Helping Loved Ones Who Have Cancer

Some people think that just because they are not a scientist or doctor, they are unable to meaningfully assist people who have cancer. This is simply not true, though, as there are many ways to help someone experiencing a chronic health condition that do not require a medical or scientific background. Here are some specific ways to help loved ones who have cancer.

Offer To Cook for Them

Three common side effects of chemotherapy include tiredness, nausea, and loss of appetite. All three of these symptoms can lead to someone not being able to cook or even feeling like eating. Ask your friend or loved one if they would like you to cook for them, either by bringing a home-cooked meal over to their house or by cooking a meal in their own kitchen. Of course, always ask before using their home and kitchen supplies. Chances are, someone feeling tired and stressed will appreciate the gesture, and at the very least appreciate the company. A good option is to cook a healthy meal that you know they will enjoy, perhaps a twist on a favorite childhood meal.

Offer To Clean

Everyone appreciates having a tidy house, but not everyone has the time or energy to stay on top of cleaning their living space. Let the person suffering from illness know that you are open to helping them tidy up anything they feel needs to be done. Ask in a way that does not imply that you think their home is dirty, but just that you are open to the idea should they want that.

Help With Legal Documents

People with chronic illnesses often deal with a lot of medical billing and insurance forms. This can be overwhelming to anyone, but especially to someone who is dealing with the effects of chemotherapy and other medications. Be there for them if they have any questions about their forms, and offer to make phone calls for them if you are in a position to talk on their behalf.

In addition to helping with medical forms, consider assisting with making end-of-life arrangements if their illness involves Alzheimer’s, dementia, or terminal cancer. Before they become unable to make arrangements for themselves, get in writing their wishes for end-of-life care, whether that involves staying in their own home, going to live with a relative, or entering a nursing home.

Consider Home Modifications

If your loved one wishes to remain in their own home, consider whether any home modifications need to be done to make them more comfortable. For example, if they are increasingly using a walker or wheelchair to get around, make sure the front door is accessible and that they are able to get through doorways. If they are unable to walk up and down stairs, arrange for a separate sleeping area on the same level as the living area.

If the person you are caring for works from home, a thoughtful thing to do would be to make their home office more pleasant and free of stress. With their assistance, find some ways to make their working space more ergonomic. For example, experts recommend chairs and keyboards designed for greater comfort. In addition, help them create an electronic storage system to stay more organized. You can also update and improve the room’s lighting, which can make it a much more comfortable and inviting place to work.

There are many ways to help people with chronic illnesses, which can make both you and the person with the illness feel better.

About the author:

Constance Ray started Recoverywell.org with the goal of creating a safe place for people to share how addiction has affected them, whether they are combating it themselves or watching someone they care about work to overcome it. The goal is to share stories of hope from survivors who know that the fight against addiction is one worth having, because no matter how it affects you, life can get better.

Memo24 provides a simple and reliable way to remind your loved ones to take their medication, and also alerts you (by text or email) in case the phone was not picked up. If you have any questions, please email info@memo24.net.

*: Image via Pexels

Some of us participated at the London Memory Walk last month. Over 4000 walkers, lots of fun and plenty of sunshine…

Here are some pictures from the event:

Memory Walk are family friendly sponsored walks which bring thousands of people together across the country walking to make sure no one faces dementia alone. The events help raise money to fund vital research.
So for the next memory walk, why not join the thousands of people united against dementia.

Check out our latest guest post on Tena Scallan’s blog, the the ultimate caregiving expert. Tena Scallan is a passionate healthcare professional, business owner, consultant, and published author with over 25 years of experience in the health care industry.

Tena has dedicated her life’s work to serving others in hospitals, running her own in-home caregiving agency, and providing consulting and guidance for family caregivers.

Hi there,

Listen to our founder talking about Memo24 to Christopher MacLellan (aka the bow tie guy) from the Whole Care Network.

Listen to “For Medication Management its Memo24″ on Spreaker.

Christopher MacLellan, known as “The Bow Tie Guy” in the caregiving community and author of What’s The Deal With Caregiving?, Chris MacLellan brings his soothing style and personal caregiving experience to Healing Ties podcast. Featured in a 2015 Pulizter Prize nominated caregiving story In Sickness and in Health: A Couple’s Final Journey, Chris is creating a life to love after caregiving ends through writing, radio, travel, and advocacy.

