Category: Giving Care

  • From a Patient’s Point of View

    People living with dementia (PLWD) have challenges with verbal communication: language comprehension, speech production, and vocabulary. But they are not unconscious to what is going on around them. Even as the brain declines, emotional intelligence is preserved. PLWD take in data visually rather than auditorily and react to what they think is happening. As caregivers…

  • Being a Better Caregiver

    Home healthcare providers are often asked what makes a better caregiver. The answer is that, while many factors come to mind, an interest in learning is high on the list, and essential to a caregiver’s progress. For example, an important role caregivers have is recognizing when an individual’s health condition is changing. Those who can…

  • Caregiving in the Cycle of Life

    Caregiving in the Cycle of Life

    Former first lady Rosalynn was a caregiver herself and she believed that family caregiving is a cycle of life that touches everyone. Here, four people, each at a different point on the cycle, share their care stories from the heart, offering words of wisdom and points of caution. As you read, consider your journey on…

  • Don’t Let the Vog Bring You Down

    I visited Kīlauea several years ago with my hula sisters for the Merrie Monarch Festival. Walking toward the crater to bear ho‘okupu (offering) for Tutu Pele, my lungs suddenly tightened up and I was literally gasping for air.

  • A Five-generation Caregiver Team Challenge

    I don’t know if anyone is really prepared for family caregiving — it all happens so suddenly,” says Terri Jorgensen of Maui. She became a family caregiver in 2016, when Maui Memorial Hospital discharged her 101-year-old Grandma.

  • Repetitive Questioning in Alzheimer’s

    In home care, a question I often get is how to care for someone with Alzheimer’s who asks the same questions over and over again. To better understand and manage what’s going on, it helps to first know a bit on Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

  • Respiratory Care: Breathing Exercises

    In the last issue we discussed how people diagnosed with chronic respiratory failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are at higher risk for infection. This issue, we focus on ways to ease their breathing problems.

  • Family Caregivers’ R & R

    It’s a mistake for family caregivers to forget about their own well-being while caring for their loved ones. Many feel guilty for taking time off for a spa day or a staycation. I encourage them to accept it’s perfectly OK to get away and return reinvigorated and refreshed.

  • Is Assisted Living a Negative?

    Despite the great advancements in retirement community resident care in recent years — some through government involvement, but most through business owners seeking to create a better quality of life for seniors — one of the challenges faced when discussing senior living options is the negative stigma that immediately comes to mind about “assisted living.”

  • Seniors and Technology

    Technology is ever-advancing these days with information on new devices everywhere. For early adopters this is seen as helpful and even normal. However, for some seniors, adapting to new devices can be challenging due to physical limitations. Vision loss is one of the more common problems experienced, as is Age Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) that…

  • GrandGrace: Multigenerational Support

    Providing seniors care for their body, mind and spirit is critically important. Simply spending time with seniors can improve their emotional well-being and outlook. Palolo Chinese Home, in partnership with Common Grace, a nonprofit organization, recently launched a new program called GrandGrace to address these needs of residents and senior day care participants. The multi…

  • Respiratory Care: A Specialty Service

    Being unable to breathe on our own is very scary. Spinal cord injuries, pneumonia, stroke, injury to the chest, muscular dystrophy and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) can all bring on respiratory failure. Spinal cord injuries often happen when we least expect it — a surfing accident, a fall or a car accident — and may require you to…