Life Happens

Less Intrusive Safety Measures in Senior Care: "we have motion detectors inside our, all our rooms because it's less intrusive for the resident. In other words, if they make a move, you know, and they're moving around, our staff knows it, but no alarms and things are going off." Scott Wright- Sycamore Creek Ranch Memory CareTitle: From Caregiver to Changemaker: One Son’s Mission to Redesign Memory...

AI Voice Cloning Scams: "So AI can now regenerate your voice. So even when you get those phone calls, and they tell you to say, is your name XYZ? And then you say yes, no, maybe, or my name is. Now they can take those little sound bits and put them into software and regenerate it."Title: AI Scams Targeting Seniors: What Families Need to Know NowWelcome to another episode of Life Happens with Kim H...

Relieve Your Loved Ones of Stress: Pre-planning a funeral helps alleviate emotional and financial burdens when the time comes, ensuring your wishes are honored and your family isn’t left making difficult decisions during a time of grief. Title: Planning Ahead: How Funeral Pre-Planning and Estate Planning Work TogetherOn this episode of "Life Happens with Kim Hegwood," Kim Hegwood sits down with sp...

"Never contradict their reality... It's kind of almost being a little bit of a snob to say your reality is the right one and theirs is the wrong one, because they're both subjective perspectives of reality."Eliezer Sobel- AuthorTitle: Stories of Care and Creativity: Eliezer Sobel on Family, Memory, and MeaningWelcome to Life Happens with Kim Hegwood, where Texans come to protect their legacy and p...

Free Support Services for Parkinson's"But HAPS offers, you know, everything for free, all of our services and programs and education support groups." ~ Dr. Maggie Abbott, PT, DPTTitle: Movement, Community, and Hope: Parkinson’s Care with Maggie AbbottWelcome to another episode of Life Happens with Kim Hegwood, where we explore the journey of protecting legacies and preparing for the second half of...

New Medicare Authorization Rules" It will only affect people with only Parts A and B, and people who have a Medigap, or also what's known as a supplement. Typically, in the past, when you had that plan, authorizations were just not part of it. Authorization means my doctor ordered one of the 17 items on the list, and normally, you would have just been able to say, great, I need a certain kind of w...

The Battle Over Medical Information Access"When POAs and your rights to information get questioned in the healthcare system, our tool has already taken that information out and allowed families that choice of inviting folks in."~Jean RossTitle: An App with One Place to Access All of Your Healthcare InformationWelcome to another insightful episode of Life Happens with Kim Hegwood! In today’s episod...

People have planned for their retirement, right? So after they retire, what they're going to do, they have planned for their funeral, and they forgot that middle part where they are going to be not active, need assistance before passing, and that's where the gap is."Title: Choosing Senior Care in Texas: From Group Homes to Hospice — What Families Need to KnowWelcome to Life Happens with Kim Hegwoo...

Preparing for the Aging Journey: "We get nine months to prepare for a baby. How do we better prepare for maybe the senior care part, which many more of us will probably play that role?"Sherri Snelling- Corporate Gerontologist- AuthorTitle: The Future of Caregiving: Insights with Sherri SnellingOn this episode of "Life Happens with Kim Hegwood," Kim Hegwood welcomes Sherri Snelling, CEO of the Care...

"You do not want to be the only person on your Medicare portal. You need other people able to speak to Medicare for you or to be able to access that portal for you and be able to check it because, you know, there's Medicare fraud, there's Medicare claims that get tangled up." ~ Bonnie Sheeren- Patient AdvocateTitle: Navigating Aging: Advocacy, Access & Empowered CareWelcome to another insightful e...

Grieving Change in Loved Ones with Dementia: "But I do want to say, even though I talk about having a strength-based approach, you do get to grieve that you are losing part of your loved one. So, someone who is living with dementia, I know it's easier said than done to always focus on the positive. And I just want families to understand that it is valid that you may realize that maybe you're celeb...

"I will say nine times out of 10, there is a personal history link to a behavior or sometimes what's being said. And so, I just started pursuing it. And I can usually find something, and once that light bulb goes off, like, oh my gosh, that makes so much sense. We can personalize the care. We often dismiss dementia behaviors as, Oh, it's just dementia." ~ Tami AnastasiaTitle: Personal History, Pre...

