A Glossary of Terms associated with the Elderly.

Area Agency on Aging (AAA): Means a Type B Area Agency on Aging, which is an established public agency with a planning and service area designated under Section 305 of the Older Americans Act, which has responsibility for local administration of division programs. For the purpose of these rules, AAA’s contact with the division to perform specific activities in relation to licensing Assisted Living Facilities including receiving applications; conducting inspections and investigations regarding protective service, abuse and neglect, monitoring, and making recommendations to the Division regarding Assisted Living License approval, denial, revocation, suspension, non-renewal, and civil penalties.

Abuse: Means any act or abuse of action inconsistent with prescribed resident care. This includes but not limited to:

Physical assault such as hitting, kicking, scratching, pinching, choking, or pushing.
Neglect of care, including improper administration of medication(s), failure to seek appropriate medical care, inadequate changing of beds or cloths, and failure to help with personal grooming.

Denying meals, cloths, or aids to physical functioning.

Use of derogatory or inappropriate names, phrases, or profanity; ridicule: harassment coercion; treats; cursing; intimidation; or sexual exploitation.

Placing unreasonable restriction on residents, which violates the Bill of Rights.

Using restraints, except when residents actions present an imminent danger to self or others and only until appropriate action is taken by medical, emergency or police personnel.

Financial Exploitation which includes, but is not limited to, unreasonable rate increases, borrowing from or loaning money to residents, witnessing wills in which the providers is the beneficiary adding providers name to resident bank accounts or other personal property with the approval of family or case manager, inappropriately expending residents personal funds, co-mingling residents funds with the provider or other residents funds, or becoming guardians or conservator.

Activities of Daily Living (ADL): Means those personal functional activities required by an individual for continued well-being including eating/nutrition, dressing, personal hygiene, mobility, toileting and behavioral management. There are three categories a person falls into:

Independent: means then resident can perform the ADL without help.

Assistance: means the resident cannot perform some parts of an activity; it must be some assistance by someone else.

Dependant: means the resident cannot perform any part of an activity; it must be done entirely by someone else.

Aging in Place Means the process by which a person chooses to remain in his/her living environment (home) despite the physical and/or mental decline that may occur, needed services are added, increased or adjusted to compensate for the physical and or mental decline of the individual.

Adult Foster Home Means a family home or facility in which residential care is provided in a home-like environment for five or fewer adults who are not related to the provider by blood or marriage. Adult foster homes have 3 grade levels ranging from level 1 to 3. Level 1 having the least amount of care provided-24 hours. There is onsite assistance – help with bathing, toileting, room cleaning, menu preparation and cooking, oral medication. Level 3 is the maximum amount of care provided in their class range-special diets, injections, treatments, lifting, health monitoring, and requiring the facility to have on duty at all times is a Licensed Practical Nurse or Registered Nurse. When inquiring about an Adult Foster Home, be certain of the care they provide and their licensing to do so. Make sure you're loved one falls within guidelines established by their state of residence.

Advanced Care DirectiveIs a legal and binding instrument which must be witnessed and signed by the senior when they are is sound mind. The document defines the care wishes should he/she become unable to make their desires known at a later date. The directive contains such issues as: Artificial life support, resuscitation, sustenance and other care.

Assisted Living Care Generally consists of an independent studio, or apartment-style lining in a secure building and may provide by contractual agreement, some services such as meals, laundry care, housekeeping, recreation, travel, social stimulus and 24 hour on-site help. Assisted living promoters resident self-direction and participation in decisions that emphasizes choice, dignity, privacy, individuality, independence, and homelike surroundings. (see Residential Care)

Alzheimer's Disease: (pronounced Alz'-hi'merz) is a progressive, degenerative disease that attacks the brain and results in impaired memory, thinking and behavior. The Alzheimer's association has developed a list of warning signs that include common symptoms of Alzheimer's Disease.

1. Memory Loss: One of the most common early signs of dementia is forgetting recently learned information. While it's normal to forget appointments, names, or telephone numbers, those with dementia will forget such things more often and not remember them later.
2. Difficulty Performing Familiar Tasks: People with dementia often find it hard to complete everyday tasks that are so familiar we usually do not think about how to them. A person with Alzheimer's may not know the steps for preparing a meal, using a household appliance, or participating in a life long hobby.
3. Problems with Language: Everyone has trouble finding the right word sometimes, but a person with Alzheimer's disease often forgets simple words or substitutes usual words, making his or her speech or writing hard to understand.
4. Disorientation to Time and Place: it's normal to forget the day of the week or where you're going. But people with Alzheimer's disease can become lost on their own street, forget where they are and hoe they got there, and know how to get back home.
5. Poor or Decreased Judgment: No one has perfect judgment all of the time. Those with Alzheimer's may dress without regard to the weather, wearing several shirts or blouses on a warm day or very little clothing in cold weather.
6. Problems with Abstract Thinking: Balancing a checkbook may be hard when the task is more complicated than usual. Someone with Alzheimer's disease could forget completely what the numbers are and what needs to be done with them.
7. Misplacing Things: Anyone can temporarily misplace a wallet or key. A person with Alzheimer's disease may put things in unusual places: an iron in a freezer, a wristwatch in the sugar bowl, or a sandwich under the sofa.
8. Changes in Mood or Behavior: Everyone can become sad or moody, form time to time. Someone with Alzheimer's disease can show rapid mood swings--from calm to tears to anger--for no apparent reason.
9. Changes in Personality: People's personalities ordinarily change somewhat in age. But a person with Alzheimer's disease can change a lot, becoming extremely
10. Loss of Initiative: It's normal to tire of housework, business activities, or social obligations at times. The person with Alzheimer's disease may become passive, sitting in front of the television for hours, sleeping more than usual, or not wanting to do activities.

