The concept of ‘sharing the care’ was not specifically designed with the elderly in mind, yet it’s extremely applicable. The book was written by a couple of women who, among others, were were formed into a group at the suggestion of Dr. Sukie Miller who was treating a patient with a terminal illness. Ultimately it lead to others to ask how they could do it, then a book and ultimately a website.

I think one of the things that appeals to me about this is that when someone has terminal illness, and we’re not a primary caregiver, it’s hard to know how to help…and we often don’t. Share the care makes it easier to know what to do. Sharing the care decreases that chance of burnout and increases the chance that the person in need will get the quality of support they deserve while helping friends and family to know when and how they can help.

While managing the first group, some issues came up regularly and ultimately were turned into seven principles for caregivers.

1. Sharing responsibility is the key to not “burning out.”
2. It won’t work unless everyone gains something personally.
3. Know your limits and stick to them.
4. There’s no one right way to do it.
5. Anyone who wants to help should be encouraged.
6. Trust the group; support each other.
7. Keep your own life in good working order.

Again, the thing that I find particularly appealing about this approach is that it’s a loose and fairly unstructured, organization. The commitment can be low when need be. People can step in to fill the gaps where needed. If someone has to drop out for awhile, they can. The points that go with the first principle do a nice job of illustrating this:

• No one person has to be in charge all the time.
• No one person has to deal with every crisis.
• No one person has to be “on call” every single day.
• No one person has to make all the decisions, all the time.
• No one person has to try to run his own life plus the entire, complex life of his loved one.
• Let the others do their share. They want to. They need to.

If you, or someone you know, is faced with caring for an individual with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson, or another terminal illness, Share the Care.

adonis hunter via flickr

The Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) website provides three tips for senior citizens for filing their taxes.

Standard Deduction – If you and your spouse are 65 years of age or older and you do not itemize your deductions, you can get a higher standard deduction amount.  ”You can get an even higher standard deductions amount if either you or your spouse is blind.  (See Form 1040 and Form 1040A instruction.)”

Taxable Amount of Your Social Security – “When preparing your return, be especially careful when you calculate the taxable amount of your Social Security.  Use the Social Security benefits worksheet found in the instructions for IRS Form 1040 and 1040A.”

Elderly or Disabled Credit – “You must file using Form 1040 or Form 1040A to receive Credit for the Elderly and Disabled.”

Please visit the IRS website for further details on each of these tax tips, for additional information on who is eligible for these tax credits, and how to calculate the credit.

Please also keep in mind that the IRS/AARP provides free tax assistance to Senior Citizens throughout the United States (See February 12, 2009 post by A White).

Tax-Aide offers online assistance, where you can submit a question online, but it might be a good idea to check the Frequently asked questions (FAQ) first.

And something we really like is that you can find one the of the 7,000 local Tax-Aide sites here. We’ve also put a link to it on our State & Local Resources page.

You can also volunteer to the Tax-Aide program. Some positions don’t appear to require prior tax preparation experience. You might even be able to lessen some of your tax-time angst.

Tax-Aide is part of the bigger Internal Revenue Service’s ‘Tax Counseling for the Elderly’ (TCE) program. The TCE Program provides free tax help to people aged 60 and older.  Trained volunteers from non-profit organizations provide free tax counseling and basic income tax return preparation for senior citizens.  Volunteers who provide tax counseling are often retired individuals associated with non-profit organizations that receive grants from the IRS.

If you don’t want to use the Web to find tax help, you can contact the TCE program at 800-829-1040.  To locate the nearest AARP Tax-Aide site by phone, call 888-227-7669.

The National Parkinson Foundation website contains a good number of resources that includes publications, links to related sites and NPF Programs. It’s a great resource, but as we’ve said before, we like our resources local because they’re much more likely to meet our specific needs, and the National Parkinson Foundation doesn’t disappoint. The NPF maintains two pages for finding help in your community.

The ‘Find a Support Group‘ function on the site actually gives a choice of finding an affiliated chapter, a NPF center, or a support group. You can search by country, state, or within a specified number of miles of a U.S. zip code. Try the zip search first.

NPF also offers a search for a physician, using their ‘Decide-PD‘ search. This appears to be a fairly new feature and maybe not as well thought out as the support group search. The most effective approach seems to be to select your state and then find the physician within the resulting list.

Also, while your at it, check our state and local resources page for other regional support.

In practical terms, these state agencies may help on a number of fronts including assistance with housing, legal documents like living wills, Medicare and Medicaid and prescription drug assistance. Each state site has its own unique set of services and information.

The only trouble with the national site is that a good number of the links are no longer pointing to the current state site. For those that weren’t working, we’ve captured the current links below. The national site link is at the bottom.

• California Department of Aging
• District of Columbia Office on Aging
• Florida Department of Elder Affairs
• Georgia Division for Aging Services
• Hawaii Executive Office on Aging
• Indiana Division of Aging
• Kansas Department on Aging
• Kentucky Department for Aging & Independent Living
• Louisiana Governor’s Office of Elderly Affairs
• Michigan Office of Services to the Aging
• Missouri Division of Senior & Disability Services
• New York State Office for the Aging
• Oklahoma Aging Services Division
• South Carolina Department of Health & Human Services
• Texas Department of Aging & Disability Services
• Virginia Department for the Aging
• National Association of State Units on Aging