Senior Living

New Haven Assisted Living and Dementia Care Brings in New Leadership

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New Haven Kyle Welcomes New Executive Director

January 3, 2022 – Kyle, Texas – New Haven Assisted Living and Dementia Care – Kyle has recently welcomed Madison Parker as the Executive Director . Former Director Tanji will continue working in our community as the Wellness Director.

As the Executive Director for New Haven Kyle, Madison Parker will ensure the residents are happy and well taken care of, as she relies on her passion for taking care of others. Madison will oversee the day-to-day operations of the community and aid the team to ensure her staff feels supported.

Madison started her medical career as a mental health technician working with residents with severe mental health disorders. Madison furthered her education after graduating with her Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology to gain extensive knowledge in geriatric care by taking classes in health administration, specifically catering to people living in facilities. Madison has a background in long-term care for the elderly, as well as acute rehabilitation care.  Madison strives to ensure her staff feel comfortable, supported, and happy to come to work.

Madison is dedicated to her residents and prides herself in providing exceptional care for the residents. Her residents’ happiness is of the utmost priority to her and the staff of New Haven Kyle. Madison adores the elderly population, and believes everyone should volunteer in long-term homes, as the elderly have so much wisdom and love to share. Madison will do everything in her power to ensure that New Haven stays family-orientated, loving, and productive.

New Haven’s mission is to provide friendly, family-oriented care focused on you or your loved ones. They are confident Madison will make a positive impact as Executive Director and will continue to raise the leadership, quality of care, and hospitality at Kyle that our residents and staff all expect and deserve.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Madison Parker

Executive Director

PH: 512-878-7252 | Email: Madison@newhavenassistedliving.com

About New Haven Assisted Living and Dementia Care– Our mission at New Haven is to provide friendly, family-oriented care focused on you or your loved ones. Our goal is to exceed your expectations and continue to offer the world-class care we are known for. Accordingly, we are confident in Sandra to continue to raise the leadership, quality of care and hospitality that your loved ones expect and deserve. Visit us on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/newhavenassistedlivingandmemorycare/

SOURCE: New Haven Assisted Living & Dementia Care

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Signs of Holiday Depression Among Older Adults

Holiday Depression and Older Adults

The holidays can be an exciting and joyful time for many people – decorating the tree, shopping for gifts, attending the Christmas parties, and spending time with family are events that bring smiles to many faces. However, this may not be true for the senior population. Many seniors experience depression and anxiety during the holiday season and adult children and other loved ones should know the warning signs to watch for.

What Causes Holiday Depression Among Older Adults?

Senior depression during the holidays is linked to a variety of causes:

Winter blues: Depending on what climate the senior lives in, weather can play a role. Cold, icy weather combined with fewer hours of sunlight can lead to a condition called seasonal affective disorder. For some people, it can be serious enough that medical intervention is required.

Isolation: Many seniors are feeling isolated during the current pandemic. But the pandemic isn’t the only reason for feelings of isolation. For adults with mobility challenges or those who have given up driving, feeling isolated and alone during the holidays is often the culprit of their depression. It might seem to a senior that everyone has someplace to go except them.

Grief and loss: For many seniors, facing the holidays without a loved one is the source of their depression. The festivities may serve as a reminder of how the holidays were spent before a loved one’s passing.

Declining health: Health problems, especially ones that impact their ability to join in holiday parties or vacations, can trigger feelings of sadness.

What Are The Signs of Holiday Depression Among Older Adults?

According to the Geriatric Mental Health Foundation, signs of senior depression include the following:

Prolonged sorrow and sadness (lasting for more than a few weeks)

Loss of energy and feelings of weariness

Withdrawing from favorite hobbies and social activities

Change in personality or mood

Easily tearful or quick to anger

Unintended weight gain or loss

Problems sleeping—either sleeping too much or too little

Difficulty concentrating and shortened attention span

Lack of interest in joining holiday gatherings or family parties

As we head into the holiday season, adult children and family members should be mindful of these red flags. It’s important to remember that depression is not a normal part of the aging process. Depression can be a serious health issue that requires proper medical treatment.

You may not have thought of a retirement community as a factor in senior mental health. However, if your older family member currently lives alone, it’s worth considering a move to a community where he or she can connect more easily with others in the same age group. In addition to being safer and having less upkeep to worry about, adults in senior retirement communities benefit from regularly scheduled social activities built into daily life on campus. This can improve their mental health all year round, but particularly during the holidays.

