January, 2015 – New Years Resolutions for Caregivers and Seniors

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Ideas & Checklists for New Years Resolutions – for Caregivers and Seniors

By Editor of HelpingYouCare.com

Happy New Year! Now is the exhilarating time for a new beginning — the time to make New Years resolutions for the coming year! Have you thought about yours?

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Below are some ideas for positive and helpful New Years Resolutions for Caregivers and Seniors.

No one person can realistically hope to accomplish everything listed below in one year! But we hope that this list of suggestions may serve as a useful checklist to help you find and add to your list the New Years Resolutions that are right for you in 2015!

Wellness Resolutions for Seniors & Family Caregivers From HelpingYouCare™:

  1. Utilize Free Preventive Care Medical Services. Take advantage of the Free Annual Wellness Visits to your doctor for Medicare beneficiaries and other preventive medical services now available to you without charge under the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act, the new health care reform law. And, keep your doctors appointments for preventive and other care.
  2. Follow a Healthy Diet. Resolve to follow a healthy diet, and learn about the many health benefits and prevention of serious illnesses that you can derive from your diet alone. Follow the guidelines for a healthy diet summarized by the USDA in the MyPlate icon and the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, or by the Harvard School of Public Health in the Harvard Healthy Eating Plate. Utilize Smart Diet Tips & Tools provided by the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) and the American Heart Association.
  3. Lose Weight if Necessary and Maintain a Healthy Weight. Learn about your ideal weight and how to calculate your BMI, and implement a realistic and healthy program to lose weight, if necessary, and to maintain a healthy weight. Read and educate yourself about Weight Loss & Maintaining a Healthy Weight.
  4. Exercise. Learn about the incomparable health benefits provided by exercise, and implement a healthy exercise program for life.
  5. Sleep, Hygiene, Quit Smoking & Other Healthy Practices. Learn about the health benefits derived, and resolve to get enough sleep each night, practice good hygiene, quit smoking, and implement these other healthy practices.
  6. Mental Acuity & Intellectual Wellness. Learn about and resolve to engage in activities that help to preserve mental acuity, slow mental decline with age, and promote intellectual wellness.
  7. Social Wellness. Resolve to maintain contact, connection, and social interaction with others. Live a healthy social life, and avoid the illness and cognitive decline that can be caused or exacerbated by social isolation.
  8. Other Areas of Wellness. Learn about and maintain healthy practices that lead to Emotional Wellness, Ethical/ Spiritual Wellness & Vocational Wellness.
  9. Healthy Aging: Stories of Inspiring Seniors. Regularly look for, read about, and be uplifted by Stories of Inspiring Seniors — people who at ages ranging from their sixties to over 100 have achieved and continue to achieve remarkable things, proving that with healthy living, almost anything remains possible at any age!

Overall Checklist of New Years Resolutions for Family Caregivers From HelpingYouCare™:

  1. Educate yourself as a Caregiver.
  2. Organize, Prepare and Plan Ahead.
  3. Review Your Senior Loved One’s Living and Care Arrangements. Are they working for you and your loved one? Consider other resources available to help:
  4. Take Time for Yourself, Ease Your Burden, and Take Good Care of Yourself. You need proper care, less stress, and time for relaxation too. If you don’t take care of yourself, you could wind up becoming ill, and then who would do what you do for your senior loved one?
  5. Learn More About Health Care Reform and Policy, and Consider Leveraging Your Own Experiences as a Caregiver to Become Involved in Advocacy for Further Needed Improvements in Our Health Care and Long-Term Care Systems. As a caregiver, you are on the “front lines” in dealing and interacting with our health care and long-term care systems perhaps every day. These systems and the policies that give rise to them determine the level and quality of care available to you and your senior loved ones and the costs involved, thereby directly affecting the health and well-being of your senior loved one and you.
    • Vow to go beyond political rhetoric and slogans, and learn what really is provided in the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act (what some refer to as “Obamacare”), and form your own independent understanding of its benefits and drawbacks.

For comprehensive information on the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act, and how it benefits you and others in your state, see HealthCare.gov, an official website of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS).

In particular, visit the HealthCare.gov section on The Health Care Law & You, which includes:

Here are some more ideas for Caregivers’ New Years Resolutions that have been suggested by others:

Resolutions for Caregivers — From Senior Care Corner:

  1. “Thank yourself in case no one else does.
  2. Ask for help!
  3. Take time out of every day to care yourself so you can go on caring for your senior.
  4. Get your flu shot! You can’t afford to be sick!
  5. Read a book of inspiration or new ideas; learn more about how to cope with your senior’s specific disease such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, cancer, etc.
  6. Join a support group!
  7. Maintain balance between your family, work and caregiving lives.
  8. Deal with your emotions of anger, confusion, frustration and talk with others who can help you.
  9. Check your senior loved one’s finances to be sure they can cover their needs, seek advice from experts on how to make the money last.
  10. Stay positive – you are making a difference!”

Top 10 Resolutions for Caregivers — From Agis:

  1. Delegate and Say Yes to offers to Help;
  2. Create a Family CareGroup;
  3. Get Enough Rest – Hire someone to help, or get help from friends;
  4. Make and Keep Preventive Care appointments – and keep your doctors’ appointments
  5. Be kind to yourself. Put aside guilt, and remind yourself you are doing the best you can;
  6. “Commit to doing at least one thing you enjoy or need every day;”
  7. Learn about and take advantage of local resources available to help you
  8. Get your loved one’s important papers organized;
  9. Plan for your own long-term care;
  10. Thank others who have helped you during the year.

See also Agis’ list of Top 10 Resolutions for Friends & Family of Caregivers.

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Also see The Caregiver’s Wellness Resolutions, by Ruth Mansmith, published on HelpingYouCare™ on January 4, 2011.

We at HelpingYouCare® wish you and your loved ones a Healthy, Happy, Safe, and Fulfilling New Year 2015!!