Exceptional Caring Through Assisted Living

There is a visible increase in the baby boomers living alone and along with them have increased the services of assisted living. With age and retirement, the first choice of many is to stay independently and some are forced to do so but today there is nothing to worry about. If you have decided to move out of the family and live independently you still have someone to take care of you. Assisted living can come as the best choice for the aging citizens by providing them much needed health care services as well as hospitality services under a single roof. It becomes much more of a family support to the seniors.

Seniors living on their own can at times fail to understand the additional care that they would require and at this tender age special care is needed. Here we are not talking about any religiously fixed services, under assisted living a wide range of health care support services are provided like offering meals, monitoring diet, home maintenance, laundry, managing appointments and most importantly the personal care service. Through this service you get to find someone who can take care of all your needs plus the professionals chosen to be with you are completely trained and offer professed services.

These services are meant to give you the liberty to be on your own, however, at the back of you mind you can be completely free that someone is there to take care of you. Assisted living is an ideal solution for people suffering with Alzheimer or dementia, though used interchangeably but there is a slight difference between the two. People suffering with any of these cannot take proper care of themselves yet they are at times left alone. This is where assisted living is of great help; this disease has to do with the memory loss and family members at times take it as a trouble to deal with such people.

Such baby boomers need extra care for which they are assisted by highly trained staff who offer them personal care with understanding and compassion. Security and well being of such people is quite important as they wouldn't even know where to go and what to do. Through assisted living you can stay relaxed that your parents or someone elderly of your family is under 24 hour medical assistance and would never be missing their meals or medicines.

Children have to leave their parents alone mostly because of unavoidable reasons, they have to be at work and earn their living. For them leaving their beloved in someone else's supervision can be a difficult decision but you need to understand that it for the good. Rather than leaving them all alone you can get them help from someone who is skilled and would be taking care of all their needs. Assisted living could be one of your best decisions in life as it's a guarantee of complete care, love and security.

The Defense Base Act - Scheduled and Unschedule Injuries

The Defense Base Act ("DBA") provides workers' comp benefits to civilian employees and private military contractors injured while working outside the U.S. on bases or working for a company under a U.S. Government contract for national defense or for public works. The majority of claims today result from injuries sustained while working overseas in Afghanistan or Iraq.

There are two types of injuries under the Defense Base Act: 1) Scheduled Injuries and 2) Unscheduled Injuries. Scheduled injuries provide a set number of weeks of benefits when particular body parts are injured. Below is a listing of the scheduled injuries under Section 908 of the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act ("LHWCA"), as extended by the Defense Base Act:

Scheduled Injuries:

(1) Arm lost, 312 weeks' compensation.
(2) Leg lost, 288
(3) Hand lost, 244
(4) Foot lost, 205
(5) Eye lost, 160
(6) Thumb lost, 75
(7) First finger lost, 46
(8) Great (big) toe lost, 38
(9) Second finger lost, 30
(10) Third finger lost, 25
(11) Toe other than great (big) toe lost, 16
(12) Fourth (ring) finger lost, 15
(13) Compensation for loss of hearing in one ear, 52
(14) Compensation for loss of hearing in both ears, 200

All other injuries are considered to be unscheduled injuries under the DBA, for example herniated disks, brain injuries, PTSD, hip injuries, shoulder injuries, etc.

The formula to determine the number of weeks of benefits available is determined by your doctor, by way of his impairment rating based on the AMA Guides. Here is an example:

James, an employee of DynCorp, sustains an ACL tear of his left knee after falling off a HESCO barrier in Afghanistan. After ACL reconstruction surgery and physical therapy, your orthopaedic surgeon rates your injury at 25% of your lower extremity (leg) based on the AMA Guides. As noted above, the total amount of weeks available to you is 288 weeks.

25% X 288 weeks = 72 weeks of benefits.

72 weeks of benefits X 1,100 Average Weekly Wage ("AWW") will amount to a settlement of $79,200.

Unscheduled Injuries:

Unscheduled injuries (such as herniated cervical disk, a rotator cuff tear or a brain injury) results in monetary compensation measured by the difference between an employee's pre-injury wages and wages an employee is deemed capable of making following an injury after an employee reaches maximum medical improvement (meaning, when an employee's injury stabilizes). It is also best explained by way of an example.

