Becci Bookner

As I mentioned in my first post on putting together your “tool kit”, smart business owners are always looking for new ways to coddle customers and expand their business growth.

As a caregiver working for a company, privately working with a family, or as the adult child caregiver for a family member, my suggestion is repack your “tool kit”, and plan to do exactly the same thing businesses do.

Acquiring these new tools will help you more effectively connect or coddle the person for whom you provide care.  Equally as important, they can help you grow as a person and expand your opportunities to value your work and yourself. Read the rest of this entry »

As the owner of a personal care assistance business, I’m continually surprised by this question I get: Aren’t most elderly people living in nursing homes?

Not only are most elderly people not living in nursing homes but the numbers of those who do live in a nursing home is actually declining.  In 2004, the number of seniors living in nursing care facilities plummeted from 6.8% to 4.2%. Experts on aging and medicine foresee that this downward trend will accelerate in the coming years.

There is evidence that even disability among older people is declining rapidly. The result is that between 94% to 96% of older family members live independently or with assistance either at home or in assisted living communities.

Our seniors are in better shape than earlier generations nutritionally, medically, and fitness-wise.  There are upwards of 140,000 people over 100 years of age in our country.  They are physically and intellectually fit and wonderfully engaged in life. You might be interested to know that there are approximately 82 incredible centenarians right where I live in Rutherford County, Tennessee.

That is why I designed Family Staffing Solutions, Inc. to be committed to the notion that “length of life” offers a whole new world of opportunity for seniors (and their adult children who want parents to live abundantly) to be consumers of items in every area of life, which promote their personal choice and independence.  Our company offers the type of support to allow seniors to age in place, remain engaged in church, civic, and recreational relationships. This  keeps their lives meaningful, and inspires them to look forward to celebrating more birthdays.

The one issue in offering advice about care for an older person is that no one except the people in that  family can know the dynamics, history and relationship between siblings and parents that make that family unit so absolutely unique. To say, “I understand” is to minimize that uniqueness. We can relate, but the outsider can truly not understand.

As an owner of a personal assistance care company and the adult child caregiver for my mother, there are special opportunities to see things with a bit of a different view. Caregivers, be they on a roster of a personal care company or as the adult child, do need A Tool Kit. Read the rest of this entry »