Alzheimer's Disease
Dementia is a brain disorder that seriously affects a person's ability to carry out daily activities. Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia among older people. It involves the parts of the brain that control thought, memory, and language. Every day scientists learn more, but right now the causes of Alzheimer's disease are still unknown, and there is no cure.
Activities of Daily Living (ADLs)
Activities usually performed for oneself in the course of a normal day including bathing, dressing, grooming, eating, walking, using the telephone, taking medications, and other personal care activities.
Administration on Aging
The Administration on Aging (AoA), an agency in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is the official Federal agency dedicated to policy development, planning and the delivery of supportive home and community-based services to older persons and their caregivers. The AoA administers the Older Americans Act and works through the national aging network of State Units on Aging, Area Agencies on Aging, Tribal and Native organizations representing 300 American Indian and Alaska Native Tribal organizations, and two organizations serving Native Hawaiians, plus thousands of service providers, adult care centers, caregivers, and volunteers.
Adult Day Care
Adult Day Care centers are designed to provide care and companionship for seniors who need assistance or supervision during the day. The program offers relief to family members or caregivers and allows them the freedom to go to work, handle personal business or just relax while knowing their relative is well cared for and safe. The goals of the programs are to delay or prevent institutionalization by providing alternative care, to enhance self-esteem and to encourage socialization.
Advance Directives
Advance directives are legal documents, such as the living will, durable power of attorney and health care proxy, which allow people to state, in writing, their decisions about end-of-life care ahead of time. Advance directives provide a way for patients to communicate their wishes to family, friends, and health care professionals and to avoid confusion later on, should they become unable to do so.
Ideally, the process of discussing and writing advance directives should be ongoing, rather than a single event. Advance directives can be modified as a patient's situation changes. Even after advance directives have been signed, patients can change their minds at any time.
Area Agency on Aging
Under the Older Americans Act, the Administration on Aging distributes funds for various aging programs through state agencies on aging which, in turn, fund local area agencies on aging. Area Agencies on Aging address the concerns of older Americans at the local level. They play an important role in identifying community and social service needs and assuring that social and nutritional supports are made available to older people in communities where they live. In most cases, Area Agencies on Aging do not provide direct services. Instead, they subcontract with other organizations to facilitate the provision of a full range of services for older people.
Assessment
The process of gathering information to rate or evaluate your health and needs.
Assisted Living Facility
A facility that provides both housing and personalized health care in a group setting designed to respond to the individual needs of people who need help with activities of daily living [LINK: “activities of daily living” to the definition on this page.]. The facility provides care for residents who cannot live independently, but who do not require 24 hour nursing care. You’ll find that terminology varies from state to state. Similar facilities in other states might be called a Residential Care Facility (RCF), Board and Care Home, a Domiciliary Care Facility, an Adult Care Home, or a Community-Based Care Facility.
Assistive Technology
Assistive technology is any service or tool that helps the elderly or disabled do the activities they have always done but must now do differently. These tools are also sometimes called “adaptive devices.” Such technology may be something as simple as a walker to make moving around easier, tools to make it easier to hold a spoon, or an amplification device to make sounds easier to hear (for talking on the telephone or watching television, for instance).
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