Stan, a private military contractor with Xe, sustains a herniated disk to his neck when his head hits the roof of an armored SUV when it hits a pothole while on a rocky road in Afghanistan. Stan earned $4,500 per week from Xe for the year before he was injured. Stan undergoes surgery back home and completes his physical therapy. Because of his injury, Stan cannot return to the work he did in Afghanistan. Stan obtains a job with a local GMC dealership selling trucks. He earns $1,000 per week, leaving a difference of what he earns at the dealership and Xe of $3,500. The maximum the DBA insurer has to pay is $1,256 per week. The $3,500 difference is more than the $1,256 maximum compensation rate, therefore, Stan would receive the maximum compensation rate even though he earns $1,000 at the dealership.

Plumbing and Drain Cleaning For Nursing Home Owners

If you are the owner of a nursing home or assisted living facility, no matter what the size, then you know that you have a very serious responsibility to provide the best services and conditions possible to the seniors in your facility. Making sure that the plumbing and drains are properly serviced in your nursing home is one important part of providing sanitary conditions, which will add to the comfort and peace of mind of your residents and their families. Cutting corners or settling for poor workmanship when it comes to plumbing and drain cleaning in nursing homes is simply not an option.

There are two types of plumbing services you will probably end up needing in a nursing home or assisted living facility. The first is regularly-scheduled maintenance calls, which include testing backflow devices in your facility and yearly high-pressure water jetting for sewer drains on the property. Just like any large, professional facility that houses large numbers of people, it's the responsibility of the management to make sure this maintenance is performed regularly to prevent any expensive problems in the future.

Regularly scheduled maintenance calls such as these should be done by a company you know and trust to charge you a fair price for repeat business. Spend some time researching local drain cleaning companies and getting price lists before settling on anyone. And make sure that you specifically ask if they offer any kind of discounts if you sign a long-term contract for regularly scheduled drain cleaning services at your nursing home.

The second kind of nursing home plumbing problems you will run into are classified as unexpected emergencies, such as clogged or broken drains, or even flooding and water damage on your property. In this case, you simply won't have the leisure to do extensive research on many local companies. It's best to get a reference from other people in your industry, or to call a plumbing company you have had experience with in the past.

Above all, you should only go with a plumbing and drain cleaning company that you are certain will treat your nursing home residents with respect and kindness. Your responsibility to your residents also extends to making sure every worker who comes on the premise is trustworthy and professional. There are many different plumbing companies in metropolitan areas to choose from, so take some extra time to ensure you make the best decision possible. By doing so, you will gain not just the respect and appreciation of your residents, but also will be likely to save significant time and money.

Florida Nursing Home Diversion Program

The Florida Nursing Home Diversion Program is an important part of the assisted living choices in Florida. Many seniors are opting for this program because it is one that allows them to stay in their own homes for as long as possible.

According the Florida Department of Elder Affairs, this program was created to keep the elderly in their homes instead of going to a nursing home. In order to do this, community services are provided in the person's home through Medicaid and the services include long-term care and Medicaid covered medical services.

In order for an individual to participate they must be eligible for both Medicaid and for a nursing home. On the provider side of the program, qualified professions available through managed care organizations sit down with an individual and anyone who needs to be present, and talks about what is needed.

Managed care organizations contract with the State to provide the full care for each individual. The managed care facility receives a capitated payment for these services. They also are responsible for management and coordination of the program. Individual providers can also contract with the State for this purpose.

The main objective of the Florida Nursing Home Diversion program is to keep those elderly who are frail in a safe environment. This means they will use an alternative community based care program instead of a nursing home which is more cost effective than having the individual in a nursing home.

All individuals who take part in this program must fit the following criteria:

* They must be at least 65

* They must be eligible for Medicare (both parts A&B) and Medicaid

* They must live in a program area that is already authorized

* They must receive an assessment through CARES (Comprehensive Assessment and Review for Long-Term Care Services) that specifically determines the individual's level of care that would be needed in a nursing home.

