If You’re Helping to Provide Care for a Loved One, You’re Not Alone
The American Red Cross Family Caregiving Program Can Help

If you’re helping to provide care for a parent, spouse or friend, you know that ensuring a safe environment and providing even the most basic care can be overwhelming. Learn how to provide the best care you can with the Family Caregiving Program from the American Red Cross.

The material covered includes:

• Home Safety
• General Caregiving Skills
• Positioning and Helping Your Loved One Move
• Assisting with Personal Care
• Healthy Eating
• Caring for the Caregiver
• Caring for a Loved One with Alzheimer’s Disease or Dementia
• Learning protection from infectious disease

In this four hour course students will learn basic care giving skills, as well as how to reduce stress and balance the demands of work and home. The course text book is tabbed to allow quick and easy access to critical information, and includes charts for recording vital signs and medications, as well as a tri-fold Emergency Contact Card to keep with a loved one in case of an emergency. In addition, the 2 hour companion DVD will help caregivers master the skills presented by healthcare professionals.

For more information on Family Caregiving Training,
contact Melinda Napolitano at the
American Red Cross
of Central Massachusetts
508-595-3719
or email NapolitanoMe@usa.redcross.org

Are you looking to enhance your skills and/or abilities and meanwhile build upon your resume? Expand your knowledge of the aging and caregiver networks? Develop professional contacts? Be recognized for your involvement and have fun doing all of this?

If you are looking to volunteer your services, our agency, Central Massachusetts Agency on Aging, is the right place for you!

Be a first responder to all incoming calls and visitors. Provide administrative support to the various departments of the Agency, regarding copy jobs, processing in-coming and out-going mail, outgoing faxes and deliver incoming faxes. Research Internet resources and gather information pertinent to Central Massachusetts seniors, their caregivers and aging network professionals. Update in-house database with current information.

If you have any type of administrative or computer background, we would like to talk to you! Make the call now to (508) 852-5539. Or send in your resume to Administrative Coordinator at CMAA, 360 West Boylston Street, West Boylston MA 01583.

Check out the entire job description here: Volunteer Administrative Receptionist

Fill out our application here: Intern Volunteer Application, then print it out and send or bring it in to CMAA.

Did we mention FUN

All meetings are at UMass Memorial Medical Center - University Campus
in the Faculty Conference Room S1-342, where the Dec 1st event was held,
with the exception of the May 13, 2008 event which will be in Amphitheater one.
Signs will be posted at the main entrance with directions.

Contact Dr. Betsy (Elizabeth) Austin at (508) 856-2409 or by email at austine@ummhc.org

Health - Class/Workshop

Medical studies have shown that the crippling disease of osteoporosis can be prevented/delayed through weight bearing exercise and proper nutrition. The Worcester Senior Center is seeking participants age 60 and older for an 18-week Osteoporosis Prevention Exercise program.

Beginning Friday, February 1, 2008 and ending June 6, 2008, this program will be held on Tuesdays, noon to 1 p.m. and Fridays from 10 a.m. to noon (includes one hour with a licensed dietician.) Specialized exercises are taught by a certified Group Exercise Instructor. This program is free to participants and is funded in part by Title III of the Older Americans Act via Central Massachusetts Agency on Aging and the Mass Executive Office of Elder Affairs.

Call 508-799-1892 for information on registration.
Or Email paniaguar@ci.worcester.ma.us

Tuesdays, Fridays, February 1, 2008 - June 6, 2008
10:00 AM-12:00 PM

Worcester Senior Center
128 Providence St.
Worcester, MA 01604

The MA Department of Telecommunications and Cable has issued a notice regarding the upcoming conversion from analog to digital television. Elder consumers are a large audience that may be affected by this change.

At midnight on February 17, 2009, full power broadcast stations will be required to stop broadcasting in analog format. Digital TV will replace the analog system. There are several ways to prepare for this:

• Buy a new TV that has a built-in ATSC tuner.
• Buy a Digital-to-Analog Converter Box.
• Subscribe to a Cable TV or Satellite TV service.

To help curb the cost impact for analog TV owners, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and the U.S. Department of Commerce developed a converter box program to allow analog TV owners to request coupons towards the purchase of a digital-to-analog converter box.

The coupons will be available from January 1, 2008 to March 31, 2009. All households that own a TV using over-the-air analog reception are eligible. Coupons, which will look like plastic gift cards, will be redeemable through local electronic stores.

Households may request two $40 coupons toward the purchase of digital-to-analog converter boxes beginning by calling 888-DTV-2009, (1-888-388-2009) or on-line at www.DTV2009.gov, which also provides answers to frequently asked questions.

Coupons will be forwarded via U.S. mail.

Direct deposit is the best way to get your Social Security and other federal benefit payments. Direct deposit offers:

• One less thing to worry about because it is the safest way for you to receive your money
• An easier and more convenient way to access your money
• More control over your money and your time because it is predictable and dependable

SIGN UP HERE GO DIRECT

The Medicare program has never been more complex. Seniors and disabled people on Medicare need assistance understanding the many and complex options they have available to them. The need for trained individuals to educate and provide unbiased information has never been greater.

