Caregivers Resources

Housing & Facilities

Medicare Nursing Home Compare These comparison ratings of nursing homes will help you make a choice when the time comes.

About Assisted Living Assisted Living Facilities offer many different housing options for seniors who want to live autonomously, but still require a little extra help to fully enjoy life. Of course, different people require various levels of care, ranging from communal housing to socializing to intensive medical intervention. There are also many options to help pay for assisted living.

Senior Advisor - Help in locating and evaluating all levels of housing for seniors - lots of resources for Washington State.

About Adult Family Homes These are residential homes licensed to care for up to six non-related residents. They provide room, board, laundry, necessary supervision, and necessary help with activities of daily living, personal care, and social services. RCW 70.128.010.

If you are considering care in an adult family home check these DSHS resources:

▼ Please read our brochure, Choosing Care in an Adult Family Home or Boarding Home

▼ Look for an adult family home in your county with the Adult Family Home Locator

▼ Apply for state-funded care in an adult family home at your local Home & Community Services Office

Assisted Living Directory "strives to be a unique resource for assisted living facility information & caregiver support. We produce facility video tours, caregiver interviews, and video tutorials to help our users to make informed decisions."

Assisted Living Facilities - helping seniors and their families research Assisted Living options.

Assisted Living Information on assisted living and retirement centers and how to choose one.

SeniorLivingSource.com More than just a directory, SeniorLivingSource.org is a free referral service that can help you reach out to many communities to request free information from them, or even a free consultation. Lot of focus on alzheimers.

Seniorhomes.com A free resource for finding senior homes/housing.

Aging and Long-Term Support Administration - A State agency where you can search for local facilities by zip code. Free directory of ALL Adult Family Homes and Boarding Homes in the state of Washington.

Health & Insurance

DrugWatch.com The mission at Drugwatch.com is to inform people about dangerous drugs and medical devices. Sometimes filing lawsuits is the only way for people injured by these products to get justice. We help these people figure out if filing a lawsuit is right for them, and connect them with lawyers who can determine if they have a case.

AccentCare "Expert assistance with caregiving needs." Providing a wide range of quality personal in-home care options to enable seniors to live at home independently.

WebMD Got health questions? WebMD, is a one stop source for health and wellness on the Web. Peruse our library. Ask our health professionals. Chat with others.

About's Senior Health Page. Wide variety of news and services of interest to seniors.

Dealing With Disabilities

Disability Accomodation Cost Guides Changing, remodeling or making additions to your home to accommodate people with disabilities can be done in a variety of different ways. If you are building a new home, you can ensure that it be single-level without door jambs to impede a wheelchair. If you are remodeling aspects of an existing home, you may need to do reconstruction or creative planning to make the changes. Disability accommodations can range in cost depending on the complexity of the changes.

Thriving in Trade School with a Disability Students with disabilities today have access to more opportunities than ever before. While many decide to pursue a four-year degree, a growing trend toward vocational and trade schools is also proving to be a beneficial choice. The vocational path can be attractive to students for a number of reasons, including taking less time and money and offering a more direct path to employment.

Discrimination And Addiction: How To Overcome Prejudice Without Relying On Drugs Or Alcohol. Despite laws put into place specifically to protect individuals against discrimination, many people say they have experienced it in some form over the course of their lives. It can affect anyone, of any race, sexual orientation, age, or gender, and while everyone reacts to it differently, it can truly take a toll on a person’s mental, emotional, and physical well-being.

Accessibility and Employment: What People with Disabilities Need to Know. Clearly, technology has tremendous power and promise. It has fundamentally transformed the way we live and work, optimizing and accelerating our productivity. These days, it's essential to applying for a job, getting a job, and doing a job. And as long as it's accessible, it can be a great equalizer in ensuring that people with disabilities can obtain, retain and advance in employment.

Wheelchair and Handicap Ramp Cost Guide In order to accommodate visitors or residents with disabilities in your home, you may need to add in a few features that make it easier to get around. One of the most popular options is the wheelchair and handicap ramp, which allows users to avoid stairs.

Dating When Blind or Visually Impaired — From Single and Ready to Mingle to Off the Market. When talking about social interaction the subject of dating always comes up. What kind of experiences can be expected and for anyone who has dated, there is always the "first date." We all have had those awkward or regrettable first dates. What about having to deal with your first date and being visually impaired.

Disaster Safety for People with Disabilities: What to Do When Emergency Weather Strikes. This disaster safety guide will help you know what hurdles to anticipate, factors to consider, and ultimately, what to do when emergency weather occurs. It will take into account people at all different ability levels and the kinds of challenges they might encounter during hurricanes, blizzards, landslides, tornadoes and earthquakes. Be sure to consult with your doctor about any additional precautions you might need to take, as each person may have more specific needs to address.

Social skills for adolescents and adults with autism You might find social situations difficult. Other people appear to know, intuitively, how to communicate and interact with each other, yet they can also struggle to build rapport with autistic people. You may feel that your social differences mean other people don't understand you.

Long Term Care

Longtermcarewis.com An online eldercare sourcebook -- extensive! Includes advice and faq's for all levels of insurance as well.

Wills, Living Wills, Legal Asssistance

Northwest Justice Center resource This site offers a lot of resources for non-criminal legal assistance for those with limited incomes.

In-Home Care-Giving Services

YearsAhead - helping seniors and their families connect with the right in home care provider.

Alzheimer's Reading Room - an excellent blog devoted to the disease.

Home Instead An international organization providing a variety of in-home care services. They have a number of well-established offices in Seattle and King County. Phone number of the closest office is 206-622-4663.

With a Little Help Provides services for seniors and others with special needs in Seattle and surrounding areas.

