Blog & Resources

New England is one of the prettiest places to live in the country. Not only do we have mountains, and oceans, and urban living at your fingertips, we're a culinary destination, a thriving farming community, and an athlete's paradise given our four seasons. But not everyone here loves it when the days grow shorter and the temperature drops. Some people can suffer from 'Seasonal Affective Disorder' a debilitating condition which effects a much larger percent of the population than we'd think. Here's some tips to assist you in combating the grey days of Winter. 

1. Exercise

We’ve all heard that exercise is good for you, but when you’re feeling low, that’s easy to forget. Even 30 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per day will help stave off depression. Take a 30-minute walk, bike ride or swim, or do chair exercises to a video, active

It’s a sobering statistic to read: 125,000 patients with Alzheimer’s Disease go missing each year nationwide. While Silver Alerts and other GPS technologies are wonderfully helpful, there’s a lesser known but powerful option called ‘Project Lifesaver’.

This national program operates throughout Rhode Island and Massachusetts, usually via a local Sherrif, Police or Fire Department. We had the good fortune to chat with Lieutenant Pimental of the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office and he provided some excellent and compelling reasons why Project Lifesaver should be enrolling many more participants as a reliable way to keep your loved one’s safe.

What Exactly is Project Lifesaver?

Each participant is fitted with a secure bracelet which also features a tracking device. The bracelet, once applied, needs to be cut off every ten weeks so the

Caregivers of people with dementia lose between 2.5 to 3.5 hours of sleep weekly due to difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep -- a negative for themselves and potentially for those who receive their care, Baylor University researchers say. But the good news is that simple, low-cost interventions can improve caregivers' sleep and functioning.

The researchers' analysis of 35 studies with data from 3,268 caregivers -- "Sleep Duration and Sleep Quality in Caregivers of Patients with Dementia" -- is published in JAMA Network Open, a publication of the American Medical Association.

Informal caregiving for a person with dementia is akin to adding a part-time but unpaid job to one's life, with family members averaging 21.9 hours of caregiving, according to The Alzheimer's Association estimates.

"Losing 3.5 hours of sleep per week does

Recently, some new studies released a novel concept in the race to accurately detect symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease. It’s not forgetfulness, or even misplacing things on a regular basis. Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) are making the new claim it may be frequent daytime napping which may signal the onset of the disease.

The findings, which appear in the journal Alzheimer's & Dementia, also suggest that an overaccumulation of tau protein triggers these brain changes. In Alzheimer's disease, tau proteins form tangles that disrupt communication between neurons (brain cells) and impact cell health.

"Our work shows definitive evidence that the brain areas promoting wakefulness degenerate due to accumulation of tau — not amyloid protein [another protein that can become toxic in Alzheimer's disease] —

We’ve all heard of Long-Term Care Insurance. It’s the type of policy you typically buy while you’re still relatively young. It is a payable benefit to cover the costs of indefinite care provided at either a skilled nursing facility or in-home caregivers provided by an agency.

But there’s new option in town, or at least in Rhode Island for folks who may want to recuperate at home and who may not need prolonged caregiving extending beyond 365 days.

The Short-Term Care insurance policy is available from Guaranteed Trust Life (GTL) Insurance Company headquartered in Illinois. The inspiration behind this new option is simple:

People would rather recuperate at home

Benefits are paid directly to you regardless of other coverage

Benefits can help cover deductibles and co-payments

Prior hospitalization is not required

There’s three