Through an intensive training program, SHINE (Serving Health Information Need of Elders) Counselors become certified to explain health insurance options and protect consumers' rights. They work one-on-one with seniors and other Medicare beneficiaries to educate, answer questions, solve problems, and screen for low-income health programs. SHINE Counselors also attend monthly meetings where they receive on-going training, support, and opportunities to share their experiences and concerns with other counselors.

SHINE Counselors are expected to volunteer an average of 4 hours per week meeting with clients and doing necessary follow-up work. They generally counsel in Senior Centers or other public settings that have a private meeting space. Some computer experience is necessary.

SHINE Counselors are bright and dedicated individuals who are truly making a difference in many people’s lives. This is a unique and wonderful volunteer opportunity for the right person. Please consider joining our dedicated team of professionals and volunteers.

The next SHINE training will begin in February and take place two days per week over a five-week period in Natick, Mass. For more information or an application to become a SHINE Counselor, call Ed Roth, Central Region SHINE Director at 508-422-9931.

Bilingual, bicultural and minority individuals are encouraged to apply.

SHINE (Serving the Health Information Needs of Elders) is sponsored by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Elder Affairs in partnership with the Friends of the Milford Senior Center, Massachusetts Councils on Aging and other local agencies.

14 October, 2004
West Boylston, MA

Central Massachusetts Agency on Aging (CMAA) is pleased to announce that Ashdown Technologies, Inc. (www.AshdownTech.com), SeniorConnection.org web manager and host, has offered to temporarily underwrite an expanded Connection for Caregivers. This generous offer came as CMAA was prepared to downsize the website due to lack of funding. According to a statement from Ashdown,

"Ashdown Technologies, Inc. is a web design and hosting company that has been working closely with CMAA since 1998. The Connection for Caregivers website, including it’s interactive components, was developed with personnel from both organizations working hand-in-hand to offer a unique tool that met the needs of caregivers and the people they so courageously support.

Because of the effort and time invested in this project, we were very sad when we learned earlier this year that funding had run out for the site. Knowing the unique benefits of the site and not wanting to see it disappear, we began discussing how we could help. We quickly decided that offering our capabilities at no-charge was the right thing to do. To that end, as of September 1st, Ashdown Technologies began donating the necessary Internet services to keep the Connection for Caregivers website moving forward in its entirety. It is our great pleasure to be able to help CMAA and the community that they serve so well."

The Board and Staff of Central Massachusetts Agency on Aging would like to thank Ashdown Technologies, Inc. for its generous support of this important effort to educate and assist caregivers of elders.

Your help, however, is still needed to keep the Connection for Caregivers going. For more information on how you can help, go to www.SeniorConnection.org, or call Central Massachusetts Agency on Aging at 508-852-5539V/TDD or 1-800-244-3032V/TDD.

Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Executive Office of Elder Affairs
Massachusetts State Plan on Aging, 2006 – 2009

As the lead agency in Massachusetts for the advancement of elders and the programs and services that address this population, Elder Affairs is responsible for developing a State Plan on Aging. The Massachusetts State Plan on Aging (State Plan) is prepared every four years for submission to the Administration on Aging. The Plan addresses Elder Affairs role as the leader relative to aging issues on behalf of all older individuals in Massachusetts. Elder Affairs role as the focal point for developing and managing programs and services for Massachusetts’ elders places the office in a position to address the current service demand as well as the burgeoning call for services that are inevitable as the Baby Boomer generation begins to call for services. Elder Affairs is responsible for executing a wide-range of functions designed to support and assist older persons in leading independent, meaningful and dignified lives in their own homes and communities as long as possible.

To read this plan in its entirety, please click here Massachusetts State Plan on Aging, 2006 – 2009

Seniors and their families with access to the internet can now “send a message” to their elected officials with just a click of the mouse.

Mass Home Care, a statewide network of “Age Info Centers”, has made it easier than ever for seniors to express their opinions. It’s called the “Elder E-Lert” system, and it’s a free way to pass a message along to a State lawmaker or the Governor, and other government officials. Here’s how it works:

1. Go to MASS Home Care
2. Click on the “E-Lert” picture on the right side of the screen.
3. Following the easy 4-step process for sending an email.

Mass Home Care posts “E-lert” advocacy messages from which people can choose. Each message is on an issue facing the elderly community. Messages can be sent “as is”, or edited and tailored to meet the needs of the sender. E-lert provides a list of 215 email addresses for the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, State Representatives and State Senators, appointed state officials, U.S. Senators and Representatives.” A message can be sent to one or more recipients with a single click. Mass Home Care describes the system as “Instant Democracy”

According to Mass Home Care Executive Director Al Norman, “E-lert” was designed to allow seniors to craft their own unique message on important issues like the cost of medicines, the need for home care, and other public policy issues. “Our goal is very simple: to bring more people into the circle of government, and to help people use their First Amendment right to petition government.”