As you pour yourself into others, try to remember to keep your own “cup refilled” by devoting time to self-care. Here are self-care suggestions to may provide inspiration during these times:

1.) Give yourself permission to take time off for self-care; time to do whatever it is that your heart desires. Put it on your calendar, set reminders, and let others know that this is YOUR time to decompress however you see fit. There is NO reason to feel guilty designating self-care time; you need to be able to sustain the care you provide during this time.

2.) First and foremost, in the heat of what feels to be a battle, it is so important to know that THIS IS TEMPORARY. Hard to see in times of struggle, we know – but true, nonetheless. While we do not know when successful treatments will be found, a vaccination invented, when things return to “normal” (or what the new normal even looks like), on thing is for sure – we will not live in this current state forever. Breathe and hang tight.

3.) If you are comfortable with it, accept help from those who offer it to you. For many who aren’t on the front line, it’s a love offering in a time where they too, feel out of control. Let someone deliver your dinner, mow your yard or pick up your groceries for you. You are important in this time and deserving of attention and it gives you more time to take care of yourself.

4.) Try not to isolate yourself; while you may feel alone, there are most likely others experiencing similar emotions you can talk to. Find a person (even if it’s just a single person), to talk to, cry or laugh with. However, you need to unload the baggage that has accrued at work – make sure you find an outlet to help you unpack it and diffuse some of the heightened emotion these times manifest.

5.) Look for the joys in every day. That’s right, joys are still happening in the world; they just might be a little harder to see through the lens of COVID-19. Be still and present; reconnect with your environment, nature, and the people around you. You will find beauty. Even if you find a single joy per day, journal each and string them together to form a bridge of hope that will help you get to the other side of this pandemic.

We will get through this together – and the CreateAbility Team is here to help you in any way that we can. Please do not hesitate to reach out to us. We are here and waiting to support you!

Similar Reads:  4 Assistive Technology and Remote Monitoring Solutions for COVID-19 Transmission Reduction

The post Care Providers: 5 Ways to Keep A Healthy Mental Outlook During the Pandemic appeared first on CreateAbility Inc.

Dr. Trivedi granted CreateAbility permission to summarize his words and encouraged us to publicly share this information and key challenges to consider immediately:

• The IDD population have more co-morbidities, and therefore are at a more elevated risk. For this reason and the gross overload of hospitals dealing with COVID-19, the MOST IMPORTANT takeaway is to provide supports to keep people with IDDs away from hospitals and emergency rooms right now unless it is an absolute necessity!

• Isolation does not work well for people with an IDD. More unique solutions and protocol need to be created for when client and/or care provider contract the virus.

• Due to executive functioning and recall challenges, social distancing does not work with most people who have intellectual disabilities. Additional efforts must be made for protection and containment of the virus within this population.

While this is not a time to be opportunistic, CreateAbility provides assistive technology and remote monitoring solutions that will help with the prevention and transmission of COVID-19 within the ID community. In addition, we offer online, avatar-led assessments that will help you monitor your clients’ health and emotional well-being without having to be in close contact and a communication platform to stay in touch (while staying safe) in an engaging way throughout these challenging times.

Most recently, we have created several quick deployment kits that will help with the prevention of the virus and lessen transmission between people with intellectual disabilities and their care providers. If you are interested in learning about these solutions, please click HERE.

The post A Doctor’s Perspective on COVID-19 and People with Intellectual Disabilities appeared first on CreateAbility Inc.

The need for this assistive technology is bore from years of government research that demonstrated that of the one million lower extremity joint replacements (LEJRs) performed each year, over 200,000 patients resided in rural areas and over half of the total number of LEJRs performed has surgeries performed at Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The cost of these procedures for hospitalization alone cost the government over $9M per year and are expected to grow over 60% over the next decade. Meanwhile, the number of physical therapists needed to meet the rehab process requirements is set to increase by only 60% in this time frame; leaving a sizeable gap in the rehabilitation services needed to ensure proper recovery and that the Medicaid/Medicare funds were justifiable.

