x10 Home Automation - Control Lights, Irrigation, Appliances

Easter Seals' Northern Ohio Homecare Allows Senior to Forego Nursing Home Stay

(PRWEB) May 27, 2008 -- Lifelong Lorain resident Jody Garcia counted the days until her surgeon would reverse her colostomy in 2006. What she didn't want, though, was the expected nursing home stay to recuperate following the surgery.

Thanks to Easter Seals Northern Ohio's Home Care Services (http://noh.easterseals.com/site/PageServer?pagename=OHNE_home_care) program, Garcia got her wish. "My doctor said because I had Easter Seals I could go home and wouldn't have to go to a nursing home," she says. "That made me even happier."

Just six months earlier, Garcia didn't even know the role Easter Seals would play in her life. On March 14, 2006, she had an emergency colostomy then picked up a hard-to-fight staph infection at the hospital and ended up in a nursing home to recuperate. "I was devastated, devastated," she says. "I wasn't eating. The antibiotics were making me sick. I was depressed."

While in the nursing home, she learned about Easter Seals Home Care Services through PASSPORT, a program of Western Reserve Area Agency on Aging that provides long-term care options to help seniors remain in their own homes and retain their independence. Garcia was put on the waiting list for Easter Seals' assistance.

Easter Seals Home Care Services provide short- and long-term care that allows people to remain secure and comfortable in their own homes. Supervised by a case manager, aides help clients meet basic personal care needs such as bathing, shampooing, dressing, light housekeeping, meal preparation, laundry, as well as respite care for families caring for individual with special needs.

Garcia's niece, Carol Armbruster, an Easter Seals Home Health Aid, helped her that first month home. At first, the assistance was provided Monday through Friday. After Garcia gained more strength and ability, the assistance was reduced to three days a week. Now, Easter Seals' Elizabeth Hitchens assists Garcia two days a week.

She helps Garcia improve her range of motion, put on her hose to help circulation and does what Garcia calls "heavy lifting," including sweeping and mopping. Hitchens also goes once a week on errands, picking up bread and milk among other things.

Although she has been experiencing some health issues lately, Garcia remains active--her wall calendar sits on her dining room table, filled with her appointments and activities. Her phone rings frequently as her children call to check up on her.

The cozy apartment in the Lorain senior complex has been her home for six years and Garcia has filled it with photos and keepsakes from her life as a single mom of three, grandma to six and great-grandma of one. A woman who spent 30-plus years as a pre-school teacher with Head Start, Garcia is glad to have her home and the assistance of Easter Seals.

"It's been such a great help. I have been so grateful," Garcia says, pausing to think how best to describe what Easter Seals has meant to her.

She finally speaks, "There aren't words."

About Easter Seals Northern Ohio

Easter Seals Northern Ohio's commitment to help children and adults with disabilities live with equality, dignity and independence is carried out through programs in four service areas: Medical Services, Home and Community Based Services, Educational Services and Recreational Services. Specifically, Easter Seals Northern Ohio specializes in speech therapy services for children, as well as a number of senior and home-healthcare programs in Northern Ohio, including Cleveland, Lorain, Akron, Canton, Fremont, Sandusky, Toledo and more. For more information, go to http://noh.easterseals.com/.

###

MORE ARTICLES:

2005 Pontiac Vibe Review
Pontiac Vibe -- Review: Let's say that like so many residents of the United States, your heart tells you to buy an American car to support both your country and your neighbors, but your head tells you to buy a Japanese car for long-term reliability and proven resale value.

I have a Low Income, How Can I Start My Own Home Base Online Business?
If you meet prospects that have a problem with their monthly income, and it will take them a long time to consider joining your online business, here is the tips for you:1. Let them know that to get the initial investment for internet marketing is from their SAVING, not from their monthly INCOME.

Software Best Practices Conference to be Held in Olympia, WA on May 6, 2008
CAI's IT Metrics and Productivity Institute is hosting a one-day seminar in Olympia, WA that will show CIOs and IT Directors how to leverage software best practices to dramatically improve the productivity and quality of their software development and maintenance organizations.

First Home Loans: Three Easy Steps to Securing Your First Home
There is truly no place like home A place to call your own, invite friends over, and just feel that you?ve finally made it

The Process You Go Through To Buy A Home
Buying a home can be a stressful event Well, that is an understatement

Blogs And Your Work From Home Internet Business
As a work from home internet business entrepreneur you have several really good tools on the internet you can take advantage of in order to build your work from home business. A blog is just one of those tools that you can use and should be taking advantage of.

