Elderly at Risk in Extreme Cold…

The extreme temperatures and snow of winter can be particularly dangerous for older adults. The elderly and those with heart disease are at special risk, according to the American Heart Association.

As people age, their ability to maintain a normal internal body temperature often decreases. Because elderly people seem to be relatively insensitive to moderately cold conditions, they can suffer hypothermia without knowing their in danger, the Heart Association reports (http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4570).

Hypothermia means the body temperature has fallen below normal. It occurs when your body can’t produce enough energy to keep the internal body temperature warm enough and the condition can kill. Heart failure causes most deaths in hypothermia, the American Heart Association notes.

The following tips, from the Central PA Home Instead Senior Care^® office, will help you safeguard a senior loved one or neighbor.

• Fill the cupboard. Help your senior stock the staples and groceries they’ll need in the event of a large snowstorm or cold spell.
• Maximize energy. Encourage your senior to make sure they have adequate insulation and to check and clean the fireplace and furnace. Replace furnace filters monthly.
• Minimize drafts. Help your senior fill old socks with sand and use them in drafty windowsills and door jams. Weather-strip around windows and doors. Keep doors closed to unused rooms and close curtains at night.
• Stay toasty. Advise your senior to add an extra blanket to the bed and warm the bed in advance with a hot water bottle. Never use electric blankets.  A senior may not be able to operate the controls if the temperature needs to be adjusted in the night.
• Dress warmly. A senior’s circulation decreases with age. Encourage your senior to wear an extra sweater or sweatshirt, and sweat pants during the winter.
• Monitor the thermostat. Check with your senior to make sure that they’re keeping the thermostat above 65 degrees during the cold weather. Older adults are particularly susceptible to hypothermia, which can develop over a few days and weeks even in the mildly cool indoor temperatures of 60 to 65 degrees.
• Beware of budget problems. Make sure your senior isn’t trying to save money by keeping the thermostat down. Many communities have energy assistance programs for low and fixed-income households.

• Avoid slips. Make sure your senior has made arrangements to have driveways and walkways cleaned. Salt and sand should be available to speed melting.
• Stay in touch. Check on your neighbor or loved one frequently during periods of cold and snowy weather.
• Build a network. You can’t always be around to help your elderly loved one. Call on neighbors, family and church members to help. Or contact your local Home Instead Senior Care office.

 

For more information about the cold, visit the National Weather Service Website at http://www.noaa.gov and the Federal Emergency Management Agency Web site at www.fema.gov. Or, to learn more about Home Instead Senior Care, log on to www.homeinstead.com

 

Santa program delivers hope to local seniors…

While some of our Santa to a Senior wishes this year were one large item, we also received a few nominations for seniors who were having to choose between their medications and groceries every month. This is a serious problem. Many seniors are on strict diets due to heart disease or diabetes. Therefore proper diet is extremely important to their daily life. Medications are also a very real and basic need, and crucial to seniors remaining independent wherever they call home.

Crystal Henry-Home Instead Senior Care-presents this senior with enough grocery and pharmacy cards to last a long time!

With the help of generous sponsors from the community we were able to help these seniors in need so that they don’t have to decide between their groceries and medications. Thank you to the sponsors who helped grant these wishes! Sponsors were: Fishers Country Store, The Hastings Family, Penn State Health and Human Development, Centre County Chamber of Business & Industry, Delectable Delights, Wynwood House, Clothes Mentor, Mazza Law Group.

This woman warmed our hearts as she opened up her gift, she took out one $25 gift card to her local grocery store and began to cry. She was really overwhelmed when she realized there was more than one! What a blessing!

A Bedside Stand for Trudy…

Yesterday, Home Instead Senior Care and Brookline staff  had the pleasure of making our rounds throughout Central PA to grant wishes for seniors in need. If you don’t know the true meaning of the holiday season, you will after you read these wishes, and see how by giving, you gain so much with the magic of the holidays.

Miss Trudy with her bedside stand from Your Furniture for Less.

A big part of working with the elderly is to ensure their independence as much as possible. We received a wish for Trudy to help her remain more independent in her home. Trudy needed a bedside stand for her C-Pap machine, and nighttime medications. She is a fall risk, and has limited use of one arm, so having these items right next to her will make a world of difference. Thanks to the folks at Your Furniture for Less, we were able to grant this wish for Miss Trudy.

A big thank you to the folks at Your Furniture for Less for making the season, and upcoming years brighter for this senior!

Santa to a Senior 2013 Update!

