Caring for Seniors’ Mental Health

Even the healthiest, most engaged senior living residents may suffer from bouts of depression—particularly if they’ve recently experienced the loss of a friend.  
There are several effective strategies caregivers and family members should use in these situations, experts say, including consultation with a geriatric psychiatrist. However, like many medical fields, there is a lack of psychiatrists [...]

New York’s Center for Living Has Celebrity Support

Seniors in and around New York now have access to the Martha Stewart Center for Living. The lifestyle empress and celebrity financed the center, part of Mount Sinai Medical Center, in honor of her late mother.
In an interview with CNN.com’s Alina Cho, Stewart – whose mother, also named Martha, passed away two years ago [...]

ALFA Award Nominations Deadline Draws Near

Just one more week until the January 15 deadline for the ALFA Heroes and Best of the Best Awards programs. These awards programs and the recognition they bring to deserving senior living companies and staff do so much more than give credit where credit is due. They help to advance the mission of operational excellence [...]

National Recognition for the Best
in Senior Living

The 2010 ALFA Hero Awards and Best of the Best Awards programs are now accepting nominations. Here are the details you need to get your company and staff the recognition they deserve.
ALFA Hero Awards
Five awards are presented in all for extraordinary service and dedication to operational excellence in senior living. The categories are Executive Director, [...]

When Alzheimer’s Affects a Marriage

The latest issue of ALFA Update features a video report by The Wall Street Journal that looks at the challenges spouses of individuals with Alzheimer’s must face, particularly as they try to cope with loneliness.
Alicia Mundy, reporter for The Journal, comments on various interviews the newspaper has conducted with psychologists, members of the clergy, and family members [...]

No Place for Union Strikes in
Senior Living

Posted by Paul Williams
Senior Director of Government Relations, ALFA
On Tuesday, the largest transportation union in Philadelphia went on strike over wage, pension, and health-care issues. As a result, thousands of citizens who rely on Philadelphia’s buses, subways, and trolleys were forced to find alternative transportation, and many were unable to do so. For many of [...]

HHS Focuses on Senior Women

Today’s ALFA Update examines a new report from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services that focuses on older women, including those 65 and older. Among the findings, 45 percent of insured senior women have three or more chronic conditions compared with 38 percent of senior men. This finding and others in the report [...]

Protecting Against Swine Flu

Some news sources have reported that some seniors may be better equipped to ward off the swine flu because of their long-ago exposure to similar viruses. For example, a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that nearly two thirds of  U.S. swine flu infections have occurred among individuals ages 5-24; [...]

Laughing and Aging

The secret to aging well is laughing about it, says author and humorist Dr. Natasha Josefowitz. Backed by an arsenal of statistics and research findings, Josefowitz makes several points that relate to resident-centered care.
While this presentation by Dr. Josefowitz may include a couple of corny lines, the message is an interesting one. Her strategies may [...]

Senior Living to the Rescue

USA Today writer Kitty Bean Yancey has made national news of yet another way senior living companies are serving seniors and their families. Yancey writes about “respite stays” that welcome seniors for temporary stays, while caregivers take vacations or just take the time off they need to re-energize.
The article points out that respite stays in [...]