These criteria will help the family and the managed care program help the elderly family member get the appropriate care that is needed. Some of the programs that a person in this program can receive include case management, someone to do chores, medical supplies and respite care. This is just a short list of what they can receive.

There is also another waiver for acute care that will provide x-rays, mental health services in the community, outpatient programs for hospital and emergency, prescribed drugs and transportation where necessary.

The medical services that are provided are done so on a medical necessity basis only, o they must be necessary for someone to live in the community instead of going to some type of institution. For more information about forms and eligibility contact the local CARES program.

When you are in need of services for someone who is eligible for Medicaid nursing home services it can be a weight off you to know that the individual can receive care to stay at home. This is preferable for many elderly because home is what they know and where they feel most comfortable.

Isolation in Nursing Homes

One of the biggest appeals of nursing homes is that they are big, open communities where elderly people can receive care and assistance while living in community with others. Often, nursing home patients become close friends with their fellow residents.

Nursing home attendants are often responsible for trying to facilitate this community feel. They must communicate with their patients, making them feel at home, and organize community events for the patients to get to know one another and entertain themselves.

Unfortunately, this does not always happen. Some attendants in assisted living facilities are abusive and isolate their patients from other residents. Additionally, the nursing home staff members may also neglect an elderly patient, refusing to talk to him or her entirely.

This may occur out of frustration, laziness, or a general lack of interest in the job. Sadly, this neglect that is so easy for nursing home attendants to commit may have serious, and even deadly, consequences for the affected residents.

It can be difficult to tell when an individual has suffered emotional abuse, especially when that abuse is isolation. The individual will likely show no physical signs, and he or she may not seem much different personality-wise either.

Many elderly individuals will not report instances of emotional abuse to their families out of fear or due to an inability to speak or act. As such, families should be very attentive to the care that their loved ones receive. Families that suspect that isolation is occurring should do everything they can to fix the problem.

Often, families will have to resort to legal action. When this is the case, families are advised to seek legal counsel from an experienced personal injury lawyer, who can help families build and fight their cases.

Nursing Home Contracts & Documents - Do Not Sign Under Influence of Staff

Emotional decisions or decisions that you make when you are in pain, or suffering, or decisions, or decisions that you make after you have just had surgery, or decisions that you make when you are heavily medicated, are "iffy" decisions. What do I mean by "iffy". Well, I wonder "if" you were not in pain or suffering or if you had not just been operated on or if you were not heavily medicated, would you have made that same decision in the same way in the same time of your life. Or was your decision making process governed by drugs or by your physical or emotionally-weary conditions?

If you go to any of the 12-step programs, the first thing that they will tell you is to refrain from making any important life decisions for 90 days. Yet, you can come out of open-heart surgery and have medical staff thrust fifty-page documents at you for you to sign and no one sticks up for you and no one tells you to wait or to have your family or your family lawyer present for that very serious document-signing.

Why is this that no one protects patients from signing documents that they clearly do not want to sign, yet there is a protection for those who are enrolled inside of a 12-step program?

The answer is in what the medical facilities, doctors, surgeons and rehab places stand to gain from those signatures Once the nursing homes and the rehab places put their enrollment applications and admissions documents in front of you-the patient, you are probably and usually too tired, too drained, and too emotionally and too physically-weary to argue the point. Say you do not want to sign the documents? The facility has you practically hostage, by telling you that the documents are routine documents and you trust the facility because you think they are there to heal and to help you.

But rather, the truth is, there are some employees in that facility whose main job is to get your money, get your social security checks and get your disability and your homes away from you. Can you believe that ? It is those social workers who are there employed by these rehab places and nursing homes that want to know all of your financial business EVEN if you have come into the place saying and insisting that you have private insurance and EVEN though you say and insist that you are not applying for Medicaid or medicare. They want all of your information as part of a routine application.

Do not believe the words routine because there is nothing further from the truth. What might be routine for the medical place is not routine for you or for your finances. When they say that word routine to you in respect to applications, enrollments admissions or documents when you first come into rehab or into nursing homes, they mean that they are routinely going to try and get all your assets, all your social security, and any and all payments that you have due to you. Of course there are some laws that protect you. But most times, those documents that they ask you to sign are one-sided documents all in favor of the rehab place or of the nursing homes.

