Pennsylvania - South Central

You are what you eat. This familiar phrase reminds us that eating healthy foods will keep you fit. While we know that eating well can help with heart disease or other illnesses, experts agree that food choices may also help with brain function and cognitive ability.   Get your greens and blues Harvard Health Publishing at health.harvard.edu has an article devoted to five specific foods that may be some of the best choices for brain health. Incidentally, these foods are also on the lists for people who want to follow a healthy heart and blood vessel diet. They include:   Green leafy vegetables  The nutrients in foods such as broccoli and kale have been suggested by research to slow cognitive decline.   Fatty fish According to the article, salmon, cod and canned tuna all carry healthy omega-3 fatty acids which have been linked to lower blood levels of beta-amyloidthe protein that forms damaging clumps in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease.  Blueberries and strawberries The article states: A study done by researchers at Harvard's Brigham and Women's Hospital found that women who consumed two or more servings of strawberries and blueberries each week delayed memory decline by up to two-and-a-half years.  Caffeinated tea and coffee While it gives you your morning (or afternoon) boost, research shows these beverages may help with mental function and memory retrieval.  Walnuts A power punch of protein and healthy fats, walnuts have been linked to improved cognitive test scores in research studies.  For more information on healthy brain foods, read our article here!  Peanut butter, anyone? According to an article on consumeraffairs.com, a study showed that peanuts or peanut butter may affect cognitive function.   The article writer, Kristin Dalli, explains: At the end of two years of gathering information from participants, those who were regularly eating nuts had stronger cognitive health outcomes, without any other changes to health or wellness. Participants who were eating at least three servings of peanut butter per week showed better cognitive function, including slower decline, than those who were eating peanuts or peanut butter less than once a week. To learn more about foods that can help with cognitive health, read WayForth's blog here! 

You have probably seen advertisements for senior care referral services promising to find the best retirement community care for you or a loved one at no cost to you. Some of these services even utilize paid celebrity spokespersons to pitch their senior living placement services. However, these services do have a high cost in the form of missed opportunities. It is important for you to understand how these retirement community referral services such as A Place for Mom, Caring.com and SeniorAdvisor work.Some retirement communities pay to playMany retirement community referral services tout their services as free to the consumer, implying the assistance they provide is done as part of a not-for-profit model. This couldnt be further from the case. These retirement community referral services require senior living providers to pay high fees for inclusion on the services list of preferred communities. Many consumers assume, incorrectly, that a services preferred communities are evaluated or rated based on the quality of care provided. Unfortunately, the only reason a senior living facility earns this preferred status is simply that the retirement community has opted to pay a fee. A high fee. If a free service recommends a particular retirement community to you, be sure to do your own research to confirm it truly is the right fit for you or your loved one.Retirement community advisors paid by commissionMany retirement community referral services employ advisors who assist consumers by calling a toll-free phone number seeking help and advice in finding senior care.  According to one referral services website, The advisor will conduct an assessment to gather information on you or your loved ones lifestyle, care needs and budget. The website omits an important piece of information: Advisors are often paid commissions when a caller moves into a recommended retirement community. This encourages advisors to recommend more expensive locations as the cost paid by participating retirement communities is typically one months rent, which may be equivalent to several thousand dollars.It is important to know the qualifications of the person advising you in such an important life decision. Ask the advisor about his/her professional qualifications to truly understand you or your loved ones needs and why he/she recommends a particular retirement community. If the advisor cannot list specific qualifications, you are most likely interacting with a subcontractor whose top concern may not be in your best interest. In fact, these individuals may do more harm than good since the senior living facility suggested might not always be based on your or your loved ones needs, rather driven by the prospective commission fee to be earned. Find out for yourself and ask the advisor how he/she is paid and ask for the individuals qualifications to make recommendations.Quality care in each featured retirement community is not guaranteedWhile the retirement community referral service advisor may seem to care deeply about your personal situation, it is critical to know that this person is doing his/her job. Once the advisor makes retirement community recommendations, arranges tours and assists you in making your final decision, this is where the relationship ends. Most times a free service will not monitor the care received by you or your loved one at the senior living facility. You can take things a step further by asking your advisor if the retirement community referral service carries liability insurance. If he/she asks you to sign a document stating that the retirement community referral service is not liable for the quality of care received at the recommended location, DO NOT use the service.Honesty is more than not lyingWhile conducting research for this article, we called a retirement community referral service for a first-hand experience. When inquiring specifically about a Country Meadows Retirement Communities location, the advisor said, You dont want to go there. They are too expensive. In truth, the three retirement communities the advisor recommended cost more or were the same monthly cost as Country Meadows.