Alzheimer's Care Unit Means a special care unit is designated, separated area for patients and residents with Alzheimer's disease or other dementia that is locked, segregated and secured to prevent limit access by a patient or resident outside the designated or segregated area.

Disabled means an individual who has a physical or mental impairment which for the individual constitutes or results in functional limitation to one or more major life activities.

Facility Means a nursing home, residential care facility, assisted living facility or any other like facility required to be licensed by the Senior and Disabled Services Division.

Guardian An individual appointed by the courts who is authorized to make legal and financial decisions for another individual.

Home Health Agency A public or private agency providing coordinated home health services on a home health basis.

Home Health Services Means items or services furnished to an individual by a home health agency, or by others under arrangements such as an agency, on a visiting basis for the purpose of maintaining that individual at home.

Home Medical Supply Company Is a business that provides durable medical supplies such as wheelchairs, hoyer lifts, hospital beds, commodes, and other relative equipment necessary to maintain the security, comfort and safety of an elderly person residing in their own home or that of a facility. Many times, Medicaid or Medicare will pay part or all the costs toward the rental, or purchase, of necessary equipment if the residents doctor has written a prescription order for the item, and it is deemed necessary for the health of the resident. They also provide oxygen and oxygen equipment, incontinent supplies, colostomy and urostomy devices, syringes and other forms of medical supplies or apparatus.

Hospice Programs Means a coordinated program of home and inpatient, available 24 hours a day that utilized an interdisciplinary team of personnel trained to provide palliative and supportive services to a patient-family unit experiencing a life threatening disease with a limited prognosis. Hospice Services Means items and services provided to a patient family unit by a hospice program or by other individuals or community agencies under a consulting or contractual arrangement with a hospice program. Hospice services include acute, respite, home care and bereavement services provided to meet the physical, psychosocial, spiritual, and other special needs of a patient family unit during the final stages of illness, dying and the bereavement period.

Meals on Wheels Is a world-wide concept with organizations everywhere, who provide nutritious meals to people who are homebound and/or disabled, or would otherwise be unable to maintain their dietary needs. Meals on Wheels seeks to provide the best quality of food and nutrition for the least price to its clients.

Medical Transport Company is a business that has vans set up for wheelchairs, and in some instances gurneys that will come to the home, nursing home, or facility and transport a resident to a doctors appointment, physical therapy, or other health related requirements. Drivers are often skilled at lifting and moving the patient, and will either remain with the patient until the appointment is over, or return at a specified time to pick the resident up and return them to their residence.

Nursing Homes are categorized into two groups:

Skilled Nursing Facility. Whether an institution or a distant part of an institution which primarily engaged in providing to inpatient skilled nursing care and related services for patients who require medical or nursing care , or rehabilitation services for the rehabilitation of injured, disabled or sick persons.

Intermediate Care Facility. Which provides, on a regular basis, health related care and services to individuals who do not require the degree of care and treatment which a hospital or skilled nursing facility is designed to provide, but who because of their mental or physical available to them only through institutional facilitate.

Power of Attorney. Is a legal instrument by which a person signs over his/her rights to another to act in his/her behalf in carrying out certain designated duties of buying, selling, paying bills and handling other various tasks. The party who signs over the power of attorney must be in sound mind and completely knowledgeable at the time of the signing. This is revocable by either party, at any time or in the event one of the parties becomes incapacitated.

Residential Care. Means services such as supervision, protection, assistance while bathing, dressing, grooming or eating, management of money, transportation, recreation, and the providing of room and board.

Residential Care Facility. Means a facility that provides, for six or more physically disabled or socially dependent individuals, residential care in on or more contiguous properties.

Retirement Homes. May encompass many, some, or all of the services provided by other homes. The term is a broad one, and is used in the name of many facilities or apartment buildings. Be sure that the home you have chosen is legally licensed to provide the services one needs and is not just room and board, particularly if some type of assistance is essential to the health and welfare of your loved one.

Senior Apartments. Are generally located in a secure building, or on secure grounds in a single building, cottages, or multi-plexis. Most are income subsidized which allows seniors to live in decent safe, sanitary environments on fixed incomes. Seniors live independently with regard to cooking housekeeping, laundry, travel and general activities of daily living. Most have organized apartment associations that provide recreational areas, outings, travel and activities for seniors. It is great alternative to a senior living isolated or alone, as it provides for socialization, mental and physical stimuli, and wards off depression that is common ailment among the elderly.