Think twice before signing anything at all. Insist that you have friends and family there if there are multitudes of documents to be signed. In fact, even if they want you to sign only one document or one page, insist that your family member or your private personal lawyer be present. Do not, under any circumstance take any lawyer or legal representative that this place provides or calls for you. You need someone independent.

Watch out for all hoe documents. You could be signing away your entire home, all and any assets, funds and bank accounts, and your entire future. The author is not a medical or legal professional and has published this article for entertainment, enjoyment and information only. This article and other articles by the same author are not intended to be any legal or medical advice, so consult your own professionals before taking any serious action that might affect your life, nursing home stay or finances.

ALERT: Do not be fooled by the word routine uttered from staff's mouth. These routine documents could turn out to be legally-binding contracts. You must have help and witnesses before signing any such papers. Any REPUTABLE nursing home or care facility will permit you to wait until family members are there for you. Unscrupulous nursing homes will wait until your family leaves and then ask you to sign the papers. Do not be duped!

113 Facts About Animal Cruelty

1. Animals caught in traps can suffer for days before succumbing to exposure, shock, or attacks by predators.


2. Traps often kill "non-target" animals, including dogs and endangered species.


3. To cut costs, fur farmers pack animals into small cages, preventing them from taking more than a few steps back and forth.


4. Crowding and confinement is especially distressing to minks- solitary animals who occupy up to 2,500 acres of wetland in the wild.


5. The frustration of life in a cage leads minks to self-mutilate- biting their skin, tails, feet- or frantically pace and circle endlessly.


6. "PETA investigators witnessed rampant cruelty to animals. Workers beat pigs with metal rods and jabbed pins into pigs' eyes and faces."


7. Snakes and lizards are skinned alive because of the belief that live flaying makes leather more supple.


8. Piglets are separated from their mothers when they are as young as 10 days old.


9. Once her piglets are gone, the sow is impregnated again, and the cycle continues for three or four years before she is slaughtered.


10. Approximately 3 to 4 million cats and dogs- many of them healthy, young, and adoptable- must be euthanized in animal shelters every year.


11. Cows produce milk for the same reason that humans do- to nourish their young - but on dairy farms calves are taken away at 1 day old.


12. 1 day old calves are fed milk replacements (including cattle blood) so that their mothers' milk can be sold to humans.


13. Animals can suffer brain damage or death from heatstroke in just 15 minutes. Beating the heat is extra tough for dogs.


14. Each year, approximately 10,000 bulls die in bullfights.


15. Most cows are intensively confined, unable to fulfill their most basic desires, such as nursing their calves, even for a single day.


16. Cows are fed unnatural, high-protein diets-which include dead chickens, pigs, and other animals.


17. Overall, factory-farmed animals, including those on dairy farms, produce 1.65 billion tons of manure each year.


18. Kid goats are boiled alive to make gloves.


19. The skins of unborn calves and lambs - some aborted, others from slaughtered pregnant cows - are considered "luxurious."


20. About 285 million hens are raised for eggs in the US. In tiny spaces so small they cannot move a wing.


21. The wire mesh of the cages rubs off hens feathers, chafes their skin, and causes their feet to become crippled.


22. Before 1986, only four states had felony animal cruelty laws.


23. Glue traps cause terror and agony to any animals who touch them, leaving them to suffer for days.


24. In one study, 70% of animal abusers also had records for other crimes.


25. Sealers often hook baby seals in the eye, cheek, or mouth to avoid damaging their fur, then drag them across the ice to skin them.


26. Arsenic-laced additives are mixed into the feed of about 70 percent of the chickens raised for food.


27. Every year, nearly a million seals worldwide are subjected to painful and often lingering deaths, largely for the sake of fashion.


