Caring for someone with Alzheimer’s

The following is from Beth Kallmyer, Vice President, Constituent Services Alzheimer’s Association

Caring for someone with Alzheimer’s disease can be lonely and overwhelming. To help, the Alzheimer’s Association created ALZConnected, the first dedicated online social networking community where people with Alzheimer’s, their caregivers and others affected by the disease can share answers, opinions, ideas and support.

ALZConnected launched last year thanks to the generosity of our donors. This free site, designed especially for the Alzheimer’s community, offers a safe place for people to connect with others in similar situations 24 hours a day, 365 days a year through:

Message boards where members can pose questions and offer advice to one another.

Community solutions that include both public and private groups focused on topics of shared experience.

Personal inboxes that let members communicate one-on-one by sending secure, private messages.

If you or someone you know is impacted by the disease, I encourage you to explore ALZConnected. This extremely helpful resource is offered exclusively by the Alzheimer’s Association.

Shifting sands of retirement planning

Defined-contribution pension investments are managed by each individual plan member and are quickly replacing Defined Benefit Plans. This is going to be a major problem for our Country as it is for other countries around the world. In a report by the Financial Post in May the writer talked about the lack of preparation for retirement that will hurt us in the long run.

Despite heightened awareness and attention of the financial markets and the impact they could have on retirement nest eggs, Canadians remain predominantly indifferent toward their pension investments.

A BMO Retirement Institute study found 48% of women and 38% of men have no financial plan or investments.

Statistics Canada’s most numbers, show an estimated one million Canadians (6% of the workforce) are currently registered in a defined-contribution pension plan. Yet, few are actively managing their assets

Idan Shlesinger, managing partner of defined-contribution Pensions and Savings Plans at insurance consultancy firm Morneau Shepell, says most defined-contribution plan members mistakenly believe they need not worry about their retirement because they have a pension. “The impact of DC pensions hasn’t entirely been felt yet; the concern is that when it happens there will be a great deal of disappointment out there,” says Mr. Shlesinger

In England less than half of pension savers, just 46%, are putting aside enough for their retirement -- a number that's five percentage points down on last year, and a fall of eight percentage points from 2009.

To cut a long story short, it turns out that one in six pension savers has stopped making monthly pension contributions since the recession started in 2008. Keeping the wolf from the door today, in short, has taken priority over keeping the wolf from the door in retirement.

According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), over a million of people in Britain have suspended monthly pension contributions, with pension contributions falling from £20.9 billion in 2008 to £18.7 billion in 2010 -- a fall of just over 10%. 

There are no reports that I could find about how many Canadians have reduced or stopped payments into their RRSP programs since the recession, perhaps there are studies done, so if you know of one, could you please post the link here for us.

Fall is for playing

My daughter posted a short video of my grandson playing in the leaves that had been raked into a pile. He sat in the middle of the leaves, then started to examine them and throw them into the air. He laughed with delight as the leaves fell on him. 

Mom and Dad were calling his name to get him to look into the camera, but he was too absorbed in the colours, textures and rhythm of the leaves floating to the ground. Each time they landed he threw them up again, laughing.

Fall is a wonderful, and watching Ryder play reminded me of why I love the fall.

Where to live after retirement

"I am a good wife?" she asked, and I nodded in agreement. We had been discussing retirement options that her and her husband had been considering. 

His dream was to live in Central BC, in the lakes and beautiful, but isolated area--isolated meaning a small population not near a major city. She was not quite ready to retire but thought that they could buy a place while retaining their place in the lower mainland. 

The bank had approved the increase in the line of credit so they could afford to buy the property. He was quite happy with the decision, she was not sure.

After our conversation, I thought about the answer I had given, and realized that although I had given an answer she expected I had given an easy answer to a complex question. What was important was the question, why did she feel a need to ask it, what dynamic was at play, I should have asked more questions rather than nod and move on in the conversation.

Relationships are difficult and require give and take on both sides. Like most men, I think her husband had talked to her about the idea of moving and how it was his dream, and I think rather than really listening to her concerns, which she had raised, he had only heard her agreement with the idea that it was a good dream.

It was however a dream that she really did not share--at this time--so more discussion has to take place and she has to be more assertive in her position, and he has to listen to her concerns and put his dream against the reality of what she wants. After that discussion maybe they will still move away, or maybe they will find a compromise. My hope is they find a compromise.

Two cups of coffee a day cuts overall risk of dying

I love my coffee, so I was excited about the following article that shows that drinking coffee in moderation may help you live longer.

As I read the article, I wondered if two cups of coffee cut your risk of dying by 10% would twenty cups of coffee a day cut your risk by 100%. But no such luck, the research shows that drinking coffee in moderation is best and that coffee is only one factor in longevity.

Starbucks and Tim Hortons could use this as a way of getting more seniors into their coffee shops. (Slogan suggestion: Drink Coffee--live longer or some variation on this theme, I am sure there are brighter, copy writers out there that could come up with some very fancy lines)

Two cups of coffee a day cuts overall risk of dying by 10 percent, research shows

By  CBS News Staff  published May 17, 2012 11:24 AM

(CBS/AP)  How good is coffee for your health? For years, research has gone both ways, with some studies finding it boosts risk for heart disease, while other studies find it could be protective against breast and skin cancers.

A large-scale study of 400,000 people offers good news for coffee-drinkers: you might just live longer.

The study is the largest ever done on the issue, and the results should reassure any coffee lovers who think it's a guilty pleasure that may do harm. And whether it's regular or decaf doesn't even matter.

"There may actually be a modest benefit of coffee drinking," said lead researcher Neal Freedman of the National Cancer Institute.

The study, published online in the May 16 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, kicked off in 1995 and involved 402,260 AARP members ages 50 to 71 who lived in California, Florida, Louisiana, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Atlanta and Detroit. People who already had heart disease, stroke or cancer weren't included in the study, nor were extreme eaters who ate too many or too few calories per day. The rest gave information on coffee drinking once, at the start of the study.

"People are fairly consistent in their coffee drinking over their lifetime," so the single measure shouldn't be a study limitation, Freedman said.

Of the participants, about 42,000 drank no coffee. Most people had two or three cups each day, and about 15,000 reported drinking six cups or more a day.

By 2008, about 52,000 of the participants had died. Compared to those who drank no coffee, men who had two or three cups a day were 10 percent less likely to die at any age. For women, it was 13 percent. Even a single cup a day seemed to lower risk by 6 percent in men and 5 percent in women.

The strongest effect seen in the study was in women who had four or five cups a day - an impressive 16 percent lower risk of death. In general, coffee drinkers were less likely to die from heart or respiratory disease, stroke, diabetes, injuries, accidents or infections. No effect was seen on cancer death risk. None of the risk reductions were big numbers though, and Freedman can't say how much extra life coffee might buy.

"I really can't calculate that," especially because smoking is a key factor that affects longevity at every age, he said
For more on this research go here