Why We Love Sure Hands

Picking People Up

People are not the best things to lift: They wiggle or move unexpectedly, you usually need to lift them in an area of the home that doesn’t allow for good body mechanics, and even the smallest adult weighs more than most people are capable of lifting. So what do most family caregivers do? They lift anyway.

Their motivation is usually good. The person they are caring for has to be moved. The caregiver is there to serve. What they don’t realize is that a back injury is just one transfer away- and you don’t know which transfer it is going to be. And just what is going to happen to the person needing to be moved when the caregiver can’t give care anymore?

According to the OSHA website, “Back disorders can develop gradually as a result of microtrauma brought about by repetitive activity over time or can be the product of a single traumatic event. Because of the slow and progressive onset of this internal injury, the condition is often ignored until the symptoms become acute, often resulting in disabling injury. Acute back injuries can be the immediate result of improper lifting techniques and/or lifting loads that are too heavy for the back to support. While the acute injury may seem to be caused by a single well-defined incident, the real cause is often a combined interaction of the observed stressor coupled with years of weakening of the musculoskeletal support mechanism by repetitive micro-trauma. Injuries can arise in muscle, ligament, vertebrae, and discs, either singly or in combination."

http://www.osha.gov/dts/osta/otm/otm_vii/otm_vii_1.html

Many of us therapist spend a lot of time practicing transfers ourselves and teaching others the best ways we know of to manually move people from one surface to another. Unfortunately, many caregivers don’t receive or don’t remember the training and the areas like beds or small bathrooms don’t allow them to employ safe body mechanics. They are often not really assisting someone to move, but bodily moving them. There is some thought that for this type of lift “training caregivers how to use proper body mechanics to lift residents is not an effective prevention measure because lifting the weight of adult patients is intrinsically unsafe”

Safe Lifting and Movement of Nursing Home Residents CDC National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health

http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/ergonomics/default.html#lift
The good news is that there are ways to move people that don’t pose risks to caregivers or the people they are moving. It may be simple items like pivot disks or transfer boards, but there are also great pieces of equipment to use when a person is dependent upon others for lifting.

Motorized lift systems can be floor based, wall based, or ceiling based. The motor provides the lifting power. A ceiling based motor can be independently propelled or moved by a caregiver. Ceiling based systems don’t take up floor space and the caregiver doesn’t have to move the weight of the person and the lift.

Home Access Solutions is the exclusive dealer for SureHands Lift and Care Systems in Nebraska and much of Iowa. SureHands is the US distributor for Handimove International, so this is a system of products used around the world to help people stay in their homes. I chose to represent this product when I was looking for solutions for my clients, because of 3 things: flexibility, reliability, and the philosophy of the SureHands and Handimove companies. www.surehands.com

Problems with transfers drives too many people out of their homes and hurts too many caregivers! Don’t let that happen to you or someone you love! You can visit the Surehands web site at, give us a call at 402-291-9514 and talk to us about an evaluation to determine the right system for you. Please forward this video to people you know who really need to learn about safe ways to transfer. i.e. pick people up!

Preparing for the Future Financially

Your goal is to grow older, right? Of course it is. What is the alternative? That is unfortunately as far as most of us are going to go in our planning. We have a vague idea that we want to stick around for tomorrow. In the back of our mind we believe that if we live well everything is going to somehow work out. But will it?

Home Access Solutions focuses on the structure of the home and equipment that is used for safety and independence, but we work closely with other companies all over town that focus on other aspects of successfully aging and living well. One important area is preparing financially. I hope you enjoyed the interview with Dale Percival of Financial Visions. He is the right kind of person to work with to make sure that you have the resources you need to age successfully. We meet too many people who achieve long lives, but don’t have the resources to enjoy it.

There are many great articles on the Financial Vision’s website, at www.FinancialVisionsLLC.com, but one of my favorites is titled simply “How Much Do I Need to Save?” I’ve included it below. I urge you to read it and prepare yourself for a long and happy life! Then you won’t have to worry about having the money you need to modify your home, continue to vacation and eat out, or whatever you want to do when you age exactly the way you want to.

How Much Do I Need to Save?

Many Americans realize the importance of saving for retirement, but knowing exactly how much they need to save is another issue altogether. With all the information available about retirement, it is sometimes difficult to decipher what is appropriate for your specific situation.

One rule of thumb is that retirees will need approximately 80% of their pre-retirement salaries to maintain their lifestyles in retirement. However, depending on your own situation and the type of retirement you hope to have, that number may be higher or lower.

Fortunately, there are several factors that can help you work toward a retirement savings goal.

Retirement Age

The first factor to consider is the age at which you expect to retire. In reality, many people anticipate that they will retire later than they actually do; unexpected issues, such as health problems or workplace changes (downsizing, etc.), tend to stand in their way. Of course, the earlier you retire, the more money you will need to last throughout retirement. It’s important to prepare for unanticipated occurrences that could force you into an early retirement.

Life Expectancy

Although you can’t know what the duration of your life will be, there are a few factors that may give you a hint.

You should take into account your family history—how long your relatives have lived and diseases that are common in your family—as well as your own past and present health issues. Also consider that life spans are becoming longer with recent medical developments. More people will be living to age 100, or perhaps even longer. When calculating how much you need to save, you need to factor in the number of years you will spend in retirement.

You should take into account your family history—how long your relatives have lived and diseases that are common in your family—as well as your own past and present health issues. Also consider that life spans are becoming longer with recent medical developments. More people will be living to age 100, or perhaps even longer. When calculating how much you need to save, you need to factor in the number of years you will spend in retirement.

