Below are two videos from the upcoming documentary:

Both open houses, located in North Pinellas are as scheduled:

April 10 from 3 to 7 p.m.
2675 Tampa Road, Palm Harbor

April 24 from 3 to 7 p.m.
5771 Roosevelt Blvd., Clearwater.

For more information, visit suncoasthospice.org.

Caregiving Services provided to Clearwater, Palm Harbor, Tampa, New Port Richey, Ocala, Inverness, Dunnellon, Lecanto…

While it is true, that as seniors age their desire to maintaing their hobbies wanes, it is our job to encourage or find other hobbies to take it’s place.

Here is the article:

Once elderly individuals retire and begin to lose their physical agility, it can become easy to fall into a state of mental and physical stagnancy. This is why it is so important for seniors to continue pursuing life-fulfilling activities that challenge their bodies and minds. No matter what age a person is, lack of meaningful activities can cause fatigue and a general sense of despondency. Seniors are especially susceptible to falling into a poor mental state when their body, mind, and spirit are not fed. Fortunately, a growing number of people are becoming aware of this and are assisting elderly individuals into living more meaningful lives.

Leisure Activities for Seniors
Elderly individuals should be encouraged to continue reading, writing, playing instruments, and performing other activities that they’ve always enjoyed. While a person’s physical dexterity may not allow them to play an instrument or draw as well, for example, this does not mean that these activities cannot still be enjoyed. The more consistently an elderly individual performs activities, the more agile their body will remain. In addition, these activities will also reduce the risk of cognitive decline.
Other activities for seniors might include:

• Visiting with friends and family
• Knitting
• Playing cards
• Doing puzzles
• Reading stories to young children
• Painting
• Swimming
• Dancing
• Gardening
• Walking
• Attending music, theater or other types of events

Of course, the list of activities for seniors is as endless as the imagination and will depend on a person’s individual preferences and their physical and/or cognitive abilities. It is important not to underestimate and elderly individual’s abilities. A person who takes care of themselves throughout life and is fortunate enough to not have suffered from any debilitating health problems could still be playing tennis or skiing into their late 70s or beyond. In many cases, it’s never too late to try new activities (within reason).

Improved Mental Function and Emotional Well-Being
Unfortunately, many elderly individuals begin to lose their desire to take on new activities or to continue old pastimes. If you or a loved one needs an extra boost to stay motivated, start out with a few of the activities mentioned above or take on a yoga class held for seniors, for example. A variety of activities will not only stimulate (or relax) your mind, it will keep you in a balanced mental state. Humans need social interaction and mental stimulation at any age, but these needs may be more difficult to meet as a person ages. Consider participating in group activities as well as solo activities that keep the mind stimulated and promote emotional health.

Physical Health Benefits
While it is impossible to keep the body going forever, it is possible to increase longevity and reduce the risk of developing chronic diseases and illness by staying active. In addition, regular activity keeps elderly individuals more mobile making daily life easier and much more enjoyable. Staying in good physical condition will allow a senior to enjoy the activities they’ve always loved and to perform activities they’ve always wanted to try.
SeniorsList.com

Senior Home Care for adults and the elderly in St. Petersburg, Dunnellon, Clearwater, Ocala, New Port Richey, Inverness.

Caregiver Meetings in Dunnellon

There is a Caregiver Group that meets the first Thursday of every month at the Dunnellon Library.  Bob Henton, a Dunnellon resident, started the Caregiver Group, because after many years of caregiving, he felt the need to be with others in the same situation to share thoughts and to help keep up his spirits.

On April 5th they will have a special guest, Wendy Hall, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, who writes for the Village Crier.  She will be speaking on the topic of “Preparing Ahead for Alternative Care if Needed.”

According to Wendy Hall, one of the big concerns for family caregivers is “What is going to happen if I can’t take care of to him/her?”  She states that taking care of yourself both emotionally and physically will reduce caregiver burnout.  She also states that you should always plan ahead for the unexpected.