Here are 3 videos we have put together to help you better understand what Memo24 service is about and how to set up your first reminder. Enjoy

As we grow older we suffer a decline in mental and physical fitness. A new study, published in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, shows that older people who routinely partake in physical exercise can reverse the signs of ageing in the brain, and dancing has the most profound effect. This article in “Science Daily” has more details on this study.

Credit: Created by Freepik

This is an organization committed to increasing Alzheimer’s and Dementia awareness. Their mission is to raise private funding for Alzheimer’s research with the goal of eradicating the disease by the year 2020. Founded in 2013 by Shaun McDuffee, and a small group of fellow financial advisors, who decided to set a goal  of walking 3652 miles, the distance from the east coast to the west coast of the United States, to raise awareness for Alzheimer’s and Dementia. Check out their website on www.stopalzheimersnow.org.

Lately I came across these 2 great initiatives focused around improving the lives of our elderly that I wanted to share with you.

*: Photograph from www.presentperfectfilm.com

1. The first one is about an initiative in Seattle, USA where they have put up a pre-school and a nursing home under the same building. It is amazing to see how the children and the elderly seem to enjoy and cherish their social interactions and the time spent together. A documentary film called “Perfect Present” was made where the day to day life in such a magic place is displayed to us.

According to Evan Briggs, the filmmaker, studies have shown that 43% of older adults experience social isolation, which is closely correlated with loneliness and depression as well as mental and physical decline.

If you would like to know more about this amazing initiative and the documentary behind it, then have a look at the movie’s website and its trailer by visiting www.presentperfectfilm.com.

*: Photograph by Madeleine Sars, “the amazing dementia village”

2. The second initiative is about a “Dutch village where everyone has Dementia”. It is an open space residential area of approximately 160 residents. The village lies on the outskirts of Amsterdam in the small town of Weesp. The village looks like a regular village with its small town square, gardens, small shops, and post office. The difference is however, there are cameras monitoring the residents 24/7 and caregivers ready to intervene in any moment. The village also has one unique door in and out of town.

“The residents live with each other in lifestyle groups. They share similar interests and backgrounds. The decor, design and direct environment of the dwellings are adapted to suit each separate lifestyle”.

A similar village is now under construction in Rome, Italy. To know more about this initiative, visit www.dementiavillage.com

I wanted to personally thank Val and AnneMarie for the great feedback they have given us during all these past months on their use of Memo24. Not only have we gotten some great constructive comments from them, but also some really kind words that I wanted to share with you.

Val, from Birmingham UK, is one of (if not the) the early adopters of Memo24. Val was of great help in better understanding the need of our users in general. She was also the one who, through her experience using the service, pointed us in the direction of developing a way to record the message (originally one could only type the message which was then converted into speech), so that the voice heard by her father sounds familiar.

This is what Val has to say about Memo24:

“I’m glad I found Memo24 to help in reminding my 94 year old father to take his medication from a distance of 150 miles. It’s an easy system to use, and a very reasonable price. It’s flexible, and can be altered simply to prevent the messages becoming so predictable that they’re no longer ‘listened to’! Also useful for one-off reminders of appointments etc. No system can guarantee compliance when short term memory is failing, but this does help. Very easy to check whether the message has been received. A helpful team in the background too.”

AnneMarie, from Ontario Canada, is one of our newest users, and started using Memo24 to help her Dad while she was away on holidays. But she continued using after her return as she and her Dad both “fell in love” with the service .

This is what AnneMarie has to say about Memo24:

“I subscribed to the Memo24 service this past October to assist my Dad in remembering to take his medication while I was away on vacation. Memo24 reminds my Dad to take his medication twice daily. We both loved the service so much that we’ve continued using it upon my return from vacation. It has allowed me to free up some while still ensuring that my loved one is receiving the reminders that he requires to take his medications on time. As my Dad’s primary care giver, I love the fact that Memo24’s interface is customizable and so user friendly! Thank you for this wonderful service…it really has been so helpful to our family.“

It is indeed this kind of testimonials that makes us feel proud to know that Memo24 is helping people around the world and keep us pushing the service to the next level.