Northwest Senior Resources

Community Services for the Blind and Partially Sighted specializes in working with age-related vision loss. They maintain an on-line store, SightConnection , with over 200 products to aid those living with vision loss.

The Seattle/King County Senior Services

Aging and Adult Services Administration Washington State's DSHS site.

Widowed Information and Consultation Services Seattle area support in SW Seattle, the Northend and Bellevue.

Federal Resources

Eldercare Locator a public service of the U.S. Administration on Aging connecting you to services for older adults and their families.You can also reach us at 1-800-677-1116.

Medicare Home Page You'll find loads of information about the Federal Medicare program here.

Social Security Administration Home page for the S.S.A.

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Am I a Caregiver?

By John Deagen, Caregiver Advocate, Senior Services´ Family Caregiver Support Program

"You and I do not see things as they are. We see things as we are." -- Herb Cohen

As a parent, I do not see myself as a caregiver; I just do what a parent should do. As a son to my mom before she died, I did not view myself as a caregiver; I simply did what a son should do.

Caregiving is sneaky that way. Caregiving can disguise itself as just part of everyday life. It seems just as natural as anything else you do. It is not a separate part of your life as much as it is just who you are.

Yet caregiving can also be very apparent. The duties that it entails- the cooking and transportation, the errands and personal care, the bill-paying and medication management, the watchful eye for subtle changes-can be so imbedded in your everyday that you can lose sight of who you are outside of those duties.

And so it is that when asked the question, "Are you a caregiver?" two people with very similar situations can very clearly answer "Yes" or "No" and both answers are accurate. For one person, caregiving can be intrinsic in who they are while another person sees caregiving as external duties that they perform separate from their real life. It is a matter of perception.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee developed a model for supporting caregivers based on the Identity Change Theory of Caregivers.

The research shows that there is an identity shift in caregiving as roles in relationships change given health and functional changes. The back and forth flow between emotional support, financial support, house maintenance tasks, and decision-making changes between caregiver and care receiver over time as needs change.

The roles between a child and their parent or between partners change. The recalibration in the relationship is a shift in Caregiver Identity.

In King County, the Family Caregiver Support Program (FCSP) seeks to support family, partners or friends as their roles, their duties, their identi- ties change.

Whether viewed as caregiving or care coordination or just plain "being there" for someone, supporting someone as their needs change has its own challenges.

Stressors vary by individual and many stressors are directly related to a changing identity. The FCSP helps caregivers to get a glimpse at where they are in the Caregiver Identity continuum, and identify strategies to care for themselves while they support others.

While the medical system is focused on the patient or care receiver, the FCSP focuses on the caregiver´s needs. The caregiver is the client.

If you ever fly in a plane, you are told that, in case of emergency, you should put your oxygen mask on first before assisting others. It makes practical sense when you think about it.

To provide quality care for others, it is important to provide quality care for yourself.

Sometimes, in caregiving, you forget to think of yourself. You too need some oxygen.

http://spl.org

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Making Sense of Medicare: Medicare Expands Program to Improve Nursing Home Quality

By Pam Negri Public Affairs Specialist Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Region 10

Selecting a nursing home for you or a loved one may just have become easier. All too often, decisions about which nursing home to choose are made under difficult circumstances without a lot of information about the quality of care in a particular facility. Now consumers in every state have a wealth of information available at their fingertips about the quality of care in Medicare and Medicaid certified nursing homes.

The Nursing Home Quality Initiative, launched by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, provides data designed to help consumers across the United States make more educated decisions when selecting a nursing home. Caregivers can obtain copies of state nursing home inspection reports, review staffing and affordability information, and compare newly released quality measures such as a nursing home´s prevalence of bedsores, pain, physical restraints, and infections among their resident population.

Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs) like Qualis Health, which serves Washington, Idaho, and Alaska, and OMPRO, which serves Oregon, are contracted with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to collect and publish data to help consumers make decisions about nursing homes. Another key component of the quality initiative is the information and consultation that QIOs will offer skilled nursing homes in every state to improve the quality of patient care.

The seven-month pilot project confirmed that targeted quality improvement initiatives do indeed improve the quality of care. One of the major indicators of quality evaluated was pain management. Did the pilot result in any changes that eased the pain of residents? In Washington state, for example, significant improvements were noted in several nursing homes which worked with Qualis Health: Tacoma Lutheran Home, Parkway Nursing Home in Snohomish, Everett Rehabilitation and Care Center, and Cascade Vista Convalescent Center in Redmond.

Using the Nursing Home Compare tool on www.medicare.gov , or by calling 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227), consumers will be able to compare specific nursing homes to others in the community or nation on 10 different quality measures. The measures fall into two categories - six for chronic care patients (long-term residents) and four for post-acute care patients (short-term residents). Among the measures are percent of residents: Who need more help doing daily activities. Who have pain. Who have bedsores.

We recommend that these quality measures should be one tool among many that consumers use. Checking with state and local ombudsman offices, visiting the nursing homes, and reading the publication, A Guide to Choosing a Nursing Home, are also good tools to use when looking for a nursing home for yourself, a family member, or friend. The quality data, publication, and findings from yearly on-site inspections and complaint investigations by State Survey Agencies are available at Medicare´s consumer friendly Web site www.medicare.gov or by calling the 24-hour help line, 1-800-MEDICARE.

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Here are some Senior Numbers

• AARP: 206 526-7918
• El Centro de LaRaza: 206 329-9442
• King County Aging and Disability Services: 206 684-0699
• Gray Panthers of Seattle: 206 523-6865
• National Asian Center on Aging: 206 624-1221
• Older Women's League: 206 325-3548
• Puget Sound Counsel of Senior Citizens: 206 448-9646
• Seattle Indian Commision (Senior Prog): 206 329-6594

If you know of a senior organization that should be listed here, please let us know. Phone: 206-406-2298