Financial Tracker

A nursing home staff member will assist a family through the admittance process, but it helps to be prepared. If your loved one is currently in the hospital, the first five items on this nursing home checklist will be taken care of by hospital staff. Otherwise, make an appointment with the primary care physician to…

For most of us, sunset is an occasion we celebrate. It’s a time of transition from the often frenetic energy of the day to the more subdued and relaxing nature of evening. But for many elderly people who suffer from Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia, it can be a time of increased memory…

By Steve Duno – Veteran pet behaviorist and author Steve Duno lives in Seattle with his family and an ever-changing assortment of rescued pets, and has authored seventeen books and numerous articles for magazines and the Internet. The wide-ranging tasks dogs perform for us never ceases to amaze me. From search-and-rescue, herding, and seeing-eye work, to…

For Pedro Antaran, an 83-year-old Seattle resident, the stroke came in the morning, with little warning. After waking up to make coffee, he noticed that his right leg felt different than usual. “I felt that my leg was heavy, and I could not lift it,” he recalls. “I thought in my mind that maybe this…

Family members with someone in long-term care need to be knowledgeable and vigilant about decubitus ulcers — the dreaded bedsores. Also called pressure sores, pressure ulcers or decubitus ulcers, bedsores are skin wounds that result from prolonged pressure on the skin that’s in contact with a bed or wheelchair. Bedsores are painful, take a long…

COMMUNITIES DESIGNED FOR DEAF SENIORS According to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, disabling hearing loss affects 25% of seniors aged 65 to 74 and 50% of seniors aged 75 and older. Yet even with alarming stats like these, deaf assisted living is a fairly recent trend; the first deaf assisted living community…