We deeply care about our users and we are always happy to hear from them and especially to learn from their experience in order to better our service.

To all our users, Thank you.

*: image from freepik.com

I came across this article the other day on “Alzheimer’s and Dementia Prevention”.

The article is well written and informational, it mentions 6 pillars for preventing (or at least delaying) Alzheimer’s and other dementias. 

These 6 pillars are:

1. Regular exercise
2. Healthy diet
3. Mental stimulation
4. Quality sleep
5. Stress management
6. An active social life

Although these seem to be obvious steps to maintain a healthy lifestyle in general, you will be surprised to know some of the details on these 6 pillars. I encourage you to read the full article here.

*: image designed by Freepik.

Hello everyone,

Today we are excited to introduce to you the long-awaited recording feature in Memo24.

From now on, when specifying your reminder’s message, you can either:

1. Enter some text, or (and this is the novelty)
2. Record a message in your own voice

We have added this feature following the request from many of our users who find that playing a message with a familiar voice would lead to a much greater acceptance of the service by the recipients of the reminders.

And indeed for example, for elderly people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease hearing a voice which is not familiar can lead to the person to completely ignore the phone call medication reminder.

So, we are hoping that this new feature will greatly improve the usefulness of Memo24 and result in higher levels of medication adherence.

One of the latest features addition to Memo24 is the so called “SOS alert” feature.

The way it works is very simple, when adding your telephone call medication reminder, simply add an email address or a mobile phone number where you wanna get the SOS alert.

When such an alert is set, an email or an SMS* will be immediately sent in case the callee (i.e. the recipient of the reminder) did not pick up the phone after all call attempts.

In this scenario, one can think that may be something indeed went wrong with the person you care for, and receiving such an alert prompts you to take immediate action (such as trying to reach your loved one by other means or trying to call the neighbor and ask him/her to go and check up on your loved one).

That is why we think Memo24 SOS alerts can be very useful and even a life saver in some circumstances.

*: Email SOS alerts are always free and there is a nominal fee for sent SMS SOS alerts (check this link for pricing).

Wanna edit one of your medication reminders, or may be you want to simply check your reminders execution history… But your not in front of your PC!

Well, no worries, you can access your memo24.net account right from your smartphone or tablet and get access to the same beautifully looking dashboard and functionality you are used to.

The memo24 telephone reminder service website has been designed following the so called “Responsive Web Design” paradigm which ensures that the interface looks great and is user friendly on any display size be it a smartphone, a tablet, or a desktop.

So, Happy phone call reminders settings from wherever you are 😊.

These days, some of the most exciting startup initiatives is coming out from the European FIWARE initiative which aims at creating a sustainable ecosystem to take advantage of the new opportunities generated  by a new wave of Internet technologies. Some of the FIWARE accelerators have focused on the promotion of eHealth and a few excellent startups have been funded to develop technologies to promote healthy, active, and independent living in particular among the elderly.

Some of my favorite startups that are focusing on elderly care:

1. Alzhup: This App seeks to improve the quality of life of people with Alzheimer’s by integrating actual memories and scientifically-proven therapies in a single platform, slowing the cognitive decline of the patient, as well as facilitate the active participation of the entire family and care team in the treatment process.
2. Increasetime: The main focus of this startup is to promote the quality of life of the general population, with a special focus on patients with chronic diseases and on the independent, active and quality ageing. They develop health care solutions based on ICT (information and communications technology) and wireless sensors.
   The solutions allow a continuous monitoring of the elderly person’s health state and, through a leading edge alarm system, they allow a quick intervention in case of an emergency.
3. Sentimoto: They develop novel methods for the analysis of long-term physical activity, physiological and environment data collected by wearable sensors, with the aim of identifying social withdrawal and altered behavioral patterns that are predictive of decreased quality of life and a need for social care intervention. They aim to provide easy, trusted sharing of these insights, putting well-being information into the hands of older people and their circle of care.
4. InCitytogether: Is another useful App that empowers the elderly and promote healthy and active ageing. In addition to monitoring some of the person’s vital signs (e.g heart beat rate, blood pressure, sugar level) and securely sharing this data with your GP and/or a relative, this App also provides real time information from city sensors, which warn seniors about environmental changes (heat, cold, rain, etc.) and health issues (pollution, pollen count, etc.). The App (and provided sensors) can also monitor your activity level and sleep patterns, and it will even inform you about your city’s cultural, educational, and fun events happening around you :-).

