Heart Heroes

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People who have disabilities from medical conditions, accidents, or even the aging process face challenges everyday.  Home Access Solutions works to minimize the barriers within our homes.  We work with people we consider to be heroes because they are determined to life fully and take action to make things better for themselves and others.

Recently we met Sondra and Kitty, two mothers who saw a need and stepped up to recognize Heroes within their family and circle of friends and it has blossomed into a vibrant organization, Heart Heroes.

CHD stands for "Congenital Heart Defect" and is an anomaly of the heart that is present at birth.  CHD causes one or more portions of the heart to develop abnormally.  There is no know cause for CHD, however it is the #1 birth defect and affects 1 in every 85 babies.  Twice as many children die from CHD each year than from all forms of childhood cancers combined.  Some babies may be diagnosed before or at birth, some not until day, week, months, or even years later.  Undiagnosed CHDS cause many cases of Sudden Cardiac Death in young athletes.  There is no cure, only lifelong treatment.  Early diagnosis is the key to survival.  Please tell your doctor, family and friends about this information and ask about newborn screening programs.  You might save a life!

These children laugh, play and enjoy life just like any child; however, what makes them our heroes is that they have experienced life-saving heart operations - unlike most children.  One would never know these children have endured lengthy hospitalizations and miraculous medical interventions.

Undergoing these complex medical procedures is a daunting experience even for adults.  For children, being alone without their family to comfort them amidst a crowd of medical professionals is  scary.  Heart Hero Capes were created  with the hope that all children visiting the hospital or their cardiologist will feel invincible wearing their cape – have super-hero powers - and that their parents will be comforted knowing that the arms that always protect them are momentarily being substituted with the super powers of the cape.

After seeing their children face the challenges of heart operations and cardiology appointments the moms of these heart heroes decided to create the opportunity for all children with CHD to have a Heart Hero Cape.

Go to the Heart Hero's website to learn more about the organization and to support Heart Heroes with your donation, or to request a cape for your own Heart Hero. 

HETRA Hippotherapy

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Hippotherapy

Hippotherapy  literally refers to treatment or therapy aided by a horse.  Hippotherapy promotes the use of the movement of the horse as a treatment strategy in physical, occupational and speech-language therapy sessions for people living with disabilities. Hippotherapy has been shown to improve muscle tone, balance, posture, coordination, motor development as well as emotional well-being.

While Hippotherapy relies on the natural motion of the horse, the relationship of rider and horse, and the skills of the therapist to select and apply the activities in a goal driven therapeutic way, there is often a place for lifting  technology to help get a person with a disability onto the horse safely and with dignity.

HETRA
HETRA stands for Hearltland Equine Therapeutic Riding Academy. Their mission is to improve the quality of life both physically and emotionally of adults and children with disabilities through equine assisted activities. It was started in Omaha in 1989. They have grown in the past 20 years to 17 therapy horses, 12 NARHA certified instructors and over 90 students.


HETRA offers therapeutic riding, hippotherapy, therapeutic carriage driving, public riding lessons and Horses for Heroes which helps veterans of any age and type of disability.

Please visit their website at www.hetra.org or go here to get in contact with them for more information.

Therapeutic Horseback Riding
The patented SureHands Body Support is natural for transferring individuals from their wheelchairs directly onto the horse's back. Many riding programs around the world have found this to be the easiest and safest way to make this difficult transfer.

As the individual is lowered the natural separation of their legs makes it ideal for straddling the horse's back and lowering directly onto the saddle. And even when the thigh supports are removed, the body support cups maintain the lateral stability of the individual. This gives everyone the opportunity to wait until the perfect moment to release the body support and allow the individual to ride away.

SureHands track systems and other SureHands options allow individuals to be raised very high and effortlessly... making this the winning solution for hippotherapy programs.
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If you have questions about SureHands lifts for riding horses therapeutically or recreationally or for more mundane things like being able to get in and out of your bathtub, just give us a call.

Monitoring Technology

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A special thanks to Chris Tyler with At Home 2 Stay. You can call him at 402.510.5626.

People prefer to live at home where it's familiar, comfortable, and affordable.  At Home Access Solutions, we can help families modify the physical environment to make it as safe and easy to use as possible, but we recognize that may not be everything that is needed for some situations.

Any person can fall or get sick, but someone who is either older, isolated, or both is at greater risk for serious consequences.   For instance, take a look at these grim CDC statistics about the consequences of a senior falling and remaining on the ground without help.

• If a senior falls and remains on the floor more than four to five hours, he/she could spend up to 18 days in a hospital or rehab facility. 
• If a senior remains on the floor overnight after a fall, he/she could spend up to 30 days in a hospital or rehab facility.

(Source: US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

 Having someone close by just in case they are needed is a solution, but not always practical for families who provide care for older loved ones.  Frankly, many seniors I know, prefer their privacy and routine and don’t want to include a person watching over them.

Terrific technology such as personal emergency response systems exist which a person can use to notify others in an emergency, but they must be willing and able to “push the button”.  Recently a long distance caregiver told me that she couldn’t persuade her mother to use an emergency response system because her mother didn’t want an ambulance pulling up outside her door.  We can, from our own perspective, argue that embarrassment in front of the neighbors would be the least of our worries in the case of a fall, but it was a significant obstacle this person gave to her daughter the caregiver.   Among the overwhelming numbers of people who have used personal emergency response systems successfully to call for help and to minimize the problems following a fall or sudden illness at home, we do hear about the cases where people haven’t been alert enough or physically capable of operating the emergency button.  In these cases additional monitoring might have been a good addition to the emergency response system.

There is also the problem of detecting gradual changes in abilities or behavior that can eventually lead up to serious issues, before they get out of hand.  Many long distance caregivers rely on phone conversations and occasional visits and aren’t able to see the small warning signs until a true emergency has arisen. There are small daily tasks like remembering medications at the right time, getting enough to eat when there aren’t other people around to enjoy preparing meals for, etc.  that a person living alone might start to miss.   Long distance caregivers wouldn’t see these changes until the situation has become noticeable or critical.  This is another situation where monitoring technology may be useful.

Monitoring systems have been around a long time.  I have several clients who tell me about their old-fashioned, informal method of monitoring is to make sure someone knows that they have gotten up for another day.  They open their blinds and watch for their neighbor to open their blinds.  If the blinds don’t go up, the designated family member is called.  Having a network is great, but now there is technology that is significantly more reliable and more sensitive to small changes that having your neighbor watch for you to open your blinds.  We’ve interviewed Chris Taylor from Home2Stay in this video and we encourage you to research all of the emerging long distance monitoring that will make it possible for people to stay at home where they are in familiar, economical, and SAFE surroundings.