Taking care of Alaska's elderly: many programs in place to help family caregivers and frail seniors.

• Author: Orr, Vanessa

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To become a successful businessperson takes a lot of time and effort, and many people spend much of their lives building and maintaining full-time careers. Yet even as these professionals expect to begin to enjoy the fruits of their labors, they often find that life has other plans in store.

"All of a sudden, these people find that they need to care for aging loved ones, which is becoming even more common as baby boomers age," explained Kevin Turkington, CSA, president of Senior Care of Alaska Inc. and board president of the Older Persons Action Group Inc., or OPAG. "This often requires these family members to take massive amounts of time away from work, which is not good for the employee or the employer.

"Many of these people are salaried, so they get paid even when they are not on the job," he added. "It's a double-whammy for employers who have to continue to pay the employee while losing productivity."

According to the National Council on Aging, family caregivers miss nearly 15 million days of work each year. Nearly one in four households is faced with caring for an elderly relative, with caregivers committing an average of 20 hours per week to provide loved ones with the care they need.

To help seniors and their caregivers, the State of Alaska has put programs into place that provide assistance with everything from nursing home placement to heating assistance to nutrition, transportation and support services. Gov. Sarah Palin recently signed a bill establishing the Senior Benefits Program to aid lower-income older Alaskans, and businesses, now faced with losing employee productivity to senior care, are starting to provide benefits packages that cover the cost of hiring in-home help.

"More and more businesses are beginning to work with companies like Senior Care of Alaska Inc. to set up benefit programs for their employees, so that these employees' elderly relatives can receive non-medical, in-home care," said Turkington. "This frees up the employee to return to work knowing that their loved one is being taken care of, which benefits both the family and the employer."

THE SENIOR BENEFITS PROGRAM

On July 28, 2007, Gov. Sarah Palin signed Senate Bill 4 to adopt the Senior Benefits Program. This program, which began on Aug. 1, provides payments ranging from $125 to $250 a month, depending on a senior's income level. The program replaces former Gov. Frank Murkowski's SeniorCare Program, which expired on June 30, 2007...