28. Scientists estimate that 100 species go extinct every day! That's about one species every 15 minutes.


29. Every year in the US, 50 million male piglets are castrated (usually without being given any painkillers).


30. More than 15 million warm-blooded animals are used in research every year.


31. The methods used in fur factory farms are designed to maximize profits, almost always at the expense of the animals.


32. To test cosmetics, cleaners, and other products, hundreds of thousands of animals are poisoned, blinded, and killed every year.


33. In extremely crowded conditions, piglets are prone to stress-related behavior such as cannibalism and tail-biting.


34. Farmers often chop off piglets' tails and use pliers to break off the ends of their teeth- without giving them any painkillers.


35. For identification purposes, farmers cut out chunks of young pigs ears.


36. Animals on fur farms spend their entire lives confined to cramped, filthy wire cages.


37. For fur, small animals may be crammed into boxes and poisoned with hot, unfiltered engine exhaust from a truck.


38. Engine exhaust is not always lethal, and some animals wake up while they are being skinned.


39. Larger animals have clamps attached to or rods forced into their mouth or anus so they can be painfully electrocuted.


40. Bird poisons attack birds' nervous systems, causing them to suffer seizures, erratic flight, and tremors for hours before dying.


41. If you drink milk, you're subsidizing the veal industry.


42. Male calves are often taken away from their mothers at 1 day old, chained in tiny stalls for 3-18 weeks, and raised for veal.


43. After they are taken from their mothers, piglets are confined to pens until they are separated to be raised for breeding or meat.


44. Although chickens can live for more than a decade, hens raised for their eggs are exhausted and killed by age 2.


45. More than 100 million "spent" hens are killed in slaughterhouses every year.


46. Forty-five states currently have felony provisions for animal cruelty. (Those without are AK, ID, MS, ND and SD.)


47. Dogs used for fighting are chained, taunted, and starved to trigger extreme survival instincts and encourage aggressiveness.


48. Dogs that lose fights (or refuse) are often abandoned, tortured, set on fire, electrocuted, shot, drowned, or beaten to death.


49. Cows on average product 16 lbs of milk per day. With hormones, antibiotics, and genetic manipulation? 54 lbs a day.


50. Humane treatment is not a priority for those who poach and hunt animals to obtain their skin.


51. Alligators on farms may be beaten with hammers and axes, sometimes remaining conscious and in pain for 2 hours after skinning.


52. Investigation of animal abuse is often the first point of social services intervention for a family in trouble.


53. A Canadian Police study found that 70 percent of people arrested for animal cruelty had past records of other violent crimes.


54. Dog fighting and cock-fighting are illegal in all 50 states.


55. Hoarding of animals exists in virtually every community. Well-intentioned people overwhelmed by animal overpopulation crisis.


56. The consequences for hoarders, their human dependents, animals, and the community are extremely serious- and often fatal for animals.


57. Declawing is a painful mutilation that involves 10 amputations - not just the nails - but the ends of toes (bone and all).


58. The long-term effects of declawing include skin and bladder problems and the gradual weakening of cats' legs, shoulders, and back.


59. Declawing is both painful and traumatic, and it has been outlawed in Germany and other parts of Europe as a form of cruelty.


60. Kangaroos are slaughtered by the millions every year; their skins are considered prime material for soccer shoes.


61. Across the US, 6 to 8 million stray and abandoned animals enter animal shelters every year, and about half must be euthanized.


62. In California, America's top milk-producing state, manure from dairy farms has poisoned hundreds of square miles of groundwater.


63. Each of the more than 1 million cows on the state's dairy farms excrete 18 gallons of manure daily.


64. Every year, the global leather industry slaughters more than a billion animals and tans their skins and hides.


65. Elephants who perform in circuses are often kept in chains for as long as 23 hours a day from the time they are babies.


66. Every year, millions of animals are killed for the clothing industry.


67. An immeasurable amount of suffering goes into every fur-trimmed jacket, leather belt, and wool sweater.


68. Neglect and abandonment are the most common forms of companion animal abuse in the United States.


69. On any given day in the U.S., there are more than 65 million pigs on factory farms, and 112 million are killed for food each year.


70. Every year, dogs suffer and die when left in a parked car- even for "just a minute" - parked cars are deathtraps for dogs.