In 2020, COVID-19 changed our lives and how we view vaccines. Today, more Americans have received their initial vaccines and are following up with regularly scheduled booster shots than ever before. But COVID vaccines arent the only type you should be considering this fall. Flu VaccinesEvery year, more than 10% of Americans catch the flu. Each flu season is different, and each flu strain can affect people differently. Thats why its important to get the vaccine each year to protect yourself and loved ones from illness. The flu vaccine has been shown to have many benefits including reduced risk of illness, hospitalization, and even flu-related death. In 2019-2020 alone,  the flu vaccine prevented an estimated 7.5 million flu illnesses and an estimated 105,000 flu-related hospitalizations.Pneumonia ShotsSeniors should also consider receiving a Pneumonia shot. In the US, more than 250,000 individuals are hospitalized annually for pneumonia, and approximately 50,000 of those hospitalizations result in death. Adults aged 65 years or older are at a higher risk of catching bacterial pneumonia, as well as people with certain conditions including diabetes and chronic heart diseases. Pneumonia vaccines are shown to be highly effective at protecting against and reducing symptoms of the disease.ShinglesAnother vaccination that may go overlooked by seniors is the Shingles vaccine.  Shingles is a painful rash caused by the same virus that may have affected people as a child--the chicken pox. The CDC recommends that adults aged 50 and older receive two doses of the vaccine to prevent occurrence of the disease.  In fact, the vaccines have been shown to be up to 97% effective in adults aged 50 to 69 and 91% effective in seniors over 70.Vaccinations help protect us from harmful diseases while lessening the impact of symptoms.  They also aid in recovery time.  Depending upon your insurance coverage they may even be low cost or no-cost to you.  With many pharmacies and grocery stores offering them regularly theyre easy to get. So, whats holding you back?  Talk to your pharmacist or other healthcare professional today about getting vaccinated. Editors Note: This article was written by Jay Pagni. Jay is the Vice President of Legislative and Government Affairs with PA Health & Wellness

We recently received a distressed call from a husband that we represented about a year ago on a long-term Medicaid application for his wife who was a local nursing facility resident. We had done an asset protection plan for the husband, preserving approximately $300,000 more than he had expected, plus the house, the couples car, and his retirement account. He was tickled pink about the result that we received. Unfortunately, his wife recently died, and he received a letter in the mail, coming into my office extremely upset. The letter was from the Estate Recovery Department office in Harrisburg, requesting information about the deceased, including the cause of death, how much money she had, and how the assets were titled. The husband had made comments throughout the original planning process that it all seemed too good to be true. He was extremely pleased but remained cautious. When he entered my office with the letter in hand, he commented, See, I knew it. Were in big trouble. I looked at him and asked why he felt that way. I reviewed the form and explained that it was nothing more than an information/fact gathering sheet and did not mean that the answers should be interpreted as negative. Estate recovery in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania only pursues the probate estate of a Medicaid recipient if their assets are over $2400. In a situation where we qualify someone for Medicaid, we make sure there is no more than $2400 in assets for the client so that we know the individual is always below the amount the Commonwealth will go after in estate recovery. Furthermore, we always make sure that the couples house is in the community spouses name alone so that there is no situation wherein if the spouse predeceases the Medicaid recipient, the house ends up back in their name and at risk for estate recovery. It sounds complicated, but for a firm that understands the rules, our team makes sure that everything is done appropriatelythat all the is are dotted, and all the ts are crossed. I assisted the gentleman with the form, which he submitted that afternoon. He couldnt thank us enough for our advice and assistance.One comment that I would like to make is that when you are working with a professional, please do not talk to outside people who are not involved in the situation. This even means other professionals, because it is very difficult to understand everything that is going on unless you are involved in it. Oftentimes, people think that theyre helping by providing advice, but because they dont know the context, sometimes they mislead an individual and it causes a lot of stress. In this case, the gentleman had received bad advice from a friend, but once we were able to clear it up and explain to him why there was nothing that they could go after, everything was taken care of, and all was right in the world. If done properly, estate recovery is never an issue and only becomes a problem when people do not know how to properly plan.Please give us a call at 717-844-9639 and well set you up with a free consultation or register for a free workshop by clicking here.