WORLD'S
SCARIEST HIKE
Hiking off the beaten path can take you to interesting places. But not many people could tackle El Caminito del Rey. This cliff-side path in Spain was built in 1905. It has fallen into severe disrepair. It's actually illegal to hike it today. But that doesn't keep thrill seekers away. Just watching this video made my stomach clench in fear. To view the video...
Click Here.
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Play
the Retirement Game
Want
some hands-on experience at retiring and the retirement planning
process, beforehand? Play Get Rich
Slow (for free) to make decisions for a fictional couple at four
life stages. Experience the implications of their decisions and also
chance events.
Click here to play the game.
Get more information.
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All You Need to Know About Social
Security
The Social
Security Claiming Guide sorts through all the options and answers
frequently asked questions in a clear, easy-to-read and colorful format.
Learn more here.
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Brenda's Recipe Corner
Sour Cream Cucumber Salad
Cucumbers are in season! This dish is one of my family's favorite summer salads. The combination of sour cream, fresh dill and cucumbers
makes it very tasty. Right now we use cucumbers from our garden
for that wonderfully fresh, crunchy taste. But store-bought cucumbers work almost
as well if you're not into gardening.
Ingredients
3 medium cucumbers, peeled
and thinly sliced
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup finely chopped green
onions 1 tablespoon fresh minced dill 1 tablespoon vinegar 1 teaspoon sugar 1 dash pepper
1/4 cup sour cream
Directions
Sprinkle
the cucumbers with salt. Mix gently and let stand 15 minutes. Drain liquid. Add onions, dill,
vinegar, sugar and pepper. Just before serving, stir in sour cream.
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Greetings!
As the nation is becoming grayer, we are taking notice of some
interesting trends with seniors. The days where our parents didn't know
how to access the Internet are swiftly coming to a close. Likewise, the
resurgence of the multi-generational household has brought about
interesting new dynamics and issues. These trends have also been noted
by those studying the effects of how seniors can benefit from these
changes. While the summer heat sets in, we hope you can take a few
moments to relax and review the articles in this newsletter that we
trust you will find informative and beneficial.
Thank you,
The Team at Assisting Angels Home Care
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 Fighting
Loneliness and Depression in Seniors Online
 Who would have
thought that the Internet would play such an important part in each and
every life, regardless of age and socioeconomics? Last year Dr. Gary
Small, a professor of psychiatry at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience
and Human Behavior at UCLA, reported that middle-aged and older adults
with little Internet experience were able to trigger key centers in the
brain that control decision-making and complex reasoning after just one
week of surfing the Web. For the elderly, Internet use may be an
effective, low cost way to expand social interactions, reduce
loneliness, get health information and treatment, and, consequently,
reduce depression.
Read about
Project GOAL (Getting Older Adults Online).
Download a 35-page PDF detailing positive effects
of the Internet against depression in the older adult population.
Visit
the UCLA Memory
& Aging Center Web site.
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Multi-Generational
Homes Making a Comeback
 After rising steeply
for nearly a century, the share of adults ages 65 and older who live
alone flattened out around 1990 and has since slightly declined. It
currently stands at 27%. This report, based on the Pew Research Center's
analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data, shows that family household living
arrangements have changed over the last three decades.
Some
findings:
- In 2008, an estimated 49 million Americans, or 16%
of the total U.S. population, lived in a family household that contained
at least two adult generations or a grandparent and at least one other
generation. In 1980, this figure was just 28 million, or 12% of the
population.
- This trend has affected adults of all ages,
especially the elderly and the young. For example, about one in five
adults ages 25 to 34 now live in a multi-generational household. So do
one in five adults ages 65 and older.
Read the full report here.
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Caring
for Spouse With Dementia May Cause Dementia
 A 12-year study led
by Johns Hopkins, Utah State University, and Duke University reports
findings that husbands or wives who care for spouses with dementia are
six times more likely to develop the memory-impairing condition than
those whose spouses don't have it.
A strength of the findings of
this particular study is that the participants are highly
representative of a community, and not just memory centers and their
caregivers. It is speculated that the stress of caregiving might be
responsible for the increased dementia risk for spouses, although more
research is needed to identify what that mechanism might be. If this is
correct, doctors who treat dementia patients should pay more attention
to efforts to decrease stress for spousal caregivers.
Read about the study here.
Read the full article here.
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Compulsive Hoarding
Sensitive Solutions to Help
 Understanding Hoarding
Helping
people who hoard understand how their problem interferes in living the life
they desire can be a powerful motivator, especially as it pertains to being
able to live independently. Here are some sensitive solutions to help.
·
Don't use judgmental language. Like anyone else, individuals with hoarding will not be
receptive to negative comments about the state of their home, their character,
or their possessions (e.g., "What a mess!" "What kind of person lives like
this?" "This is nothing but junk!").
·
Use motivational language. In communicating with people who hoard about the consequences of
hoarding, use language that reduces defensiveness and increases motivation to
solve the problem (e.g., "I see that you have a pathway from your front door to
your living room. That's great that you've kept things out of the way so that you
don't slip or fall.")
·
Don't try to persuade or argue with the
person. Efforts to persuade individuals to make a
change in their home or behavior often have the opposite effect-the person
actually talks himself into keeping the items.
·
Highlight strengths. All people have strengths, positive aspects of themselves,
their behavior,
or
even their homes. A visitor's ability to notice these strengths helps forge a
good relationship
and
paves the way for resolving the hoarding problem (e.g., "I see that you can
easily access your bathroom sink and shower." "What a beautiful painting!" "I can
see how much you care about your cat.")
·
Attend to the meaning of important objects.
Attention to objects with sentimental
meaning or memorabilia
from past experiences and life events can assist in establishing and
maintaining the trust necessary for continued work addressing a hoarding
problem.
·
Focus the intervention initially on safety
and organization of possessions and later work on discarding. Discussion
of the fate of the person's possessions will be necessary at some point, but it
is preferable for this discussion to follow work on safety and organization.
Hoarding Resources: Read On....
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Skip Critell, Executive Vice President