In short, these initiatives all have a common goal which is to empower the elderly and allow them to remain at home* and enjoy an independent life for as long as they can.

*: According to research by the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP),  nearly 90 percent of seniors want to stay in their own homes as they age, often referred to as “aging in place.” (source: www.iyhusa.com/AginginPlaceFacts-Data.htm)

Hi,

Today I found this pretty cool infographic by canadadrugcenter.com on simple tips to remember to take your medication and improve your medication compliance / adherence. The infographic was partly inspired by this blog post on psychcentral.com.

The scary thing though is that, according to this source, more than 50% of seniors forget to take their medications and that in the USA alone there are 125,000 yearly deaths from improper taking* of medications :(.

*: which can be forgetting to take medication, taking the wrong medicine, etc.

There is a variety of products and services on the market which you can use to set up your (or someone else’s) reminders and in particular your medication reminders. However, one can roughly divide them into 3 main categories:

1.     Hardware devices

These can be from simple, compartmentalized boxes to very sophisticated electronic devices. Compartmentalized pill boxes (like these https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pill_organizer) are simple plastic boxes where one can place pills in separate compartments for each day of the week and time of the day (typically morning, afternoon, and evening). These are in fact to be considered more as pill organizers rather than medication reminders. A step up in this category are electronic pill boxes, which can be seen as pill boxes with the addition of some kind of visual or audible alarm that will trigger with a given schedule. Some will even have a locking mechanism to control which compartment to open at which given day/time (http://www.medminder.com/). And some more advanced versions can be even equipped with some kind of a caregiver alerting mechanism and/or a two-way communication with a medical emergency service.

2.     Smartphone Apps

There exists a plethora of smartphone Apps (paid and free) that can help you set your reminders. Some are general purpose reminders and some are more geared towards medication reminders. In this category your smartphone becomes your reminder device. Example of such Apps are medisafe and carezone. These Apps are typically more than just medication reminders, but a complete medication management system with contacts to your doctors and pharmacists and even sharing and syncing with other family members’ smartphones.

3.     Telephone services

There is a few online companies that provide voice call (also referred to as VMS for voice message service) and SMS or text services as reminders. The majority are subscription based where you pay a fixed monthly fee. The subscription is typically around 10$ to 20$ depending on the number of daily reminders needed. Such services will basically either place a phone call and play your reminder message (this is the case of Memo24), or send the reminder as a text message. Most of these services will provide you with some kind of an online tool or a dashboard to set and manage your reminders. One has to keep in mind though that these services only work in a limited number of countries, so you need to make sure your country is covered before starting to use a particular service.

So what to pick …

There is no one product/solution that fits all. You have to pick the solution that best covers you needs. Here are some of the things you should consider before settling for a solution:

1. Easy of use: Some products are more advanced than others. In particular smartphone Apps can be not so easy to navigate around, and even completely unusable and inaccessible for the large majority of the elderly. In this respect, telephone services seem to be the easiest and the most “familiar” medication reminder mechanism.

2. Alert mechanism: It is always a big plus (and even a life safer in some circumstances) to chose a solution that offers some kind of an alerting mechanism to a caregiver/family member or even a two-way communication in case you (or your loved one) misses a medication reminder.

3. Accessibility and Availability: Apps are virtually accessible everywhere where you have an internet connection, however hardware devices can be only available in certain countries. As for telephone services, they too typically only cover a limited number of countries.

4. Price: Pricing models widely differ from one category to another and even within products in the same category. For example, hardware devices are usually a one time payment, whereas telephone services are often subscription based, i.e. you pay for a fixed monthly plan fee. Memo24, however, has adopted a pay-as-you-go (or pay-per-use) pricing model.

5. Reporting: Keeping a history of your medication compliance is very important. Such historical records show when and what medication you took (or did not take). Most smartphone Apps come with such a feature. Most hardware devices (except for the high end/expensive models), on the other hand, do not provide such a feature. As for the telephone services, as long as they have some kind of an online dashboard, they will almost certainly provide such a feature.

*: image designed by Freepik.