Brookline Village and Home Instead Senior Care bring you the 2013 Santa to a Senior program. On September 1st, we asked for nominations in the community of local seniors who could really use some help this holiday season. We have received a variety of wishes, and with the generous support of local sponsors, we are working hard in our workshop to grant these wishes.

The first wish that we received was for a 79-year-old woman, Jean. Jean suffers from Alzheimer’s disease , and has lived in her own home for years. Her memories are there and this is where she wants to remain. We were contacted after the family was unable to financially help her to have her trailer insulated and re-skirted before winter. If this was unable to be done she would have lost her home this winter .

Home Instead Senior Care and Brookline Village began contacting local area businesses to find out the best way to have this dream come true for Jean. We were lucky to find two very generous organizations! Valley Homes in Julian, and Clearfield County Communication Action volunteers, came together to help Jean. Valley Homes donated the re-skirting for her home, and Community Action volunteers donated their valuable time to go to her home, do an assessment, and return to have the job done in one day!

This wish would not have been possible without the help of these two organizations. Thank you Valley Homes and Clearfield Community Action Volunteers for making the season bright for Jean and her family!

War Veterans Get Chance to travel to Memorials

World War II veterans Zada Magoun, left, Joe Pletcher, middle, and Bill Poorman, right, are taking a to trip to Washington, D.C. to visit the World War II Memorial. The charity Honor Flight is paying for the trip.

BOALSBURG — Zada Magoun, Joe Pletcher and Bill Poorman climbed into a minivan Friday, bound for a weekend getaway.
This was no ordinary excursion for the three Bellefonte residents. They were embarking on a trip of a lifetime.
The World War II veterans traveled to Philadelphia, their first stop on an all-expenses paid tour of veterans memorials in Washington, D.C., courtesy of local donations and the Honor Flight program.
Started in 2005, Honor Flight primarily brings World War II veterans to the capital to see the National World War II Memorial. It’s a national program with regional hubs, some of which have started taking Korean War and Vietnam War veterans to their respective memorials.
This morning, after spending the night in Philadelphia, Magoun, Pletcher and Poorman are riding an Honor Flight bus full of veterans to Washington and visiting Arlington National Cemetery in time to see the ritual guard change at the Tomb of the Unknowns.
From there, the trio’s itinerary includes the Marine Corps Memorial, the Korean and Vietnam War memorials, the National Museum of the U.S. Navy and the World War II memorial.
Poorman, 88, served in the Army’s 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion through the Battle of Hürtgen Forest and the Battle of the Bulge. Like his travelmates, he had never been to the World War II memorial.
“It’ll be lovely, and I appreciate it,” he said.
Magoun, 88, an Army nurse in New Orleans and Texas hospitals, said she was sorry that her three brothers who fought in the war died before they could visit the memorial.
“We’re lucky to get there,” she said.
Accompanying the veterans are the trip’s co-organizers: Ken Pendleton, the community outreach director for the local Home Instead Senior Care office, and Vickey Confer, the director of the Bellefonte and Snow Shoe senior centers.
Pendleton, whose father was a World War II veteran, heard about Honor Flight more than a year ago. A student of the war, he set out to gauge local interest in a trip. He eventually spoke with Confer, who shares his interest in the history.
Confer liked the idea. She asked around in the senior centers, and the three veterans responded.
“When they were interested, it was a no-brainer,” Pendleton said. “Of course, we were going to accommodate them. Whatever they wanted to do, we were going to make it happen.”
Pendleton and Confer applied to the Honor Flight hub in Philadelphia. Once they were accepted, the pair raised about $1,000 in cash and services to cover transportation to Philadelphia and the veterans’ lodging and meals.
The American Legion Post 33 in Bellefonte and the Veterans of Foreign War Post 8269 in Howard each contributed $100. From the Fraternal Order of Eagles Aerie 4320 in Bellefonte came $500.
Other supporters included the Centre County Office of Aging and Home Instead Senior Care, which provided the minivan. Honor Flight pays for the bus trip, including the cost of medical attendants.
Pletcher, 86, survived the Battle of the Bulge with the Army’s 572nd Anti-aircraft Battalion. About to depart Friday, he looked forward to finally beholding the World War II memorial.
“It’s very exciting to take friends to there,” he said.
After their whirlwind day, the veterans will return to Philadelphia for dinner and stay overnight before driving home Sunday.
“I feel honored to be a part of it,” Confer said Friday. “I know it’s going to be a very rewarding and emotional weekend.”
Pendleton brought a digital recorder to capture the stories he expects to hear on the bus and at the memorials.
“I think for me it represents a culmination of at least 40 years of interest in World War II, and the men and women who fought the war,” he said.
“It’s a chance for me to talk to these people, maybe one of the last chances to be able to talk to a large group of them and hear their stories and understand their strength of character, who they are as patriots and heroes of our community.”