Making the decision to move into a senior living community can become difficult, visit our website for more support options.

Want to learn more around how New Haven can support you or a loved one? Schedule a tour today HERE!

New Haven Assisted Living and Dementia Care Brings in New Leadership

New Haven Assisted Living received vaccines first creating the safest environment for its residents.

AUSTIN, TEXAS (February 2, 2021) New Haven Assisted Living, with 10 assisted living and dementia care communities throughout Texas, looks forward to the long-term protection COVID-19 vaccines will provide residents and staff, offering a peace of mind for families and everyone at New Haven.
Being one of the first senior living communities to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, New Haven residents can rest easily knowing they are living in the VERY safest place for seniors in the foreseeable future.
New Haven is confident the COVID-19 vaccine will transform the healthcare industry and continue to provide a safe place for all current and future residents to call home. Our teams will continue to maintain safety protocols currently in place to help protect our residents, staff, and families, including appropriate use of personal protective equipment (PPE), on-going community testing, social distancing, and specialized daily cleaning.

“Unfortunately, many seniors still living at home wait for access to the vaccine, which could be weeks to months away. While waiting, they will continue to be at far greater risk than seniors living in one of our communities, not just regarding their emotional and mental health, but to their physical health as well. We are fortunate to have the ability to provide close to 600 COVID-19 vaccines to residents and staff across 10 of our New Haven communities,” says Holli Hasserodt, Regional Vice President.

Throughout this pandemic, New Haven has focused not just on safety but on maintaining community-style living that is vibrant for the residents by providing daily opportunities for social engagement, exercise, and an enhanced dining program. New Haven provides a wide range of benefits, from 24/7 care to give the residents the ability to interact with people daily, allowing for a social life.

New Haven Dementia Care serves seniors with dementia, offering specialized dementia care programs where they’ve seen significant benefits from the residents being able to engage and socialize versus the alternative — being at home alone, isolated, and at potential risk of depression and loneliness.

“At New Haven, we understand families have concerns around placing their loved one in a senior living during this pandemic. I see it as one of the safest options for our seniors. We continue to excel in all 10 of our communities by providing vaccines for our staff and residents, new and old. Metaphorically, we are an island of safety in a sea of COVID-19,” says Justin Yarmark, New Haven’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

Stay updated with how New Haven stays ahead of COVID: https://newhavenassistedliving.com/coronavirus-preparedness/ or follow us on our Facebook page for more updates!

What is Respite Care?

Many seniors who are not ready for full-time assisted living may still benefit from respite care. But what is respite care? Often, seniors and their families or caregivers don’t really understand what senior respite care is and miss out on taking advantage of this wonderful option.

Unlike assisted living, dementia care, or other kinds of residential living options, respite care is short-term. A respite stay can be as short as a day or as long as several months, or anywhere in between. Seniors enjoying respite enjoy the same perks as long-term residents, including delicious food, socialization and activities, and 24/7 access to help and support.

Benefits of Respite Care for Seniors

Many families learn about respite care after a senior family member develops a medical need. Recovery from an illness, injury, or surgery can take longer for seniors, and self-care may be more difficult.

Respite care in an assisted living residence is a good way to get short-term help with activities of daily living (ADLs) including bathing, dressing, medication management, and handling mobility challenges. Once a senior has recuperated enough to manage these things without help again, they return home. There’s no long-term commitment; just the confidence and security of having an extra helping hand while it’s needed.

For other seniors, these challenges with ADLs are usually met by a family caregiver. When that caregiver needs to travel or take a break, respite provides a worry-free, safe place to go.

Benefits of Respite Care for Caregivers

Sometimes, a senior isn’t the one who needs respite. Respite is a resource for family caregivers. Sadly, many families aren’t aware that respite is available to them.

Home caregiving is often like a full-time job that you take on in addition to all the other responsibilities of life. No matter how willing you are, how much you love your parent, and how sure you are that it’s the right thing to do, the extra stress is real.

One of the most important things that family members can do to make sure that they are able to continue to provide top-level care for their parents is to care for themselves. While it may seem that you should never take a break, keeping your own stress and fatigue under control is key. Senior caregiving is a marathon, not a race, and it’s important to pace yourself.