Symptoms:
•Irritability

•Pale, moist skin

•Sweating

•Dizziness

•Rapid pulse

•Extreme hunger

•Shallow breathing

•Weakness

•Faintness

•Inability to concentrate

•Blurred vision

•Loss of coordination and mental confusion

•Headache

•Fatigue

If you or your loved one experience any of these symptoms, you should immediately stop what you’re doing and treat the condition fast.

Treatment:

Step 1: Your Body Needs sugar-And Fast

Any fast-acting sugar will remedy the situation, juice, glucose tables, candy, even honey or syrup. Once you’ve taken some sugar, you should rest for five or ten minutes to let your body absorb the sugar. If you don’t feel better by then, repeat the treatment.

Important: If you still don’t recover after this, call your physician immediately.

Step 2: After an Insulin Reaction

When the symptoms have subsided, it is essential to eat some more slowly digested food to prevent the high insulin level in the blood from causing another reaction. Milk, a peanut butter or meat sandwich, perhaps a piece of bread or fruit should be taken.

Today’s Caregiver and Juvenile Diabetes Foundation International for more information call 1 800 JDF CURE

Good Samaritan Retirement Home (ALF) – Williston

10 complaints
70% resolved
(examples: personal funds; medications)

ALP Housing Corp.(ALF) – Kissimmee

9 complaints
44% resolved
(examples: menu; reprisal/retaliation)

Hillandale (ALF)- New Port Richey

9 complaints
33% resolved
(examples: medications; menu; communication)

Sunshine Manor (ALF) – St. Petersburg

8 complaints
63% resolved
(examples: abuse, verbal/psychological; menu)

Loving Care of St. Petersuburg (ALF) – St. Petersburg

8 complaints
38% resolved
(examples: gross neglect; physician services)

Fort Pierce Health Care (nursing home) – Ft. Pierce

9 complaints
100% resolved–>(great job!)
(examples: discharge/eviction; dignity/respect)

Oakhurst Rehab. and Nursing Center (nursing home) – Ocala

7 complaints
100% resolved–>(great job!)
(examples: cleanliness; dignity/respect)

Mease Continuing Care (nursing home) – Dunedin

7 complaints
100% resolved–>(great job!)
(examples: staff unresponsive; personal property)

Harts Harbor Health Care Center (nursing home) – Jacksonville

7 complaints
100% resolved–>(great job!)
(examples: care plan; personal property)

Orlando Health and Rehabilitation Center (nursing home) – Orlando

7 complaints
71% resolved
(examples: temperature; assistive devices)

Complaint Data Terms:
Verified:

It is determined after work (interviews, record inspection, observation, etc.), that the circumstances described in the complaint are generally accurate.

Not Verified:

It is determined after work (interviews, record inspection, observation, etc.), that the circumstances described in the complaint are not generally accurate. Verification is determined by the ombudsman.

Resolved:

The complaint was addressed to the satisfaction of the resident. Resolved is one of several disposition codes used by the program. Resolution is determined by the resident.

Senior Home Care in Dunedin, Williston, Ocala, St. Petersburg, New Port Richey.

The US Food and Drug Administration announced Tuesday it will revise warnings posted on the cholesterol-fighting drugs called statins because of a slightly increased risk of diabetes.

Elevated blood sugar levels have been reported in patients using statins, the FDA said.

“The FDA is also aware of studies showing” statins are associated with an increased risk “of being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes mellitus,” the FDA statement said.

The statins mentioned by the FDA include popular brands like Lipitor, Pravachol, Crestor and Zocor.

“We want health care professionals and patients to have the most current information on the risks of statins, but also to assure them that these medications continue to provide an important health benefit of lowering cholesterol,” said Mary Parks, director of the FDA’s metabolism and endocrinology products division.

Manufacturers say that when statins are used with good diet and exercise, they can be effective in reducing bad cholesterol levels. Cholesterol is a fatty material that can build up in arteries and lead to heart failure.

Drug labels also are being revised to remove a suggestion of routine periodic monitoring of liver enzymes in patients taking statins, the FDA said.