Top 10 Scams Targeting Seniors…

Financial scams targeting seniors have become so prevalent that they’re now considered “the crime of the 21st century.”

Why? Because seniors are thought to have a significant amount of money sitting in their accounts.

Financial scams also often go unreported or can be difficult to prosecute, so they’re considered a “low-risk” crime. However, they’re devastating to many older adults and can leave them in a very vulnerable position with little time to recoup their losses.

It’s not just wealthy seniors who are targeted. Low-income older adults are also at risk of financial abuse.

And it’s not always strangers who perpetrate these crimes. Over 90% of all reported elder abuse is committed by an older person’s own family members, most often their adult children, followed by grandchildren, nieces and nephews, and others.

Review our list below, so you can identify a potential scam.

1. Health Care/Medicare/Health Insurance Fraud

Every U.S. citizen or permanent resident over age 65 qualifies for Medicare, so there is rarely any need for a scam artist to research what private health insurance company older people have in order to scam them out of some money.

In these types of scams, perpetrators may pose as a Medicare representative to get older people to give them their personal information, or they will provide bogus services for elderly people at makeshift mobile clinics, then use the personal information they provide to bill Medicare and pocket the money.

2. Counterfeit Prescription Drugs

Most commonly, counterfeit drug scams operate on the Internet, where seniors increasingly go to find better prices on specialized medications.

This scam is growing in popularity—since 2000, the FDA has investigated an average of 20 such cases per year, up from five a year in the 1990s.

The danger is that besides paying money for something that will not help a person’s medical condition, victims may purchase unsafe substances that can inflict even more harm. This scam can be as hard on the body as it is on the wallet.

3. Funeral & Cemetery Scams

The FBI warns about two types of funeral and cemetery fraud perpetrated on seniors.

In one approach, scammers read obituaries and call or attend the funeral service of a complete stranger to take advantage of the grieving widow or widower. Claiming the deceased had an outstanding debt with them, scammers will try to extort money from relatives to settle the fake debts.

Another tactic of disreputable funeral homes is to capitalize on family members’ unfamiliarity with the considerable cost of funeral services to add unnecessary charges to the bill.

In one common scam of this type, funeral directors will insist that a casket, usually one of the most expensive parts of funeral services, is necessary even when performing a direct cremation, which can be accomplished with a cardboard casket rather than an expensive display or burial casket.

4. Fraudulent Anti-Aging Products

In a society bombarded with images of the young and beautiful, it’s not surprising that some older people feel the need to conceal their age in order to participate more fully in social circles and the workplace. After all, 60 is the new 40, right?

It is in this spirit that many older Americans seek out new treatments and medications to maintain a youthful appearance, putting them at risk of scammers.

Whether it’s fake Botox like the one in Arizona that netted its distributors (who were convicted and jailed in 2006) $1.5 million in barely a year, or completely bogus homeopathic remedies that do absolutely nothing, there is money in the anti-aging business.

Botox scams are particularly unsettling, as renegade labs creating versions of the real thing may still be working with the root ingredient, botulism neurotoxin, which is one of the most toxic substances known to science. A bad batch can have health consequences far beyond wrinkles or drooping neck muscles.

5. Telemarketing

Perhaps the most common scheme is when scammers use fake telemarketing calls to prey on older people, who as a group make twice as many purchases over the phone than the national average.

While the image of the lonely senior citizen with nobody to talk to may have something to do with this, it is far more likely that older people are more familiar with shopping over the phone, and therefore might not be fully aware of the risk.

With no face-to-face interaction, and no paper trail, these scams are incredibly hard to trace. Also, once a successful deal has been made, the buyer’s name is then shared with similar schemers looking for easy targets, sometimes defrauding the same person repeatedly.

Examples of telemarketing fraud include:

“The Pigeon Drop”

The con artist tells the individual that he/she has found a large sum of money and is willing to split it if the person will make a “good faith” payment by withdrawing funds from his/her bank account. Often, a second con artist is involved, posing as a lawyer, banker, or some other trustworthy stranger.

“The Fake Accident Ploy”

The con artist gets the victim to wire or send money on the pretext that the person’s child or another relative is in the hospital and needs the money.

“Charity Scams”

Money is solicited for fake charities. This often occurs after natural disasters.

6. Internet Fraud

While using the Internet is a great skill at any age, the slower speed of adoption among some older people makes them easier targets for automated Internet scams that are ubiquitous on the web and email programs.