Rural patients (especially older adults) are at higher risk for an ineffective recovery from these surgeries due to lack of access to rehabilitation facilities, transportation, compliance enforcement, and inability to follow complex post-op rehabilitation instructions.
CreateAbility Concepts, Inc. was chosen by the USDA to receive a grant for the development of Mobility Coach, an assistive technology that will improve rural patient-provider interaction by post-surgery progress, monitoring physical therapy, and determining next steps to achieve the best possible outcomes for these rural patients. Patients will be armed with a device, software, appropriate monitors, and step-by-step visual demos that will:

• Provide daily exercise instruction to the patient
• Measure, record and report patient compliance data and pain medication usage
• Empower the patient to prescribe and push new exercises on prescribed basis
• Facilitate interactions between the patient and the PT in the form of Q & A’s as video     consultations

Phase One demonstrated the feasibility and utility of a prototype wearable sensor. Phase two milestones are currently under way and consist of the development of final requirements, enhance the Mobility Coach prototype design, perform extended field evaluations, and finally, develop the final software.

According to Steve Sutter, the principle investigator on the project, “Physical Therapists and Orthopedic Surgeons tell us repeatedly, that exercise post replacement is crucial to achieving the desired goal of pain free mobility and return to functionality. Mobility Coach measures the patient’s range-of-motion and number of reps completed. Results are presented to the patient, and the cloud for remote monitoring.”

Demonstration units will be shipping later this summer.

Mobility Coach, when launched, will be used by clinicians, physical therapists and orthopedic surgeons as an invaluable tool that will save time and money through faster recovery and reduction of expensive interventions. Mobility Coach will provide them with a high-level dashboard that will display the progress (or lack thereof) of all active patients, allow them to match methods to each patient individually, monitor and analyze predictive analysis, and initiate/answer questions in video visit sessions.

****************

About CreateAbility, Inc.

CreateAbility strives to improve the dignity, security, and quality of life for people who are trying to maintain varying degrees of independence, but who need assistive technologies. Our mission is to create innovative products that help them flourish beyond their current capability. Our interactive health and safety monitoring software solutions help caregivers deliver an affordable blend of care, 24/7 that nurtures independence.

We serve caregivers, agencies, and organizations devoted to helping older adults, people with intellectual disabilities, brain injuries, and behavioral health issues.

About the USDA

The USDA provides leadership on food, agriculture, natural resources, rural development, nutrition, and related issues based on public policy, the best available science, and effective management.

We have a vision to provide economic opportunity through innovation, helping rural America to thrive; to promote agriculture production that better nourishes Americans while also helping feed others throughout the world; and to preserve our Nation’s natural resources through conservation, restored forests, improved watersheds, and healthy private working lands.

Our strategic goals serve as a roadmap for the Department to help ensure we achieve our mission and implement our vision.

************

For more information on this press release, please contact:

Kerri A. Pinger

Market & Sales Support Administrator

CreateAbility, Inc.

kerri@createabilityinc.com

The post CreateAbility, Inc. Enters Phase Two of Development on USDA Backed Mobility Coach appeared first on CreateAbility Inc.

Fear not. Clients, loved ones and healthcare professionals that use our technology can have peace of mind that their information on our systems is safe.

You may have heard that there is a major flaw in the security of the World Wide Web — one that has even Internet security firms feeling a little panicked, according to a recent article “Heart Bleed Bug Could Compromise Large Part of the Internet”.

We want you to know that CreateAbility’s systems and the data in them are safe.  Since our technology babysits your loved ones, we take this very seriously.

Fatefully, the most popular open source cryptographic library and data transport layer implementation that is used specifically to encrypt traffic on the Internet has a bug in it.  This bug enables hackers to steal password information by causing systems to spew the “secure” information held in RAM – allowing attackers to steal the information.

CreateAbility’s systems keep all of the user account and password information is an encrypted database, and not in RAM.

You can read more about this in the link below, but essentially a massive vulnerability has been found in OpenSSL by a team of security engineers at Codenomicon and Neel Mehta of Google Security (he’s essentially a super Ninja warrior when it comes to protecting data).

In geek speak – OpenSSL is the open-source software package broadly used to encrypt Web communications. The flaw allows attackers to steal the information that is normally protected by SSL/TLS encryption, which is used to protect Web applications, e-mail communications, instant messaging (IM) and some virtual private networks (VPNs).

Essentially, that means a lot of Internet users are affected. And potentially, passwords, private communications and even credit card information could be available to hackers courtesy of this newly-discovered bug.

For more nformation about Heart Bleed, See:

http://beforeitsnews.com/business/2014/04/heart-bleed-bug-could-compromise-large-part-of-the-internet-2612796.html

The post Keeping Your Data Safe – Even in the Most Serious Attack on the Internet appeared first on CreateAbility Inc.