Aging in Place
Aging in Place is the ability to live in one’s own home and community safely, independently, and comfortably, regardless of age, income, or ability level.
Aging in Place Glossary
Annuities
An annuity is a contract between you and an insurance company to cover specific goals, such as principal protection, lifetime income, legacy planning or long-term care costs.
Assisted Living
Housing for elderly or disabled people that provides nursing care, housekeeping, and prepared meals as needed.
Caregivers – Helping with Activities of Daily Living
These caregivers are considered “non-skilled,” meaning they cannot provide medical care, but are available to help older adults with activities of daily living or ADLs, that includes everything from personal care like toileting to bathing to grocery shopping and house cleaning.
Caregiving – Professional
Skilled Nursing, Physical Therapists, Occupational Therapists: These skilled caregivers are provided under a physician’s order. The care is short-term and is delivered or supervised by nurses and therapists (physical, occupational, and speech). This type of care is typically, but not exclusively provided while someone is recovering from a serious illness, surgery or accident.
Companion Services
Providing Company for an older adult who lives alone. These senior companions, as they are sometimes called, might spend time talking with or playing cards with their older adult clients. They can also take them out to enjoy a meal at a restaurant, bring them to a local museum, or even take them to a doctor’s appointment.
Continuing Care Communities
A type of managed care that combines health insurance, housing, and social care, usually for the elderly. The participant enters a contractual arrangement, in which he or she receives a residence and long-term care on an as-needed basis in exchange for an agreed-upon fee.
Dementia Care
Dementia is not a specific disease but is rather a general term for the impaired ability to remember, think, or make decisions that interferes with doing everyday activities. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common type of dementia. Though dementia mostly affects older adults, it is not a part of normal aging.
Elder Law Attorneys
Elder law attorneys help understanding Medicaid. Elder law attorney refers to an attorney who specializes in providing legal services for the elderly, especially in the areas of Estate Planning and Medicaid Planning.
Estate Planning and Wills
Estate planning is the process of anticipating and arranging, during a person’s life, for the management and disposal of that person’s estate during the person’s life, in the event the person becomes incapacitated and after death. A Will is a legal declaration of how a person wishes his or her possessions to be disposed of after death.
Fall Prevention
Fall prevention is a variety of actions to help reduce the number of accidental falls suffered by older people.
Financial Advisors
Financialadvisor provides financial advice or guidance to customers for compensation. Financial advisors (sometimes spelled as advisers) can provide many different services, such as investment management, tax planning, and estate planning.
Food access and delivery
Consumer choices about food spending and diet are likely to be influenced by the accessibility and affordability of food retailers—travel time to shopping, availability of healthy foods, and food prices. Some people and places, especially those with low income, may face greater barriers in accessing healthy and affordable food retailers, which may negatively affect diet and food security.
Geriatric Care Manager
A geriatric care manager, usually a licensed nurse or social worker who specializes in geriatrics, is a sort of “professional relative” who can help you and your family to identify needs and find ways to meet your needs.
Health Monitor
A device for observing a biological condition or function for example: a heart monitor.
Healthy Aging
The process of developing and maintaining the functional ability that enables wellbeing in older age. Functional ability is about having the capabilities that enable all people to be and do what they have reason to value.
Home Modifications
Home modifications are physical changes made to one’s home to accommodate for the changing needs of the elderly or disabled, to enable aging in place. As we age, our mobility and physical strength diminish and many aspects of a home that were once functional become difficult.
In-Home Care
In-Home care includes any support services that allow a person to live safely in their home. In-home care services can help someone who is aging and needs assistance to live independently; is managing chronic health issues; is recovering from a medical setback; or has special needs or a disability.
Independent Living
Communities designed for seniors who want to live in an apartment home with access to meals, housekeeping, transportation, recreational and social activities.
Loneliness and Isolation
Loneliness is an unpleasant emotional response to perceived or real isolation. Solitude is simply the state of being apart from others; not everyone who experiences solitude feels lonely. Combatting Loneliness includes many general activities and services which can help address isolation (cultural activities, drop in centers etc.) – and in severe cases there may need to be a specific focus on addressing loneliness issues and some specialist mental health services for doing this.
