Rehab Select Blog

Have you been told by your healthcare team that you could benefit from outpatient occupational therapy?

This type of therapy is often recommended for people who have seen a decline in functional abilities that makes some daily tasks difficult to manage. So what exactly is occupational therapy and how might it benefit you?

Has your medical team told you that speech therapy could help you? Have they referred you to an outpatient speech therapy provider?

If so, and this will be your first experience with this type of therapy, there's a good chance that you have some questions.

Outpatient therapy services provide you with the tools and techniques you need to enhance recovery from illness, surgery, or another medical event. We assemble a specialized therapy team to provide follow-up care tailored to your specific needs. 

Becoming a caregiver for a parent is a life changing event that often catches adult children off guard and leaves them scrambling to meet the needs of their loved one.

This, of course, can make an already stressful situation much more difficult for everyone involved.

If you need help caring for elderly parents, getting a handle on all the different care options available for obtaining that help can be a confusing experience.

Many organizations, both public and private, offer services that can be of assistance to adult children in obtaining needed care, but knowing where to look for that help is key to making the most of those opportunities.

Dementia is a term used to describe a variety of disorders that are caused by severe changes in the brain, especially areas of the brain related to language, memory, reasoning and decision-making.

These changes cause memory loss, changes in behavior and personality, and difficulty in performing basic day-to-day tasks and activities, among other symptoms.

Dementia is a brain disorder that results in the gradual loss of cognitive functioning, including thinking, memory and reasoning skills, that interferes with a persons daily life and activities.

While dementia is most common among older people, it is not a normal part of aging. Signs and symptoms of dementia begin to appear when nerve cells, called neurons, stop working.

We all lose a certain number of neurons with aging, but people with dementia lose many more than the average person. So what are the telltale signs and symptoms of dementia?

Communication typically becomes progressively more difficult for people who suffer with Alzheimer’s disease. If you are caring for elderly parents who have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, you may notice that they struggle to find the right words as they try to express themselves, ask questions, or answer them.

Alzheimer's disease, while most difficult for the person who has the disease, is very hard on their family as well. It is often referred to as a family disease, due to the affects it has on an Alzheimer’s patient’s loved ones as they witness and manage the long, slow process of decline that is the hallmark of this disease.

If your family is caring for elderly parents or other loved ones affected by the disease, here are some tips on coping with Alzheimer’s in your family.

If you are concerned that an aging parent seem more forgetful than usual or perhaps a bit confused, discussing those concerns with them is important for a number of reasons.

Perhaps the most important of these is that such symptoms should be evaluated by your parent’s healthcare provider as soon as possible.