Future Health-Care Needs

Another factor to consider is the cost of health care. Health-care costs have been rising much faster than general inflation, and fewer employers are offering health benefits to retirees. Long-term care is another consideration. These costs could severely dip into your savings and even result in your filing for bankruptcy if the need for care is prolonged.

Factoring in higher costs for health care during retirement is vital, and you might want to consider purchasing long-term-care insurance to help protect your assets.

Lifestyle

Another important consideration is your desired retirement lifestyle. Do you want to travel? Are you planning to be involved in philanthropic endeavors? Will you have an expensive country club membership? Are there any hobbies you would like to pursue? The answers to these questions can help you decide what additional costs your ideal retirement will require.

Many baby boomers expect that they will work part-time in retirement. However, if this is your intention and you find that working longer becomes impossible, you will still need the appropriate funds to support your retirement lifestyle.

Inflation

If you think you have accounted for every possibility when constructing a savings goal but forget this vital component, your savings could be far from sufficient. Inflation has the potential to lower the value of your savings from year to year, significantly reducing your purchasing power over time. It is important for your savings to keep pace with or exceed inflation.

Social Security

Many retirees believe that they can rely on their future Social Security benefits. However, this may not be true for you. The Social Security system is under increasing strain as more baby boomers are retiring and fewer workers are available to pay their benefits. And the reality is that Social Security currently provides only 27% of the total income of Americans aged 65 and older with at least $50,000 in annual household income.1 That leaves 73% to be covered in other ways.

And the Total Is…

After considering all these factors, you should have a much better idea of how much you need to save for retirement.

For example, let’s assume you believe that you will retire when you are 65 and spend a total of 20 years in retirement, living to age 85. Your annual income is currently $80,000, and you think that 75% of your pre-retirement income ($60,000) will be enough to cover the costs of your ideal retirement, including some travel you intend to do and potential health-care expenses. After factoring in the $12,000 annual Social Security benefit you expect to receive, a $10,000 annual pension from your employer, and 4% potential inflation, you end up with a total retirement savings amount of $760,000. (For your own situation, you can use a retirement savings calculator from your retirement plan provider or from a financial site on the Internet.)

The estimated total for this hypothetical example may seem daunting. But after determining your retirement savings goal and factoring in how much you have saved already, you will be able to determine how much you need to save each year to reach your destination. The important thing is to come up with a goal and then develop a strategy to help reach it. You don’t want to spend your retirement years wishing you had planned ahead when you had the time. The sooner you start saving and investing to reach your goal, the closer you will be to realizing your retirement dreams.

Source: 1) Income of the Population 55 or Older, 2006, Social Security Administration, 2009. Breakdown based on people aged 65 and older with at least $50,000 in annual household income.

This material was written and prepared by Emerald.
© 2010 Emerald Financial Visions LLC •1055 N. 115th St, Suite: 200 • Omaha, NE • 68154
Phone: (402) 827-5547 • Fax: 402-934-4107
www.financialvisionsllc.com •
Dale.Percival@financialvisionsllc.com
Ben.Koley@financialvisionsllc.com
Cathy.Wyatt@financialvisionsllc.com

Securities offered through Centaurus Financial Inc. Member FINRA/SIPC (www.finra.org / www.sipc.org). 1055 N 115th St., Suite 200, Omaha, NE 68154, (402) 827-5547. Centaurus Financial Inc. and Financial Visions LLC are not affiliated.

What's the Most DANGEROUS Place in Your Home?

Your Bathroom may be the most dangerous room in your Home.

We know instinctively that the bathroom is a dangerous place. Falls occur from slips and trips. Slips occur most often on wet surfaces. What floor do we tend to drip water on most often? Trips come from obstructions we don’t see. Which room is often small with limited storage so things may be placed on the floor or on storage shelves placed in the walkway? Many falls occur when lighting is inadequate. What room in older homes is usually lit by a single set of lights that we reduce even further when we close shower curtains? Better yet, if we wear glasses, what room do we routinely take them off in? Other falls occur when a person’s ability to balance isn’t adequate for the tasks they are engaged in.

What room requires us to step over a 15” high barrier such as the side of a tub, get on the floor such as getting into a tub, bend over such as pulling up pants after toileting? To top it all off, which room of our house is so small that if we fall on the floor we are likely to block the door shut with our body so no one can get in to help us? Of course we know the bathroom is a scary place, but it doesn’t have to be.

Safety can be improved in most bathrooms with careful attention to matching the environment to a person’s abilities and a willingness to try something new. It may be as simple as a well placed grab bar or a rug to absorb moisture that is really slip resistant to. For some homes, it may be a little more involved such as replacing a standard tub with a barrier free or walk in shower, or adding a walk in tub. Thinking about making a change may be difficult, but consider the alternative.

Take a look at these facts from the article Falls Among Older Adults: An Overview the Center for Disease control www.cdc.gov.

• More than one third of adults 65 and older fall each year in the United States (Hornbrook et al. 1994; Hausdorff et al. 2001).

• Among older adults, falls are the leading cause of injury deaths. They are also the most common cause of nonfatal injuries and hospital admissions for trauma (CDC 2005).

• In 2005, 15,800 people 65 and older died from injuries related to unintentional falls; about 1.8 million people 65 and older were treated in emergency departments for nonfatal injuries from falls, and more than 433,000 of these patients were hospitalized (CDC 2005).

• The rates of fall-related deaths among older adults rose significantly over the past decade (Stevens 2006).
How can we look at facts like these, know the bathroom is one of the most useful, but most dangerous places in our home, and still not take action to save ourselves and people we love?

Take action today. Educate yourself on ways to make your bathroom safer. It may be easier and less expensive than you think it will be. If you want some help planning a functional and beautiful bathroom experience give us a call. We think you are worth it.