The FDA now recommends that liver enzymes — proteins that speed up biological chemical reactions — be measured before starting statin therapy.

The safety agency said “serious liver injury with statins is rare and unpredictable in individual patients.”

Instead, patients should notify their doctors if they experience symptoms of liver problems, such as fatigue, appetite loss, stomach pain, dark urine, yellowing of the skin or whiteness in the eyes, the FDA statement said.

The FDA also warned about memory loss and mental confusion while taking statins but added that it was a small problem that disappeared when the drug use is discontinued.

Yahoonews.com

What You Should Know and Do this Flu Season If You Are a Senior 65 Years and Older:

It has been recognized for many years that people 65 years and older are at greater risk of serious complications from the flu compared with young, healthy adults. It’s estimated that 90 percent of seasonal flu-related deaths and more than 60 percent of seasonal flu-related hospitalizations in the United States each year occur in people 65 years and older. This is because human immune defenses become weaker with age. So influenza can be a very serious disease for people 65 and older.

Actions To Take This Flu Season

1. Get Your Flu Shot

The best way to prevent the flu is with a flu vaccine. CDC recommends that everyone 6 months of age and older get a seasonal flu vaccine as soon as it becomes available in your community. Vaccination is especially important for people 65 years and older because they are at increased risk for complications from flu.

This season’s vaccine will protect against three different flu viruses: an H3N2 virus, an influenza B virus and the 2009 H1N1 virus that caused so much illness last season. You should get vaccinated this year even if you got a 2009 H1N1 or a seasonal vaccine last year because the vaccine viruses have been updated. Immunity sets in about two weeks after vaccination, and the flu vaccine provides protection that lasts throughout the entire flu season.

This season, people 65 years and older will have two flu shots available to choose from – a regular dose flu vaccine and a new flu vaccine designed for people 65 and older with a higher dose. The high dose vaccine is associated with a stronger immune response to vaccination. However, whether the stronger immune response results in greater protection against influenza illness in older adults is not yet known. The CDC and its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices have not expressed a preference for either vaccine.

2. Take Everyday Preventive Actions including covering coughs, washing hands often, and avoiding people who are sick.

3. Seek medical advice quickly if you develop flu symptoms to see whether you might need medical evaluation or treatment with antiviral drugs. It’s very important that antiviral drugs be used early to treat flu in people who are very sick with flu (for example, people who are in the hospital), and people who are sick with flu and have a greater chance of getting serious flu complications, like people 65 and older (see box for full list of high risk persons/conditions).

Flu symptoms include fever, cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue. Some people may also have vomiting and diarrhea. People may be infected with the flu and have respiratory symptoms without a fever.

Centers for Disease Control & Prevention

Tests of counterfeit vials of Avastin showed that they didn’t contain the active ingredient in Roche Holding AG’s intravenous drug, according to the Swiss company’s Genentech unit.

It isn’t clear how much of the counterfeit product was distributed in the U.S. or whether it has caused any harm. A Genentech spokeswoman said the company doesn’t know if any patients were given the fake drug.

The Food and Drug Administration is investigating, and has sent letters to 19 medical practices in the U.S. that the agency says buy unapproved cancer medicines and might have bought the counterfeit Avastin.

An FDA spokeswoman said it hasn’t received any reports of patient side effects that appear to be linked to the counterfeit product.

Most Americans don’t question the integrity of the drugs they rely on. They view drug counterfeiting, if they are aware of it at all, as a problem for developing countries. But the latest incident, which follows the appearance of other fake drugs in the U.S.—including counterfeits of the weight-loss treatment Alli and the influenza treatment Tamiflu—suggests it is a growing risk, especially as more medicines and drug ingredients sold in the U.S. are made overseas.

In addition to the specter of fake medicines, U.S. drug makers are confronting their own shortcomings. Companies including Johnson & Johnson have had to shut down manufacturing plants due to quality problems. Earlier this month, Pfizer Inc. said it recalled about a million packs of birth-control pills because improper packaging could raise the risk of unplanned pregnancies.