'The PJ Library' Jewish Identity Initiative, Inspired by Dolly Parton Children's Book Gifting Program, Gets $2.5 Million Grant from Gri
A $2.5 Grant from Grinspoon Foundation will enable The PJ Library to expand its reach to 10,000 children by 2008. The highly successful family Jewish identity-building initiative modeled itself after Dolly Parton's Imagination Library children's book gifting program. Philanthropist Harold Grinspoon brought the Imagination Library to Western Massachusetts, then was inspired to adapt the concept to the Jewish Community, to build Jewish identity in young intermarried and unaffiliated Jewish families. The PJ Library mails a year's worth of free-of-charge, brand new, age-appropriate Jewish children's books and music CDs to more than 5,300 children ages six months to six years, operating in over 35 cities and towns nationwid...

LivingOrder® Launches Innovative 'Clutter Diet' Online Home Organizing Program
LivingOrder, Inc., an Austin-based company of Professional Organizers, announces the official launch of its revolutionary web-based program, "The Clutter Diet," designed to help the average American family get organized with its unique online services. Since hiring a Professional Organizer has typically been more of a luxury service, this program will allow many people who formerly could not afford an organizer to get the help they need. Since both getting organized and losing weight are essentially about making personal change, the Clutter Diet has utilized the concepts of successful weight loss programs to help people reduce clutter and gain control of their living spaces.

Contemporary Pendant Lighting For Your Home
The right lighting accents can create the perfect ambiance to any room, on any budget, for any style. These are so unique and specific that professional decorators always start with lighting in order to bring out the attributes in a room and to draw a room together. Using the right kind can add a sense of joy and peace to a room. Obviously, darker rooms fair well with brighter rooms work well together. In general these can often be overlooked by amateurs and a floor lamp might be added as a last minute thought to the importance of lighting. If you are starting to decorate a room. If you are looking to accent an already decorated room, your task may be a bit harder.

Making Sense of Social Media for Marketing: VillageWorks Offers Easy Methods to Help Marketers Use New Media Effectively
Growing naturally from their Web site design and development work, VillageWorks is now offering businesses of all sizes new media marketing opportunities with their affordable, strategic packages and custom projects. VillageWorks works with clients to define the effective and appropriate tools to use, including both social media and more mainstream online marketing tools like Web sites, e-books, whitepapers, microsites, email newsletters and more, and helps them develop, implement and evaluate appropriate campaigns.

The Key to a Terrific Home
Whether it?s the start of a new phase in your life or your simply looking to start over, building a dream home takes a lot of work and sure is a terrible burden to bear. Even if it is a labor of love to make that house you?ve always wanted, one detail out of place, one measurement gone wrong, might just cause you nothing but migraines. Lets face it, as romantic and old-fashioned as it may be to build with your own hands; it still pays to have the professionals get things done. Need I say more? Okay.

NDS Launches Unprecedented $1 ERP Software Site License
NDS Systems sets new pricing structure to help enterprising channel partners offer the same ERP functionality to small- and medium-sized businesses as is critical to larger businesses.

A Review of the Going Platinum Income Opportunity
The internet is a large place, and there are many people who wish it were a great deal smaller, at least when it comes to getting basic functions like web service, mail and general browsing met There have been many so-called internet malls out there, sites that would, for a small price, offer to take a lot of the complexity out of the internet while retaining its great usability

Winchester Mystery House
The Winchester Mystery House was once the personal residence of Sarah Winchester, the widow of gun magnate William Winchester. She commissioned the house to be built in 1884, and construction continued under her guidance for the next 38 years, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and 365 days a year until her death in 1922. The mansion is now opened as a tourist attraction in San Jose, California, and draws thousands each year to explore the most unusual architecture. What draws people to this mansion is the bizarre phenomenon in its construction. Legend has it that Sarah visited a psychic after the deaths of her husband and daughter; the psychic convinced her that her family was cursed due to the deaths from the Winchester Rifle; the only wa...

Homeless to Harvard - DVD Review (2003)
Thora Birch stars as Liz Murray in this inspiring drama about a teenage girl forced to survive on the streets, after her parents lose their struggle against their drug addition. Living day to day, finding food in dumpsters, Liz finds living on her own, a freedom to be able to make a better life for herself and go on to graduate from Harvard University.