Long-term care Insurance
Coverage that provides nursing-home care, home-health care, and personal or adult daycare for individuals age 65 or older or with a chronic or disabling condition that needs constant supervision. LTC insurance offers more flexibility and options than many public assistance programs, such as Medicaid.
Medication Management
Medication therapy management is a distinct service or group of services that optimizes drug therapy with the intent of improved therapeutic outcomes for individual patients.
Medication reminders
Medication reminder means a verbal prompt to the consumer to take their medication. A medication reminder does not include the administration of or any physical contact with the medication.
Memory Care Facilities
Memory care is a form of senior living that provides intensive, specialized care for people with memory issues. Many assisted living facilities and nursing homes have created special memory care units for dementia patients. There are also stand-alone memory care facilities.
Mobile Health
Mobile health is the monitoring and sharing of health information via mobile technology – such as wearables and health tracking apps. The use of mobile devices and wireless technology to monitor symptoms and deliver care allows physicians to make diagnoses quicker and with fewer errors.
Nursing Home
A private institution providing residential accommodations with health care, especially for elderly people.
Nutrition
The process of providing or obtaining the food necessary for health and growth.
Payments for services
- Private Pay: (Out-of-Pocket) Any payment, reimbursement or refund in connection with healthcare services, products or supplies that does not derive or is unavailable from Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare, Veteran’s Administration or any other healthcare reimbursement program administered by a Governmental Authority.
- Medicare: A program under the US Social Security Administration that reimburses hospitals and physicians for medical care provided to qualifying people over 65 years old and to younger people with Stage Five kidney disease.
- Medicaid: a government insurance program for persons of all ages whose income and resources are insufficient to pay for health care.
- Supplemental Insurance Coverage: Supplemental health insurance helps to pay for healthcare costs that aren’t typically covered by traditional health insurance. Some cover specific situations, like hospital or disability insurance, while others cover specific health conditions like cancer.
Retirement Communities
A retirement community is a residential community or housing complex designed for older adults who are generally able to care for themselves; however, assistance from home care agencies is allowed in some communities, and activities and socialization opportunities are often provided.
Reverse Mortgages
A financial agreement in which a homeowner relinquishes all or a portion of the equity in their home in exchange for regular payments, typically to supplement retirement income.
Ride Sharing
An arrangement in which a passenger travels in a private vehicle driven by its owner, for free or for a fee, especially as arranged by means of a website or app.
Senior Apartment Complexes
Senior apartments or congregate care housing. These are apartment complexes restricted by age, usually 55 or 62 and older. Rent may include community services such as recreational programs, transportation services, and meals served in a communal dining room. Retirement homes/retirement communities.
Smart Home Technology
A smarthome allows homeowners to control appliances, thermostats, lights, and other devices remotely using a smartphone or tablet through an internet connection. Smarthomes can be set up through wireless or hardwired systems.
Social Connections
Social connection is the experience of feeling close and connected to others. It involves feeling loved, cared for, and valued, and forms the basis of interpersonal relationships. Increasingly, social connection is understood as a core human need, and the desire to connect as a fundamental drive.
Telehealth
Telehealth is the distribution of health-related services and information via electronic information and telecommunication technologies. It allows long-distance patient and clinician contact, care, advice, reminders, education, intervention, monitoring, and remote admissions.
Veterans Aid and Attendance
VA Aid and Attendance or Housebound benefits provide monthly payments added to the amount of a monthly VA pension for qualified Veterans and survivors.
Wearables
Wearable technology, wearables, fashion technology, smart wear, tech togs, skin electronics or fashion electronics are smart electronic devices (electronic device with micro-controllers) that are worn close to and/or on the surface of the skin, where they detect, analyze, and transmit information concerning e.g. body signals such as vital signs, and/or ambient data and which allow in some cases immediate biofeedback to the wearer.
Wearables for Emergency response
Personal or wearable emergency devices can provide assurance, confidence and more independence for the elderly and for the disabled and should be considered for anyone with the risk of falling or having medical emergencies. Cell phones may not be in reach when an emergency happens, but wearable technology can always be reached and ensures a quicker response.