What Does StuffSeniorsNeed.com do?

Today’s blog post is a guest post from Tony at StuffSeniorsNeed.com, a great site dedicated to helping the elderly along with their caregivers.

So “What does StuffSeniorsNeed.com do?”

The best way to tell that is through my personal story, and while it is a long story I will condense it to be brief and to answer the question above.  It involves my mother’s physical decline, far earlier than I ever would have expected, and the heart attack she took at age 68.

This heart attack, which she did survive, put me in the role of being a very unprepared caregiver.  All of a sudden I needed to become her power of attorney, health care proxy, find all of her financial information to apply for the 5-year look back period for Medicaid, learn how to check out a nursing home to make sure Mom was getting the best care possible, and 100’s of other things that I never foresaw I would have to do this early in life.

Ten years from now, maybe, but not now.

That’s the first thing I do for the readers of my blog as well as for the attendees to the seminars where I speak. Warn them that they need to be prepared now for their role as a caregiver.  It’s going to happen to them sooner than they think.

But as I began my caregiving odyssey, the one thing that truly amazed me were the number of resources available to seniors and their caregivers.  If only they knew where to look for them.

And while you might say, “just call the Office of the Aging” there is so much more to it than that.  And what I saw was that as I compiled more and more information, and became more knowledgeable as to the resources and assistance that was out there, I saw that it was my generation, the caregivers, that really needed the help…even more than their parents in many respects.

They needed a resource to go to for any type of assistance (especially for low-income seniors), such as:

• Where do I find free dental care for my parents?

• Where do I find a free cell phone?

• Is there any way to get a free hearing aid?

• Mom has bills she can’t pay.  Is there any way they can be legally forgiven?

The funny thing is that all of these questions I had to answer for my parents.  This was why I created StuffSeniorsNeed.com, to be a resource not only for seniors but more importantly my generation, their caregivers, so all could lead more rewarding and less stressful lives, while at the same time getting the help they needed.

Since I started the website in March 2012, I have not only helped seniors and caregivers throughout the country find resources such as these, but as a result of the help that I have provided I have been able to speak at several seminars sponsored by local government as well as being featured on the radio program of the Chairman of the Seniors and Veterans Committee of the Suffolk County Legislature, Steve Stern.

And ultimately, I am continuing to learn.  It seems that new resources to help are coming into being all the time, and I consider it my mission to spread the word about these resources to assist as many people as possible.

This is why I am proud to partner with and support NeedyMeds in their work.