Roche still is testing the vials of counterfeit Avastin to see what ingredients they contain, but the Genentech spokeswoman said: “It’s not Avastin. It’s not safe and effective, and it shouldn’t be used.”

Genentech said it is asking health-care providers to report any suspected counterfeits to the FDA’s Office of Criminal Investigations.

Avastin belongs to a class of cancer therapies that interferes with the development of new blood vessels that tumors need to grow. The pricey drug, often used with chemotherapy, is for certain patients with colon, lung and other cancers. The drug was at the center of a controversy last year, because the FDA withdrew approval for its use for breast cancer, angering many patients.

A 400-milligram vial of Avastin—the size that was counterfeited—costs $2,400, according to the Genentech spokeswoman.

Last year, Genentech’s sales of Avastin in the U.S. generated more than $2.5 billion, the spokeswoman said. Many patients receive it intravenously, typically in a hospital or doctor’s office, every two or three weeks for as long as a year.

“Most [cancer] doctors in an average workweek will be using it. It is a commonly used drug,” said Leonard Saltz, who runs the colorectal oncology section at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

Dr. Saltz, who also chairs the pharmacy committee monitoring the safety of Sloan-Kettering’s drug supply, said the Avastin news will prompt doctors and hospitals to double-check their sourcing of the product and make sure their supplies are safe.

Experts say counterfeits are a relatively small but still serious problem for the nation’s drug supply. In the U.S., most prescription medicines are distributed by authorized suppliers, who buy them from their manufacturers and assure their integrity. Pharmacies, too, put pressure on the distributors to ensure quality.

Still counterfeits can enter the drug supply through unauthorized distributors and Internet pharmacies that try to turn a quick profit selling the inauthentic products. Doctors and patients might not know they are using a counterfeit if it doesn’t cause harm but simply fails to work.

The counterfeit Avastin was packaged in boxes and vials whose markings were clearly different from the authentic product, according to the Genentech spokeswoman. In the U.S., boxes of authentic Avastin are labeled in English, say they were made by Genentech and have a six-digit lot number with no letters. The counterfeit boxes had writing in French, identified Roche as the manufacturer, and had lot numbers on the boxes or vials starting with B86017, B6011 or B6010.

Roche first learned there might be a counterfeit problem when an unnamed foreign health authority notified the company in December of inauthentic Avastin made overseas and said it was investigating, the Genentech spokeswoman said. Later, the FDA warned the company. The FDA said it was alerted by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency in the U.K.

On Friday, the FDA sent letters to 19 medical practices, mostly in California, that the agency said had bought medicines from the suppliers of the counterfeit Avastin. The two-page letters identified the suppliers as Quality Specialty Products, which the FDA said also might be known as Montana Health Care Solutions. The letter said that QSP’s products are distributed by Volunteer Distribution in Gainesboro, Tenn.

“A high percentage of these products are injectable cancer medications whose quality could be adversely affected if they are not stored or transported under specific temperatures,” the letter added.

QSP and Volunteer Distribution couldn’t be reached for comment Tuesday night, nor could 17 of the 19 medical practices.

“I did not have the Avastin they were referring to,” said Naresh Gupta, a Plano, Texas, oncologist who received the FDA’s letter Monday. He said he purchased Avastin for his practice from a large national drug distributor that wasn’t named in the FDA’s announcement.

A second doctor, Raymond Heung, of San Diego, said he didn’t know anything about the Avastin problems or the FDA letter.

In its letter, the FDA asked the medical practices to “cease using and retain and secure all remaining products” from the suppliers. It also issued a general warning to medical practices asking them to “stop using” any products they might have from the two companies and report any suspect items that the companies supplied.

The Genentech spokeswoman said none of the suppliers identified by the FDA are authorized to distribute Avastin. “Genentech limits the distribution of many of its products and only sells its products directly to a defined number of fully licensed and contracted wholesalers and specialty distributors,” she said.

