Workers who perform in-home services for disabled or elderly individuals have special rules when tax time rolls around. But, understanding who the IRS considers the caregiver’s employer is one critical part of these tax rules that confuses many caregivers.
For Caregivers, ‘Alarm Fatigue’ is a Real Concern
If you’ve ever spent the night in a hospital, you’re likely aware of the preponderance of alarms designed to alert healthcare practitioners about potentially life-threatening events. And while the point of these alarms is to help healthcare providers do their jobs, the reality is that these alarms can at times be more harmful than helpful. Why? Because of a phenomenon known as “alarm fatigue.” Here’s a closer look at the problem, along with research underway aimed at improving patient safety by reducing alarm fatigue.
The FDA Can Declare War on Alzheimer’s
‘If we had put a war on neurologic diseases at the same time we declared a war on cancer, we probably would not be having this conversation.” Those are the wise words of Janet Woodcock, director of the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, before Congress last month.
Inflammation’s Link to Alzheimer’s, Heart Disease and Cancer
Despite its heroic intentions to protect us against foreign invaders, inflammation also plays a role in many diseases, especially those experienced by older adults. Doctors and researchers around the world and across disease categories have caught on, and they’re working on ways to tame the beast of chronic inflammation.
“More than 90 percent of all noncommunicable diseases of aging are associated with chronic inflammation,” David Furman of Stanford Medical School’s Institute for Immunity, Transplantation and Infection explained upon the release of a study on caffeine consumption and inflammation.
Caregiver Abuse: Is It Caused By Illness or Personality?
“How do I separate my loved one’s old abusive behaviors from those caused by his illness?” It’s a question I often hear from caregivers and one that’s difficult to answer definitively. Yet it routinely impacts relationships between caregivers and their loved ones.
Making Dementia Caregiving Support More Available To Those Who Need It
Dementia is devastating. Most of us have seen or experienced the toll on families that comes with caring for someone with Alzheimer’s disease or similar conditions. There are an estimated 8.5 million family members providing dementia care at home and, with no cure on the horizon, this number is expected to rise sharply.
Dear President Trump: Focus on Our Caregiving Workforce
Across the country, the stories are the same. A family can’t find a home care worker to assist an aging parent. A local home care provider struggles to recruit workers—these workers in turn flee the sector, fed up with the quality of these jobs. This cycle repeats, the problems multiply by the year, and the workforce shortage explodes into a national crisis affecting millions of long-term care consumers.
Pressed Into Caregiving Sooner Than Expected
It was August, and Gina Rinehart was preparing for another school year as a special-education teacher in Hemet, Calif., when she got the call: Her father, Floyd Hall, was facing surgery to remove a tumor in his lung.
She flew to rural Lake Cushman, Wash., to be with her parents, expecting to spend two weeks helping her dad recover. Her father, known as Bub and an active retiree at 68, spent his days woodworking, volunteering at the local food bank and helping his own 95-year-old mother.
The Three R’s of Caregiving
You’ve heard of the three R’s of education: reading, writing and ‘rithmetic. You probably know about the three R’s of recycling: reduce, reuse and recycle. Having a list of three R’s can help us recall and prioritize what is most important.
Scam Phone Calls Continue; IRS Identifies Five Easy Ways to Spot Suspicious Calls
The Internal Revenue Service issued a consumer alert today providing taxpayers with additional tips to protect themselves from telephone scam artists calling and pretending to be with the IRS.
These callers may demand money or may say you have a refund due and try to trick you into sharing private information. These con artists can sound convincing when they call. They may know a lot about you, and they usually alter the caller ID to make it look like the IRS is calling. They use fake names and bogus IRS identification badge numbers. If you don’t answer, they often leave an “urgent” callback request.
The blessing inside my sister’s Alzheimer’s disease
Last month my sister passed away from early-onset Alzheimer’s. She was 58 and probably had the disease for well over a decade.
Awful. Anyone I share this news with has a visible physical reaction to it. They shudder. Take a deep breath. It’s the disease everyone fears. Alzheimer’s doesn’t just kill you, they are thinking, it robs you of the person you are long before it has the mercy to kill you.
How You Can Protect Your Parent From Delirium
Paula Duncan looks for delirium, a serious problem that often goes undetected in older hospital patients. So Duncan, a registered nurse at Park Nicollet Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park, Minn., has learned to look beneath the surface, including in patients’ dreams.
People who’ve experienced delirium often have horrific and haunting dreams, she says. It’s not always something they’ll readily talk about. She asks them how they’re sleeping and if they’re dreaming, and watches their faces for clues. “Sometimes you can see by the look on their face that they’re having this experience, but they don’t want to tell you because it’s so awful,” Duncan said.