefit from the use of hearing aids; some need cochlear implants.

Today there is little or no excuse for anyone to be hearing impaired even though statistics show that most people with  hearing loss do nothing about it! A healthy, positive approach is to take charge of your hearing healthcare and find a way to hear as well as possible again. Nothing can be done until you admit you have a hearing loss.

Which type are you?  Do you consider your hearing “good enough” to get by on?”  It doesn’t matter that you force everyone to repeat nearly everything they say? Or, do you want to hear as well as possible?  I hope you cherish the latter and want to enjoy hearing to the fullest.

Here are a few empowering secrets to hearing: Wear hearing aids in one or both ears. Lipreading is helpful as a third hearing aid. There are telephone and TV amplifiers. Ask people to look at you and speak more slowly. In a group, always sit by a wall to block sounds.

Find a good audiologist, one recommended by a friend rather than selected at random from the phone book. They will evaluate your hearing and hearing needs

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

Reverse a stroke

February 15, 2009

STROKE: Remember the 1st Three Letters….S.T.R.

STROKE IDENTIFICATION
It only takes a minute to read this…

A neurologist says that if he can get to a stroke victim within 3 hours he can totally reverse the effects of a stroke…totally. He said the trick was getting a stroke recognized, diagnosed, and then getting the patient medically cared for within 3 hours, which is tough.

RECOGNIZING A STROKE

Remember the ’3′ steps, STR . Read and Learn!

Sometimes symptoms of a stroke are difficult to identify. Unfortunately, the lack of awareness spells disaster. The stroke victim may suffer severe brain damage when people nearby fail to recognize the symptoms of a stroke.

Now doctors say a bystander can recognize a stroke by asking three simple questions:

S *Ask the individual to SMILE.
T *Ask the person to TALK and SPEAK A SIMPLE SENTENCE (Coherently) (i.e. It is sunny out today.)
R *Ask him or her to RAISE BOTH ARMS.

If he or she has trouble with ANY ONE of these tasks, call emergency number immediately and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher.

New Sign of a Stroke ——– Stick out Your Tongue

NOTE: Another ‘sign’ of a stroke is this: Ask the person to ‘stick’ out his tongue.. If the tongue is ‘crooked’, if it goes to one side or the other, that is also an indication of a stroke.

A cardiologist says if everyone who gets this e-mail sends it on to others; lives will be saved.

WHERE THERE IS DESPAIR LET THERE BE HOPE – Senior Living Insight

November 20, 2008

WHERE THERE IS DESPAIR LET THERE BE HOPE  St Francis/Assisi     Aug 06

By Ruby MacDonald

Several times I have related that a thought is the first step in creating both the healthy and unhealthy emotions we live with. It takes but a simple persistent negative thought to lead to despair. Dr. Wayne Dyer, author of There’s a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem, says, “Despair is an attitude, experienced in the mind. It is a way of looking at a life situation and feeling hopeless.” He adds that there actually is no despair in the world. You cannot bring home a bucket full of despair; there are only people thinking despairing thoughts. “Despair itself is a mental process that sizes up and views a situation as awful,” says Dr. Dyer. Once we see despair as a mental attitude, we can remedy it by beginning the process of bringing the hope that will dissolve the attitude of suffering. Hope is also a thought. Hope is a vision. Despair is darkness. Hope is light. Hope is on the higher end of the energy scale that brings health and happiness; despair and gloom is on the lower end of the energy scale that makes us vulnerable to illness and depression. It clouds our thinking. We cannot see in the darkness.

In order to cope with despair, we must learn to stand back and in affect, detach ourselves from what is happening, or take on the attitude of the observer so that you can “look in and see the despair” as though you are another person seeing you. This detachment gives us the power to change our thought pattern to create hope and a higher level of energy. The higher the level of energy we can create, the easier it is to find the spiritual solution to our problems since God is peace, hope and love.

As we grow older, often the optimism we held about life turns to despair for many reasons. Loneliness, illness, grief, and more, can overwhelm us.   Gloom and despair may come from our attachment to the feelings that life is unfair, or we blame others for our sorrows, or we feel we are not understood. These equate to self-pity and self-loathing. “Despair allows the sufferer to suffer in comfort”, says Dr. Dyer. Often we despair over what or who is missing in our lives. We have been conditioned to think, “I am what I have, what I do, and what others think of me.” Yet if we listen, God’s voice will whisper that none of these things bring happiness. If we listen we may even hear Him say, “I am your only source of peace. I am the spiritual solution to all your problems related to attachments.”
To bring light to darkness, practice doing the following every day: 1) Refuse to dwell on thoughts about the problems in your life but rather on all there is to be grateful for even if it is one tiny thing. In time your list of blessings will become more evident. 2) Practice being an appreciator of beauty; strive to see the beauty in everyone and everything. 3) Read about those who have overcome darkness in their lives such as Helen Keller & Christopher Reeves.  4) Send out thoughts of love to those around you and immediately replace thoughts of resentment/disturbance/criticalness, with love. 5) Keep your thoughts centered on light and what you want, rather than on dark and what you don’t want; visualize your body as well and whole, do not reinforce any illness by thinking about it or discussing it habitually.  6) Go outside into the day light when thoughts of darkness overtake you since light dissolves darkness. 7) Practice purification by drinking pure water, eating pure foods, and keeping your thoughts pure. Repeat to yourself daily the following:
AS I THINK
SO SHALL I BE

Senior Living Insights by Ruby MacDonald