Counterfeiting has historically been more of a problem outside the U.S. Counterfeit Avastin was injected into the eyes of 116 patients at a Shanghai hospital, resulting in an outbreak of complications, hospital officials reported last year in a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine. The active ingredient in Avastin is sometimes used to treat macular degeneration, a disease that causes vision loss, though it isn’t approved for that use in the U.S.

Concerns about counterfeit drugs sold in the U.S. have grown as more products and their ingredients are made abroad. The FDA has been issuing warnings about counterfeits on average once or twice a year.

In 2010, fake versions of the over-the-counter weight-loss drug Alli were being sold over the Internet. The counterfeit versions didn’t contain the active ingredient in Alli and instead contained sibutramine, the active ingredient in the prescription-strength weight-loss drug Meridia, which has since been removed from the U.S. market because of concerns the drug increased the risk of heart attacks.

Also in 2010, the FDA warned consumers that a product sold as “Generic Tamiflu,” an influenza treatment, was actually a counterfeit containing a penicillin-like antibiotic, rather than flu-fighting antiviral drugs. And a Belgian man pleaded guilty in a U.S. court last year to selling $1.4 million worth of fake or misbranded drugs, including potentially phony Viagra and Lipitor, both Pfizer drugs, over the Internet.

U.S. customs agents and regulators are spot-checking drug imports with increasingly sophisticated laboratory equipment, but the growing volume of shipments has made it “increasingly difficult for us to regulate our own supply chain,” said Tom Woods, of Woods International LLC, a consulting firm that advises on avoiding drug counterfeiting.

Wall Street Journal Article
By Jonathan Rockoff and Christopher Weaver

Senior Care in St Petersburg, FL

Below is a list of the top ten facilities in Florida that received the most complaints during the Fall Quarter (September 1, 2011 until November 30, 2011).  I was quite surprised to find that of these 1o facilities in Florida, four of them are located in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Sunshine Acres (ALF) – Caryville
17 complaints
6% resolved
License suspended as of 7/22/2011
(examples: personal property; personal hygiene)

ALP Housing Corp. (ALF) – Kissimmee
17 complaints
100% resolved–>(great job!)
(examples: menu; access to own records)

Helping Hands Foundation (ALF) – Havana
12 complaints
75% resolved
(examples: cleanliness; personal funds; odors)

Peacekeeper’s Den (ALF) – St. Petersburg
12 complaints
67% resolved
(examples: discharge/eviction; reprisal/retaliation)

Carden House (ALF) – St. Petersburg
11 complaints
82% resolved
(examples: dignity/respect; personal property)

Sarasota Health and Rehab. Center (nursing home) – Sarasota
12 complaints
58% resolved
(examples: privacy; range of motion/exercise)

South Heritage Health and Rehab. (nursing home) – St. Petersburg
8 complaints
50% resolved
(examples: supplies/linens; social services)

Jacaranda Manor (nursing home) – St. Petersburg
8 complaints
75% resolved
(examples: confinement; personal property)

Eden Springs Nursing and Rehab Center (nursing home) – Crawfordville
7 complaints
100% resolved–>(great job!)
(examples: pressure sores; dignity/respect)

Evans Health Care (nursing home) – Ft. Myers
7 complaints
100% resolved–>(great job!)
(examples: fluid availability/hydration; personal hygiene)

Also, I’ve attached a link that shows their overall rating (health inspections rating, quality measures rating, staffing rating) from the Medicare website.  This link even shows reasons for the complaints.  Follow the link, select “Find a Nursing Home Within a Certain Distance of City”, then type in ”St Petersburg” and select ”Northern Florida” and “10 miles”.   In my opinion, neither Jacaranda nor South Heritage scored very well.  http://www.medicare.gov/NHCompare/Include/DataSection/Questions/ProximitySearch.asp

Complaint Data Terms: Resolved: The complaint was addressed to the satisfaction of the resident. Resolved is one of several disposition codes used by the program. Resolution is determined by the resident.

Senior Care for St. Petersburg, New Port Richey, Clearwater, Ocala, Inverness, Dunnellon, Lecanto, Tampa…