Do you want to  have freedom of choice with home care for your loved ones? This is one of the most important roles we can undertake in retiretirement. Making sure our parent or partner gets the services they need once they can no longer care for themselves is very important. How to choose the right home care provider will be critical.

Each year more and more seniors are choosing to stay in their own homes with the help of in-home care. With support to stay at home seniors can dramatically improve their options. Aging in place is looked upon by many as the ideal way to age to maintain independence while receiving support.

As our health and mobility issues become more pronounced in our senior years we need to find support at an affordable cost.

Considerations for Home Care:

• Seniors choose to age in place for a variety of reasons:
• Keep their emotional attachment to a particular home or community,
• Give loved ones the reassurance that their family members are being well cared for,
• Avoid placing seniors into an unfamiliar, and possibly distressing, environment,
• Support seniors at home all the way through the end of life.

How can you have the freedom of choice with home care? If you want to get the most value out of your home care package then looking at online providers may be the answer.

In Australia there is Mabel.com.au and in the US there are online providers like Care.com. These on-line servers give you an easy and safe online platform to find independent care and support workers from your local area, for you and your family. Self-managing your home care package means our approved provider partners can offer a lower administrative fee, freeing up more funding for you to spend on your services.

We all love our independence; it’s one of the perks of being an adult. But as we get older, there are certain things that we may not be able to do on our own, including our own in-home health care. At least not well or safely enough.

Many of these things are critical to the quality of life we lead. If you need help with:

• Taking the right medication at the right time,
• Running errands,
• Cleaning the house,
• Meal preparation,
• Personal care,
• Getting to appointments

If you want to be able to choose your own personal support worker than accessing professionals online may be the answer.

Online Services can make your home care package money  give you as many home help hours as possible. This can be obtained with their lower cost structure with care givers working directly for you.

It is one of the best and most comfortable options for seniors who would rather live in their own home giving you the freedom of choice with home care.

Connect with the Australian Mabel.com.au

Connect with USA Care.com

Have you listened to the last episode of Retire Well Retire Happy Podcast?

Have you ever been in envy of those that knew the benefits of how to have powerful, practical advice? I was offered a copy of the book, Difficult Conversation: How to Discuss What Matters Most. It is full of powerful, practical advice on how to have that difficult conversation.

This week is a book review and I have chosen from self help books to enrich your lives.  All I could think of after the first chapter is I wish I had this last year when I ended up in one of those difficult conversations. Gain practical tips and advice to steer you through any difficult conversation and how to discuss what matters most.  Learn the benefits of how to have powerful practical advice.

Have you ever been the victim of the blame game? When something goes wrong and you end up being blamed for an outcome that did not reach someone’s expectations? Have you every been yelled at out of the blue? I am learning from reading this book on having that difficult conversation that it is natural to firstly become defencive.

If you ever want a situation to be resolved you need to take a breath and look deeper into the reactions and circumstances of an angry outbreak. Instead of replying with confusion and anger to anger it wold be better to determine why the person found it necessary to raise their voice in the first place.

A quick stroll across the room and a few quiet words may be all it takes to disfuse a situation that could otherwise quickly get out of hand.

Learn how to have your toughest conversations with less stress and more success:

• Decipher the underlying structure of every difficult conversation
• Interpret the significance of what is said, and what is not
• Raise tough issues without triggering defensiveness
• Manage strong emotions, yours and theirs
• Stay balanced regardless of how the other person responds

Join a discussion with Ann  online

I am learning how a healthy lifestyle can overcome chronic illness. I don’t have the answers but the path to finding a solution is recognizing there is a problem. Overcoming poor eating habits is one of the reasons why health and wellness will secure  a happy retirement for me.

What is a Healthy Lifestyle? The World Health Organization defines health as “not merely the absence of disease or infirmity, but a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being”. Finding what works for me is the main reason why health and wellness will secure a happy retirement.

Wellness has been defined more as the action an individual takes to meet the above definition of health. The older I get the larger my waistline has become. This correlates with the less activity I am also doing. I am on a continuing journey to find what works for me. When I awas young I could get away with eating anything as I was generally more active.

The more online I have become then the less I have participated in sports and outdoor activity. My health is more than what I eat. Wayne Dyer says ‘it’s what we think about what we eat’ that is important. That is why I am taking a more holistic look at myself to create a healthy lifestyle. I now think about and picture myself enjoying that healthy body again.

I thought I did not have any chronic illlnesses but apparently obesity is along with heart disease, stroke and cancer.

It’s back to the drawing board for me and educating myself on how to make appropriate nutritional and lifestyle choices. What I eat does play a role in disease prevention and according to Palemla McDonald, Nurse-Practitioner. Palema states in her book, The Perfect Gene Diet, ‘Good nutrition has a powerful effect on a person’s health, and is the number one integrative-medicine tool.’

I don’t want to end up attached to a bedpan in old age. I would much prefer the image of me attached to a backpack and travelling the world enjoying a healthy lifestyle. How about you?