Maximizing Quality of Life

Opportunities to optimize health and empower full potential throughout the age continuum

Economic stability

In the bay area, some seniors rent out their rooms for additional income. Some seniors are still working. In Home Health Support services of Santa Clara county pays $13 per hour for caregivers for disabled or home-bound seniors and provide free health insurance and bus tickets to those who work part time as a non-medical health care provider or caregiver.  Those with children who have good income get financial support from their children. Economic stability for the poor can be assessed from subsidized housing, free health care – Medicare and Medicaid and affordable caregiving from IHSS.

Brain health

Listening to music, dancing, adequate sleep, adequate exercise, Vitamin D, social network and support, massage, caring family members, less medication and proper nutrition (omega 3, see brain health in this blog) are keys to optimum brain health.

Email motherhealth@gmail.com for suggestions to these topics in this post to be presented in the 2018 Healthy Aging Summit:

• Unpaid caregiving
• Hospice care, palliative care
• Elder justice
• Advanced care planning
• Long-term care planning. Many did not buy a long term care insurance when they are younger to pay for in home care.
• Shared decision making
• Oral health

Caregiving Stories

Motherhealth caregivers, 408-854-1883, massage each senior to ease their pain and calm them. They are then accustomed to us as they know that we are there to care for them with love. Most of the seniors are abandoned at home. Their homes are more than 60 yrs old and they bought it for only $20,000 and now worth $1M. Some uses reverse mortgage to pay for their in home care expenses.

As we care for seniors in the bay area, we are happy that some family members are giving their time to care for their parents but some are tired and wanted to end their life early. We cannot give sub-lingual morphine to expire a patient who can still swallow her food, although she has Alzheimers for the last 10 years and is now 93 yrs of age. The doctors must diagnose the senior as terminally ill to be a hospice client. Many times when we stop the meds for hospice client, some of them lived for 2 more years.

Some hospice client hangs on to dear life since they still wanted to see the successes and adventures of their family especially their grandchildren.