71. Dog owners: On a 78 degree F day, the temperature in a shaded car is 90簞F, in the sun it can climb to 160簞F in minutes.


72. 98% of Americans consider pets to be companions or members of the family.


73. For medical experimentation animals can be burned, shocked, poisoned, isolated, starved, addicted to drugs, and brain-damaged.


74. Regardless of how trivial or painful animal experiments may be, none are prohibited by law.


75. When valid non-animal research methods are available, no law requires experimenters to use such methods instead of animals.


76. On average it takes 1,000 dogs to maintain a mid-sized racetrack operation. There are over 30 tracks in the United States.


77. Female cows are artificially inseminated shortly after their first birthdays. Happy birthday!


78. Birds don't belong in cages. Bored, lonely, denied the opportunity to fly, deprived of companionship...


79. Many birds become neurotic in cages - pulling out feathers, bobbing their heads incessantly, and repeatedly pecking.


80. According to industry reports, more than 1 million pigs die en route to slaughter each year.


81. More than 100 million animals every year suffer and die in cruel chemical, drug, food and cosmetic tests, biology lessons, etc.


82. Approximately 9 billion chickens are raised and killed for meat each year in the U.S.


83. The industry refers to chickens as "broilers" and raises them in huge, ammonia-filled, windowless sheds with artificial lighting.


84. Some chickens spend their entire lives standing on concrete floors.


85. Some chickens are confined to massive, crowded lots, where they are forced to live amid their own waste.


86. Neglect/Abandonment is the most prevalent form of animal abuse (approximately 36% of all animal abuse cases.)


87. Cows are treated like milk-producing machines and are genetically manipulated and pumped full of antibiotics and hormones.


88. Foie gras is made from the grotesquely enlarged livers of ducks and geese who have been cruelly force-fed.


89. The best way to save cows from the misery of factory farms is to stop buying milk and other dairy products. Discover soy!


90. A typical slaughterhouse kills about 1,000 hogs per hour.


91. The sheer number of animals killed makes it impossible for pigs' deaths to be humane and painless.


92. Because of improper stunning, many hogs are alive when they reach the scalding hot water baths.


93. 13% of intentional animal abuse cases involve domestic violence.


94. Animal cruelty problems are people problems. When animals are abused, people are at risk.


95. Instead of improving conditions for animals, the dairy industry is exploring the use of genetically manipulated cattle.


96. More than half the fur in the US comes from China, where millions of dogs and cats are bludgeoned, hanged, and bled to death.


97. Millions of pounds of antibiotics are fed to chickens, who metabolize only about 20 percent of the drugs fed to them.


98. The 3 trillion pounds of waste produced by factory-farmed animals every year is usually used to fertilize crops.


99. Chaining dogs, while unfortunately legal in most areas, is one of the cruelest punishments imaginable for social animals.


100. Tens of thousands of horses from the United States are slaughtered every year to be used for horsemeat in Europe and Asia.


101. Since the last horse slaughter plants in the US were closed in 2007, thousands of horses have been shipped to Canada/Mexico.


102. Abusers kill, harm, or threaten children's pets to coerce them into sexual abuse or to force them to remain silent about abuse.


103. There are no federal laws to regulate the voltage or use of electric prods on pigs.


104. Forty-one of the 45 state felony animal cruelty laws were enacted in the last two decades.


105. In the United States, 1.13 million animals were used in experiments in 2009, plus an estimated 100 million mice and rats.


106. As a result of disease, pesticides, and climate changes, the honeybee population has been nearly decimated.


107. Many studies have found a link between cruelty to animals and other forms of interpersonal violence.


108. Cows have a natural lifespan of about 20 years and can produce milk for eight or nine years.


109. A fur coat is pretty cool- for an animal to wear.


110. Eighteen red foxes are killed to make one fox-fur coat, 55 minks to make a mink coat.


111. Fur farmers use the cheapest and cruelest killing methods available: suffocation, electrocution, gassing, and poisoning.


112. In addition to diarrhea, pneumonia, and lameness, calves raised for veal are terrified and desperate for their mothers.


113. During Canada's annual commercial seal slaughter, as many as 300,000 seals are shot or bludgeoned.