Walking the Walk to fight Alzheimers.

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2015 Walk to End Alzheimer's - Raleigh/Durham (Triangle), NC

September 19, 2015   Add to calendar

Registration at 9am | Ceremony at 10am | Walk at 10:45am 
Route Length: 2 miles

Durham Bulls Athletic Park   Map it
Raleigh/Durham (Triangle), NC 27701

Our own Leah Woerner,

HR coordinator and caregiver is heading up our team to join many others in the fight to end Alzheimer's Disease. Leah cared for her grandmother in the last stages of this illness and knows first hand the harm it brings to loved ones and their families.  If you would like to support this work, contact her at lwoerner@abc-seniors.com

If you are already attending this event this weekend, please stop by to say hello at the Always Best Care Table, or when you see us on the track. We would love to see you at this great event.

Providing getting-to-know-you care

What do you look for when you need help taking care of your loved one, whether for a short or long time? How you answer that of course, depends on the level of assistance you need. Do you need someone just to stay with Mom or give her medications? Does she need simple reminders or daily assistance with dressing, eating and personal care?

Always Best Care in Raleigh provides solutions to your care needs starting with two, always-in-place approaches. First, we help you assess the needs of your loved one by sending a well-qualified medical professional to ask questions and observe your loved one. She will make accurate and compassionate recommendations based on her years of knowledge and your budget and time contributions.

Denise knows her clients and knows their needs.   

Secondly we will provide a care-giver who not only knows how to help, they will be the person who wants to help. Denise exemplifies this essential quality.

When you first meet Denise, you will first notice her quick and friendly smile.  Her clients soon notice her patient and kind attentiveness to their needs. One client commented; “Once she knows my needs, she remembers.”  “I like working with people” Denise says, “I like getting to know them.”

This "getting to know" quality is what everyone who needs help desires. It brings comfort in a time of difficulty and often inspires hope when tempted to despair. Our core mission is to provide that kind of caring.

Denise is native to North Carolina. She’s a proud mother of her four children. She enjoys her pet Chihuahua named Missy who is just a tad protective. “She’s the one that takes care of me,” she says laughing. “She helps me unwind.” Always Best Care in Raleigh is proud of the special care Denise brings to everyone she serves.

Fall Colors

What has Fall colors got to do with seniors or senior care you ask? Plenty!

We all need something to look forward to, and Fall colors are something a lot of us including seniors look forward to every year, for the beauty of it, and what it implies among other things (holidays are coming up, and so we will get to see and be with family again soon).

It's also a time to start slowing down a bit after hectic and hot summer activity.

Nature works in cycles. And just like all living things in nature, our bodies need rest too. Winter is a period of slowdown/inactivity that helps our bodies rest, recuperate and regenerate, so that we can do it all over again next year. Ask the trees that shed their leaves in Fall. Those who don't heed this cycle may fall sick (forcing them to slow down and recuperate).

Fall is a transition time for the body to start that process (Spring is the opposite: it's the time to start gearing up for the most active time of the year). As we get older the more in tune with nature we are, the better it is for our well being (when we are younger our bodies bounce back tremendously quickly, but not so as we age).

Enough said; here are some pictures to celebrate Fall, and not just on trees...

The art of breath (healthy breathing strategies) - the deep breath

How you breathe is vitally important to your wellbeing. It becomes even more important as you age or when you are under stress. Why? Breathing is how you get vital oxygen into your body and cells, while exhaling "polluted" or "used-up" air. You can use various breathing techniques to enhance your energy, calm down, and prevent the onset of colds and coughs, especially as we transition from summer to fall and winter.

Here is a deep breathing technique. Use it to calm down and become present, thus gaining more while doing less (as opposed to constant multi-tasking).

Become aware

• Sit comfortably; take off any belts
• Become aware of how you are breathing; don't change anything, just become aware of your body breathing, sensing which parts of your body are involved – maybe the chest, maybe the belly/stomach, your nose, mouth, etc.
• Take a deep breath in; however way you normally take deep breaths
• Let the breath out slowly
• Take 2 more breaths this way
• Sense how you are already calmer than you were when you started this exercise

Deep breath

• When you are ready, start a breath by focusing on and filling your belly/stomach first
• When your belly is full, continue the breath into your chest/lung/heart region
• And finally when that region is full take the last bit of air into the area under the shoulders
• These are not separate breaths or steps, just one continuous flow of breath filling 3 different areas of your body
• Let the breath out slowly
• See which feels more comfortable - exhaling through your mouth or nose; at least initially do whichever feels more comfortable; be kind to your body
• Take 3-5 of these deep breaths, then relax your breath
• If your eyes feel like closing at any time, let them; closing your eyes will deepen your focus, meaning your breath; but do whatever feels comfortable
• How do you feel? Is there a sense of peace and calm inside and around you? Enjoy whatever sensation comes up

Practice

• Tony Robbins, the Master personal and business coach says practice makes perfect
• Use this deep breathing mechanism say twice a day, just a few breaths at a time
• It will take time to help the breath flow freely both when inhaling and exhaling; take your time, do as your body allows, being kind to yourself

Carillon Knightdale ROMEO (Retired Men Eating Out)

It was such a pleasure to be with some wonderful retired seniors at Carillon Knightdale today for their ROMEO activity.

Alice S (Carillon's Activities Director) who grew up in Rocky Mount, NC and has lived in the Knightdale/Wendell area for the past 30 years took some of her retired residents on a joy ride around the area today. She is an amazing lady, helping all the residents with their needs, making sure they were okay and keeping them engaged, while also deftly maneuvering the "bus" along some beautiful farm roads.

We drove by a couple of lush green tobacco patches, a corn field, some horse farms, an old store called the Corner Grocery that has been running for four generations now, an old Church not used anymore but built in the 1800s, some cows, and just to add to the fun a few donkeys. One of the residents Mr R. who grew up on a farm in a nearby town, grew tobacco himself along with raising chicken, and everything you can think of. He recounted an experience from 1924 when he went with his Dad to Raleigh and saw buggies on dirt roads; there was very little pavement then, all dirt roads and people traveled on horse carriages and the like.

Tobacco patch

Corn field

Corner Grocery - 4 generations and counting!

Even in those days, they were worried about more people moving in; the population then was 28,000. As a contrast, Wake county is predicted to hit 1 million residents this Friday. I just read in the WALTER magazine how the Capital Area Greenway was designed when the population was 100,000 and they were concerned about the predicted growth to 177,000.

Alice told us how she met someone who was at the burial of Thomas Edison, the famous inventor! I happened to meet someone myself today who is 100 years old, and so very independent.

It is such a blessing to be with our seniors who have been through so much change, and have so much history to share if anyone wants to listen. Here's wishing that a few of our generation (and beyond) will document at least some of this wealth of history.