Elder Care

Small businesses are ill-prepared for the growing effect that elder-care issues will have on their workforces, not to mention their bottom lines, experts say. Less than 10% of small companies currently offer elder-care resources ? beyond what's required by law ? for employees who have to care for infirm parents, according to a human resource industry trade group, even though the number of people ages 65 and older in the U.S. is expected to double to 70.3 million by 2030. Employees who suddenly find themselves involved in elder care might miss work and be less productive.

TRIVANDRUM, India - R. Padmanathan Nair sits on a plastic chair in the entryway of the Heritage senior home talking about the fellow residents who treat him like family, which is helpful seeing as his own rarely visits. His wife tried to abscond with their valuables, he said, so he gave the house to a niece, who ignored him after she got the property. Now his daughter is the only one who visits the 76-year-old retired teacher here in the capital of the southern state of Kerala, and that's just a few times a year.

Dorothy Rutherford is anxiously typing at her home computer, filling in answers to an online spelling game. "I hate it when I can't get this last word," the 86-year-old retiree says as she studies the jumbled letters "nadobna. " Rutherford tries "banana," then "bandana," to no avail. She smiles broadly when the computer beeps its approval of "abandon" a few moments later. Rutherford isn't just whiling away the hours in retirement. She is on the front lines of an initiative to help elderly Americans stay in their homes as long as they can — a concept called aging in place.

A chicken, a raven and a peacock greeted Lisa and Ron Cerda when they moved into their southeastern Tarzana neighborhood almost two decades ago. It was just the sort of bucolic reception the couple hoped for when they fled crowded West Los Angeles for one of the city's rare residential-agricultural zones, a district that permits farming and the keeping of livestock. Today, the Cerdas say their rustic neighborhood is threatened with extinction. Schools, synagogues and commercial businesses have crept into the district, despite dogged opposition from dozens of residents.

Michael Grace will never forget the day he brought his mother, Louise Grace, home from the hospital, and found she could only hold a thought for a few seconds at a time. "It is a panic situation," Grace said. "It's like waking up in the morning with both your arms cut off. What do you do? You think, 'I'll telephone for help,' then you realize you can't reach a phone. That's what it's like--there is no help at all."

Responding to recent U.S. Department of Labor statistics that point to a growing need for workers in the senior care field, Mission College in Sylmar is providing a special program to train students in caring for the elderly. Twelve students recently completed the In-Home Elder Care Program, in which they were specially trained to care for Alzheimer's and other dementia patients.

Jim West had a serious family crisis and didn't know what to do. His 74-year-old mother was diagnosed in January as having Alzheimer's disease, and she was living in Charleston, W. Va., where she had no friends or relatives to help her. West, who made his home hundreds of miles away in Boca Raton, Fla., knew little about the disease or how to care for someone with it. He was afraid he might have to take days or weeks off work to deal with the...

Two years after an 86-year-old woman who suffered massive bedsores and other injuries died in a board-and-care home, prosecutors have charged Thousand Oaks operator Grazyna "Grace" Baran and two of her employees with elder abuse. Ventura County prosecutors said that Dorothy Malven, 86, of Westlake Village deteriorated until she was briefly hospitalized with a urinary tract infection, bedsores, bruising and a massive ulcer.

Bettina Thompson is proud of her home of 20 years. Situated on a 10-acre ranch in rural Chatsworth, she now wants to share it--with a few dozen dogs, cats, horses and the elderly. Thompson is hoping to expand her current six-bed elder-care facility and build a large ranch house for 36 people. She also hopes to maintain stables and kennels to house as many as 50 horses, 50 dogs and 25 cats. She said she's owned Country Oaks Estates for two years.

Colleen Blair takes care of her 94-year-old father, who is senile and unable to bathe or dress himself. Her 86-year-old mother recently had a heart attack and can no longer help her husband. Blair, 53, also works. As she makes T-shirts in her Costa Mesa home, she also must care for her parents. If she has to deliver shirts to a customer, Blair must bring her parents along. Although the arrangement works, it takes a toll in the form of physical strain and mental stress.

Dorothy Rutherford is anxiously typing at her home computer, filling in answers to an online spelling game. "I hate it when I can't get this last word," the 86-year-old retiree says as she studies the jumbled letters "nadobna. " Rutherford tries "banana," then "bandana," to no avail. She smiles broadly when the computer beeps its approval of "abandon" a few moments later. Rutherford isn't just whiling away the hours in retirement. She is on the front lines of an initiative to help elderly Americans stay in their homes as long as they can — a concept called aging in place.

How to find an elder-care mediator -- Mediation involves the use of a neutral party to help families resolve disputes. Sometimes mediators are called in by a judge's order, but many elder-care experts say mediation can be helpful long before a dispute makes its way to court. The key is finding a mediator who will help ease communication among family members. --Mediators are often attorneys or social service workers, but clergy or other experienced listeners can help guide conversations.

Small businesses are ill-prepared for the growing effect that elder-care issues will have on their workforces, not to mention their bottom lines, experts say. Less than 10% of small companies currently offer elder-care resources ? beyond what's required by law ? for employees who have to care for infirm parents, according to a human resource industry trade group, even though the number of people ages 65 and older in the U.S. is expected to double to 70.3 million by 2030. Employees who suddenly find themselves involved in elder care might miss work and be less productive.

State officials have fined two nursing homes in Orange County for providing care so inadequate that it led to the deaths of two patients. In one case, a woman died from dehydration. In the other, staff failed to provide CPR to a man suffering a heart attack because they mistakenly believed he was under orders not to be resuscitated.

About 22% of the nation's nearly 16,000 nursing homes received the federal government's lowest rating in a new five-star system unveiled Thursday, while 12% received the highest ranking possible. A home could obtain up to five stars based on criteria such as staffing and how well it fared in state inspections. The lowest ranking possible was one star. Such a simple rating for so complex a task as caring for the elderly has led to much anxiety in the nursing home industry.

Advocates for low-wage caregivers called on authorities Monday to investigate the spending practices of a Los Angeles union and a related charity that have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to firms owned by the wife and mother-in-law of the labor organization's leader. "This is very serious," County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, whose 1990s legislation allowed the union to organize home-care workers here, said of the financial transactions disclosed by The Times.

Linda Vahrenkamp knew her ailing father could no longer live alone, but she lived too far away to care for him. And just when she needed to research nursing homes, her job as a programmer for IBM in Boulder, Colo., required her to run a major business meeting. The 42-year-old Vahrenkamp turned to her employer. Within hours, IBM's Elder Care Referral Service provided the names, costs and other information about adult care facilities near her father's home in the mountains. "They did the legwork.

Not everyone who is old is sick or disabled. Yet a remarkable number of people over the age of 65 have health problems that affect their daily lives. According to recent studies by the American Assn. of Retired Persons and the Senate Special Committee on Aging, nearly 80% of older Americans experience some sort of chronic health problems, raning in severity from hearing impairments to heart disease.

"I had the feeling that all wasn't well with my father," Claire Milne recalled. It was Christmastime in 2003, and Milne had flown from her London home to visit her 82-year-old father in Maryland. Milne noticed that her dad struggled to stay upright as he walked -- early signs of a mysterious neurological condition.

IN America-the-gray, you don't necessarily need a condo in Boca Raton, Fla., or a senior-living community in the California desert to inaugurate your golden years. You could be sitting in your retirement nest right now. At one time, folks typically moved to new cities during their white-hair years, but today's homeowners are squeezing more time out of the family homes where they raised their children. Adapting homes to aging or less able bodies has gone mainstream.