Sometimes it seems as if senior care has its own language. It is enough to make your head spin! Here is a list of helpful terms commonly used in senior care and their definitions from myageingparent.com that can help you decipher what some of these words mean.
- Advanced Directive: A legal statement regarding future medical treatments if the individual should lose the ability to express themselves. It can also be called a “living will.”
- Alzheimer’s: Alzheimer’s is a degenerative disease which causes a loss of memory, behavioral changes, and/or a decreased ability in thinking and language skills.
- Arthritis: Arthritis can be caused by many different things, such as trauma or infection. It is the inflammation of a joint which can cause pain, swelling, or stiffness.
- Assisting Technology: Assisting technology may refer to any type of device which is used to assist people with a disability.
- Care Assessments: This is an assessment carried out to examine yours or your loved one’s specific needs in order to provide the most beneficial and necessary services.
- Continuing Care: Continuing care retirement communities, such as Tealridge, offer residents many different levels of care for each stage of life according to what the resident’s needs are. Tealridge offers independent living, assisted living, long-term care, and skilled nursing care.
- Dementia: Dementia is characterized by several different symptoms and varying between the types of dementia. Some common symptoms include changes in mood, increased confusion and memory loss.
- Macular Degeneration: Macular degeneration is a the deterioration of a part of the retina in the eye. Changes in vision are symptomatic of macular degeneration.
- Palliative Care: Palliative care is appropriate for people in all different stages of their diagnosis, whether under treatment or living with a chronic disease or nearing the end of their life. Palliative care focuses on relieving or preventing suffering for the patient.
- Power of Attorney: Power of attorney allows for someone who is aging to pass on their responsibilities to someone else when they can no longer do so themselves, i.e. if they develop an illness which impairs the ability to make decisions.
- Stroke: a stroke happens when the blood supply to a certain part of the brain is cut off and the cells are therefore damaged.
- Wills: A will provides direction for the administration of your estate when an individual passes away. It can ensure that those who you believe should benefit from your estate will receive it.
We hope that this list of terms provides you with some clarity when it comes to the specific language regarding senior care. As always, Tealridge Assisted Living and Memory Care staff is ready and willing to help you in determining the best choice for retirement living. Contact us here.
