Alzheimer’s and
Memory Loss

Living a Purpose-Filled Life At Any Age

From our Care Blog

Molly Rowe owns FirstLight Home Care of Salem, MA with her husband, Steve, and lives in Swampscott with their two sons. Molly Rowe - Owner, FirstLight Home Care of Salem, MA Of all the things that baffled us about our dad’s (my dad-in-law’s) behavior in the last few years of his life, there’s one thing that stands out most of all. It wasn’t that he started freezing all his food (including his butter) or sleeping in a chair every night. It was that he stopped doing crossword puzzles. Crossword puzzles were a mainstay in his house after his wife died...

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Conversations We Wish We’d Had

From our Care Blog

Molly Rowe owns FirstLight Home Care of Salem, MA with her husband, Steve, and lives in Swampscott with their two sons. About a year ago last summer, my husband, his siblings, and I sat around our kitchen table having the conversation we’d long avoided—how to care for Dad. Like most people who end up sitting at this table, we had a lot of questions and not a lot of answers. We Googled things like home care and visiting nurses, debated how to take his driver’s license away, and fretted about how we’d bring it up to him. Little did we...

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How To Find The Right Caregiver

From our Care Blog

A caregiver is an important companion for your parent and can support them with everything from bathing and light housekeeping, to meal preparation, prescription pick-ups and transportation to and from doctor’s appointments. If you have determined that having additional outside support to help you care for your parents, you might struggle with where to start to find an outside service and even one you can trust. Following are some important considerations to get the process started. Caregivers can be found through personal referrals, but oftentimes it is easier to go through a reliable referring service that handles the background checks...

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Baby Boomer Trends

From our Care Blog

The Baby Boomer generation are pretty cool. There are 40 million Americans age 65 and older and they make up 13 percent of the population. By 2030, when all the baby boomers will have passed age 65, this group will represent over 20 percent of the population. What’s fascinating is that they continue to make a difference in our world. Here are some trends that show just how Baby Boomers are making an impact! 1. Helping Young People: Baby Boomers are going back to the classroom to support local schools. With funding reduced in area schools, many Boomers are joining...

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What Is Personal Care?

From our Care Blog

Actually, every service that FirstLight Home Care provides is personalized – whether it’s dementia care, senior care, respite care, care for people with disabilities, or care for the chronically ill. That’s because each of us is unique, with our own schedules, lifestyles and needs. At FirstLight, we call our home care aides caregivers, because that’s what they do – take care of you. You may have heard them called personal care assistants, companions, or personal support workers. No matter their title, they are passionate about helping you with the Activities of Daily Living (ADLs), particularly those involving your personal, physical...

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Bring Light to the Holidays—How to Avoid a Blue Holiday Season

From our Care Blog

Many people look forward to the holiday season. This is a time of year that is often associated with holiday traditions, spending time with family friends, eating delicious food, going to holiday parties and enjoying the beautiful winter weather. However, this can be a hard time of the year for seniors. They may feel nostalgic or lonely or depressed during the holiday months. As the holidays approach, they can begin to become upset about health issues, the loss of loved ones over the past year or their inability to travel to see family this year. The holiday blues can affect...

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4 Quick Alzheimer's Communication Tips

From our Care Blog

Did you know that 1 in 9 people ages 65 and older has Alzheimer’s disease? Alzheimer’s changes the way that your loved ones communicate. Some caregivers may not see very many differences, but others may notice that it becomes increasingly difficult to communicate with loved ones with Alzheimer’s. There are some common communication changes that caregivers may notice as Alzheimer’s disease progresses. You might hear your loved one repeating familiar words, speaking in their native language or mixing up the order of words in a sentence. They may also have trouble communicating their feelings or speak less often than usual....

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Six Signs of Caregiver Burnout and Some Tips for Recovering

From our Care Blog

As a caregiver, you spend considerable time and energy determining and meeting the needs of the person you are caring for, but all too often, you neglect to devote the same attention to your own needs. When this happens you are likely to suffer from caregiver burnout. Without considering your own needs, you’ll often find that you have a harder time coping with stress and you begin to suffer physically, emotionally, and mentally. Why Caregiver Burnout Happens Whether you are providing care for a parent, a spouse, or a child, you are still at risk for caregiver burnout. Burnout isn’t...

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Activities for Loved Ones with Alzheimer’s or Dementia

From our Care Blog

November is National Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness Month. When spending time with seniors who have Alzheimer’s or dementia, it is important consider what they enjoyed doing before they began to lose their memory. Find an activity that makes them feel purposeful—they may not remember what they did that day but they will remember how they felt doing it. Go through photo albums. This is a fun activity for people with memory challenges and you might hear a story you’ve never heard before. Seeing the old pictures takes them back to a time that they can remember—the memories are still there and...

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FirstLight Client Celebrates 105th Birthday in the House He Built by Hand

From our Care Blog

Most people would consider living to your mid-90’s an accomplishment by itself, but what if you heard that a man just turned 105 years old, and is still living in the house that he built 65 years ago? Well that actually happened last month when FirstLight client Bill Mohr, a World War II veteran of Hatboro, Pennsylvania, celebrated his 105th birthday with his wife, Jo, and the rest of their family. That same day, he and Jo shared their 70th wedding anniversary and he also received an honorary high school diploma from St. Joseph Preparatory School. He received a full...

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