Family caregivers may use respite to:

Complete home or work projects that require unbroken focus or attention
Rest and rejuvenate with extra sleep, spa time, exercise classes, or a night out
Travel for business
Take a relaxing vacation
Spend time with friends

Taking the time to enjoy these kinds of activities helps maintain energy, motivation, and a sense of identity while caregiving. Good mental health care, rest, and regular breaks help prevent caregiver burnout, which is a serious problem for family caregivers to be aware of.

Are you interested in learning more about respite or scheduling a respite stay at New Haven? Click here now to get started.

Why the Flu Shot is Extra Important for Seniors This Year

With all the talk about Coronavirus, sometimes you can almost forget that other diseases still exist. However, flu season is still on its way just like every year. And in fact, it’s more important than ever for seniors to have their flu shot this 2020 season.

What is the Flu?

A lot of people think of the flu as a stomach bug, or maybe a bad cold. Actually, the flu (short for influenza) is a specific virus that affects the lungs. Flu usually hits hard and fast, coming on quickly and making most people feel quite ill with symptoms like fever, cough, fatigue, and body aches.

Even a mild case of the flu can last for a few days to a couple of weeks of sickness. In severe cases, flu can last longer and hit harder and can cause serious complications such as pneumonia and even death. Seniors are especially at risk from the flu due to age-related changes in the body’s ability to fight off disease.

Although the flu is a single disease caused by a single type of virus, the flu virus changes and mutates every year. This is why the flu can make you sick over and over instead of being an illness that you get once and never get again. Even if you had flu once, by the next season it will have changed so much that your body doesn’t recognize that it’s the same disease and won’t protect you.

What is the Flu Shot?

The flu shot is a vaccine that protects against the flu. It does this by exposing your immune system to a small amount of dead flu virus in order to teach your body how to fight it off.

Because the flu virus changes so much from year to year, the vaccine needs to change as well. This is why getting a new flu shot every year is so important. Last year’s flu shot cannot protect you from the kind of flu going around this year. Doctors and scientists work throughout the year to analyze the newest strains of flu and create a vaccine that will protect against those they think are most likely to be a problem during each flu season.

It’s important to know that the flu shot does not have live virus in it. It cannot make you sick or give you the flu. You may feel unwell for a day or two after getting the shot because your immune system is learning how to fight off the flu virus. This is not the same as having the flu.

Why is the Flu Shot Extra Important in 2020?

Many symptoms of the flu are similar to symptoms of COVID-19. Often, the only way to tell the difference between flu and COVID-19 is through medical testing at a doctor’s office.

It is possible to get sick with the flu and COVID-19 at the same time. This is an extremely dangerous situation, especially for seniors who are already at higher risk from both diseases. There is evidence that having flu and COVID-19 together can make you sicker than either virus alone.

Many seniors who get the flu need hospital treatment. In fact, most flu-related hospitalizations are patients over the age of 65. Right now, because of COVID-19, the doctors and nurses who treat respiratory disease are already under a heavy caseload. One way to help reduce the burden of caring for COVID-19 patients is to help reduce the number of flu patients coming into the hospital. Getting a vaccine is the best way to do this.

Who Should Get the Flu Shot?

All people over the age of 65 should have a flu vaccine, as should caregivers and family members who see them regularly. Remember that it is easy for friends or family to catch the flu somewhere else and pass it on to a senior during a visit before they even realize they are sick.

No vaccine is 100% effective. Because of this, some people feel that it is not worthwhile to get the vaccine at all. However, the more people who are vaccinated, the fewer people will get sick at all. In addition, if you get the flu after having the vaccine, you are likely to be much less sick.

Want more information about senior health and wellness? Check out these other recent posts from our blog:

The Top 3 Fears About Assisted Living

Just like any other big life change, a move to senior living can be scary and hard to imagine. Stepping out into the unknown is hard for all of us. Aging, with all its challenges, makes it especially difficult. It’s not surprising if you’re having some fears about assisted living. We’d like to help dispel some of the worry by talking about the top three fears that we hear about most often from seniors considering assisted living.

Fear #1: Will I Lose My Independence?

The “assisted” in assisted living feels like a loaded word for many seniors. A little assistance is good; in fact, it’s great. Giving up the stress and hassle of home maintenance or cooking, having someone there to help you get to the bathroom at night without falling down, or an extra set of eyes on your daily pills to make sure you keep them straight–it all sounds just fine. But some seniors worry it won’t stop there. Does assisted living really mean that you’re giving up control over your life?