"It's crucial to have adult children or family involved with the beneficiary choosing what the selections are because they're the ones that are going to have to navigate it ultimately."Daintee Hurst DietzTitle: Medicare Made Simple: What Adult Children Should Ask for Their Aging ParentsWelcome to a new episode of Life Happens with Kim Hegwood! In today's enlightening conversation, Kim Hegwood is j...

Common misconceptions about dementia:“Families just really get into the short-term memory loss thing in the very beginning ... but it's really the sequential reasoning, the executive function, that they, it's hard to grasp that they've lost.” ~ Lori FarrisTitle: Facing Dementia Together: Insights with Lori FarrisWelcome to another episode of Life Happens with Kim Hegwood, where we dive into the re...

“If you aren't putting your care first. And it feels so, so awkward, you are putting them in jeopardy to have you as their caregiver. And that's, that's what they want more than anything is to maintain the relationship and that they can call on you and lean on you and have you by their side to the end of their days because you were their choice." Robin Andrews SmithWelcome to another episode of Li...

Discovering Favorite Spices: "You can make a big batch of white rice and make little cups of white rice and then pour the spices on one little cup and have them taste it and see if they like it, see what they taste and just go like step by step, make little cups and then bring different spices in." Melissa BernsteinTitle: Nourishing the Soul: Melissa Bernstein on Food, Caregiving and Purposeful Co...

The Power of Support and Spirituality in Caregiving: "I don't know how anyone gets through this without some level of spirituality. I just don't."Kate McCartyOn this episode of Life Happens with Kim Hegwood, we’re delving into the world of dementia care with Dr. Kate McCarty, an experienced dementia coach whose personal and professional journey offers hope, insight, and practical support for famil...

Welcome to another episode of Life Happens with Kim Hegwood! In today’s heartfelt conversation, Kim sits down with Rachel Hiles, a dedicated granddaughter who became her grandmother’s primary caregiver for over seven years. Together, they explore the unique challenges and profound rewards of caring for an aging loved one, especially when family support is limited. Rachel opens up about her “grandd...

"I wanted to structure something that was easy, five things that I could give to my patients to help them navigate their health from the time we met as for as long as they lived." – Dr. David BernsteinTitle: Mental Health and AgingWelcome back to Life Happens with Kim Hegwood, the podcast where we help Texans protect their legacy and navigate the twists and turns of the second half of life. In thi...

Build Your “To-Go File”: "I want you to move instead to maybe, like, a to-go file... documents that are going to help identify who should be the person helping to take care of you, who should be the person speaking for you if you can't speak for yourself, and what exactly are your wishes if you're not able to speak for yourself."Title: Preparing Families for A Hospital StayOn this episode of Life...

Seeing the Person Behind Dementia: "But the nicest thing about the whole book together is for the caregiver who doesn't know them begins to see them not as the lady in three zero one a, but as Alice and gets a picture of their whole life and gets to be able to see them as the person that they that they were are and the life that they lived well." ~ Lori YauchTitle: Reminiscence- A Bridge to Dement...

"Don't keep secrets. And that ties into what you were just saying... we don’t want the person we’re caring for to feel vulnerable, to be upset... so we try and make it better. We try and make it okay, and too often, we promise things we cannot be sure we can keep." ~ Deborah HalliseyTitle: A Relationship Contract for CaregiversOn this episode of Life Happens with Kim Hegwood, we're joined by speci...

"I think what people with Parkinson’s also realize they need is that community. Parkinson’s is a long-term diagnosis... they need peer support. And so being able to tune in and lock into a community that understands what they’re going through physically, emotionally, and medically is really important and something that we try and facilitate." ` Celeste Harris, LMSWTitle: Bridging Care and Communit...

Title: Mental Health and AgingWelcome to another episode of Life Happens with Kim Hegwood! In today’s insightful conversation, Kim sits down with guest Cherice Poole to explore the critical topic of mental health and aging. Together, they discuss why maintaining good mental health is so important as we get older, highlighting the unique challenges aging brings, such as grief, loss of independence,...

The Power of Compassionate Hospice Care: "But having us be able to come in, help get them the medications they need, get them a bed that's more, helps them be more accessible. You know, it's just a lot of different things that are kind of involved with that. And the better the care they receive, the longer they do seem to live."Title: Palliative and Hospice Care- What is the difference? Welcome to...