Pop-up browser windows simulating virus-scanning software will fool victims into either downloading a fake anti-virus program (at a substantial cost) or an actual virus that will open up whatever information is on the user’s computer to scammers.

Their unfamiliarity with the less visible aspects of browsing the web (firewalls and built-in virus protection, for example) make seniors especially susceptible to such traps.

One example includes:

Email/Phishing Scams

A senior receives email messages that appear to be from a legitimate company or institution, asking them to “update” or “verify” their personal information. A senior receives emails that appear to be from the IRS about a tax refund.

7. Investment Schemes

Because many seniors find themselves planning for retirement and managing their savings once they finish working, a number of investment schemes have been targeted at seniors looking to safeguard their cash for their later years.

From pyramid schemes like Bernie Madoff’s (which counted a number of senior citizens among its victims) to fables of a Nigerian prince looking for a partner to claim inheritance money to complex financial products that many economists don’t even understand, investment schemes have long been a successful way to take advantage of older people.

8. Homeowner/Reverse Mortgage Scams

Scammers like to take advantage of the fact that many people above a certain age own their homes, a valuable asset that increases the potential dollar value of a certain scam.

A particularly elaborate property tax scam in San Diego saw fraudsters sending personalized letters to different properties apparently on behalf of the County Assessor’s Office. The letter, made to look official but displaying only public information, would identify the property’s assessed value and offer the homeowner, for a fee of course, to arrange for a reassessment of the property’s value and therefore the tax burden associated with it.

Closely related, the reverse mortgage scam has mushroomed in recent years. With legitimate reverse mortgages increasing in frequency more than 1,300% between 1999 and 2008, scammers are taking advantage of this new popularity.

As opposed to official refinancing schemes, however, unsecured reverse mortgages can lead property owners to lose their homes when the perpetrators offer money or a free house somewhere else in exchange for the title to the property.

9. Sweepstakes & Lottery Scams

This simple scam is one that many are familiar with, and it capitalizes on the notion that “there’s no such thing as a free lunch.”

Here, scammers inform their mark that they have won a lottery or sweepstakes of some kind and need to make some sort of payment to unlock the supposed prize. Often, seniors will be sent a check that they can deposit in their bank account, knowing that while it shows up in their account immediately, it will take a few days before the (fake) check is rejected.

During that time, the criminals will quickly collect money for supposed fees or taxes on the prize, which they pocket while the victim has the “prize money” removed from his or her account as soon as the check bounces.

10. The Grandparent Scam

The Grandparent Scam is so simple and so devious because it uses one of older adults’ most reliable assets, their hearts.

Scammers will place a call to an older person and when the mark picks up, they will say something along the lines of: “Hi Grandma, do you know who this is?” When the unsuspecting grandparent guesses the name of the grandchild the scammer most sounds like, the scammer has established a fake identity without having done a lick of background research.

Once “in,” the fake grandchild will usually ask for money to solve some unexpected financial problem (overdue rent, payment for car repairs, etc.), to be paid via Western Union or MoneyGram, which don’t always require identification to collect.

At the same time, the scam artist will beg the grandparent “please don’t tell my parents, they would kill me.”

While the sums from such a scam are likely to be in the hundreds, the very fact that no research is needed makes this a scam that can be perpetrated over and over at very little cost to the scammer. For more tips visit www.ncoa.org

What is Be a Santa to a Senior?

In 2006, Be a Santa to a Senior volunteers visited a local nursing facility and distributed gifts to a number of residents, including one 87-year-old woman whom we’ll call Mary. She was pleased to receive her gift and thanked us profusely, but it wasn’t until we returned to give Mary another gift in 2007 that we recognized the true value of Be a Santa to a Senior.

When we entered Mary’s room for our second visit, we noticed that the only card on her bulletin board was the Be a Santa to a Senior card from the previous year. As we spoke with her caregivers we found out that our Christmas card and gift were the only items she had received throughout the year. Mary re-read the card regularly to help keep that memory alive.

Each year Home Instead Senior Care^® offices throughout North America spread holiday cheer to lonely or financially-challenged seniors through the Be a Santa to a Senior program. The program has attracted upwards of 60,000 volunteers over the past six years distributing gifts to deserving seniors.  Since introducing the Be a Santa to a Senior program, Home Instead Senior Care has helped provide 1.2 million gifts to more than 700,000 seniors. Watch this video to learn more!

We are now accepting nominations. If you know of a senior who could benefit from receiving a gift for the holidays this year, please contact Ken Pendleton, by calling 866-238-8820 to learn more. We will be receiving until the deadline of October 31st. At that time Home Instead Senior Care will be seeking sponsors for local seniors.