On the contrary, assisted living is about restoring independence, not taking it away. Seniors who go without the help that they need often end up trapped and limited. Mobility problems, driving issues, and the rest make it hard to live like you used to. In assisted living, you get as much help as you want or need, not more. And, when the difficult things are handled for you, you can focus on friends, family, hobbies, or anything else that has been getting harder.

Fear #2: Will Assisted Living be Depressing?

Isolation is another great fear for all of us as we age. In previous generations, nursing homes had a bad reputation and often seemed like places where the elderly went to be forgotten and ignored.

Fortunately, assisted living is not the same as a nursing home. Many seniors who move into assisted living find that rather than being lonely, they are more socially engaged than they have been in years. How could you not be? With the option to share meals every day, take classes together, and visit without even having to go outside unless you want to, keeping your social calendar full has never been easier.

With opportunities for entertainment and enrichment available throughout each day, there’s no worry about being bored or left to yourself. In fact, many seniors find their mental well-being improves after a move to assisted living.

Fear #3: Is It More Expense Than it’s Worth?

It’s true that assisted living has a price tag that can make some folks nervous. But remember that the cost of assisted living represents nearly 100% of all your living expenses, including professional caregivers. Add up the costs of owning or renting a home, groceries, utilities, car maintenance and so on. When you combine these with the cost of full-time home health care, you may find that assisted living may actually cost less than staying home.

This doesn’t even take into account the price of the additional amenities available in assisted living, from hair salons to health and fitness and more.

Still feeling like there are too many unknowns to make a decision? Why not come visit? Click here to schedule a virtual tour today and see for yourself.

Staying Fit in Your Senior Years

Senior living doesn’t look like it used to. Gone are the days when retirees were faced with day after day of wheelchairs and television reruns. Today, even in assisted living, age doesn’t need to be a barrier to staying active and healthy. Staying fit in your senior years may not look like it did when you were in your prime, but there are more options out there than you think.

We’ve gathered some of the simplest and easiest ways for you to stay in good physical health as you age. It’s never too late to improve your fitness levels. Regular exercise can help improve your mood, reduce muscle and joint pain, slow down osteoporosis, and even boost your memory.

Always Talk to Your Doctor First

Remember to check with your doctor before you start any new diet or exercise program. If you have a chronic condition such as heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, or pulmonary disease, you may need to take extra precautions to exercise safely.

Your doctor can also likely recommend specific local resources such as physical therapists or personal trainers who specialize in working with senior citizens.

Low-Impact Exercise for Seniors

When you’re choosing an exercise program to try, the key phrase to look for is “low impact.” Low-impact exercise is still healthy but puts less strain on your heart, joints, and muscles. Because low-impact exercise typically involves having at least one foot on the ground at all times, it is also a better choice for those with balance or mobility problems.

Even low-impact exercise can get your heart pumping enough to make a big difference. Just taking a simple walk every day benefits your heart, lung, and joint health. Evidence suggests that even brain health and memory improve with regular low-impact exercise.

Other forms of fun, low-impact, senior-appropriate exercise that you may want to explore include:

Water aerobics or synchronized swimming
Dance lessons
Cycling on a stationary bike
Swimming laps
Gardening
Resistance training (weight lifting or resistance bands)
Golf
Tai Chi (shadow boxing)

Remember that if any of these are new to you, it’s important to start by getting help from an experienced teacher. Even with low-impact exercise, it’s possible to injure yourself if you don’t know what you’re doing.

Mobility Considerations

If you use a cane or walker, or even if you’re in a wheelchair, staying fit is still for you! While mobility limitations do put some forms of exercise beyond your reach, you may be very surprised by what is still feasible.

Often, seniors with mobility issues enjoy what is called chair exercise. Chair exercise means an exercise routine that you do while seated.

Many assisted living residences and senior centers offer chair-based exercise classes including aerobics, yoga, pilates, and sometimes even weight lifting or dance. No matter what your level of fitness, you can find a way to get moving and start reaping the benefits today.

Exercise for Mental Health

In senior living, our watchword is always to promote the greatest level of independence possible. Strengthening your muscles, bones, and joints through a regular fitness program helps extend your years of mobility and overall health.

But on top of all the physical benefits, exercise has major mental health advantages. Seniors with a fitness routine have lower rates of depression, better brain health, and fewer feelings of isolation. Even some dementia symptoms improve with appropriate exercise.

Are you interested in learning more about how assisted living could help you improve your physical health and fitness? Contact us today to chat about physical enrichment at New Haven Assisted Living.