Your parents have been there for you through all of life’s ups and downs. They have cared for you from the day you were born. Now, as they age, the tables are beginning to turn and it is your turn to help care for them. These 10 things will help you care for your parents no matter how busy your schedule may be.

1. Modify Your Home to Accommodate Your Parents’ Needs

This may involve widening hallways and doors to accommodate walkers, scooters, and other assisting devices; eliminating clutter; adding ramps into your home, and installing grab bars in bathrooms.

2. Ask for Help.

It’s great to want to take care of your parents, but you must also care for yourself and your family too. Ask for help from other family members when your life gets too hectic.

3. Invest in a GPS Elderly Locator

GPS tracking for dementia patients is essential. These devices can help you locate your parents quickly if they become disoriented and wander off. Of course, GPS tracking for the elderly in general is a good idea because you never know what will happen and want to be able to find your parents fast when emergencies strike.

4. Encourage Independence.

One of the most difficult things to do is to find balance between caring for your parent and helping your parent maintain independence. They need to do as much as possible for themselves, even if it is faster for you to do it.

5. Get Their Input.

It feels like a lot to take one when you decide to take care of your aging parents. It’s a lot for them to take on too. After all, they were the ones who took care of you. Don’t make them feel like invalids. Give them validation by asking what they want.

6. Consider Hiring Professional Help.

Sometimes, the medical, physical, and emotional needs of your parents are beyond your abilities to provide. Consider bringing in home health nurses or other professionals to help provide care.

7. Provide Opportunities for Socialization.

Whether it involves going to church, participating in community activities, shopping outings, or other things; the social development of your parents is as important as it is for you and your children.

8. Encourage Fitness and Nutrition.

A healthy diet is the cornerstone to healing and long life just as exercise is. Work with your parents’ physicians to come up with diet and fitness routines that are best for them.

9. Volunteer Together.

Research suggests that older adults who volunteer experience better physical and emotional health. It’s an activity you can do together that will help with bonding while improving your parents’ health.

10. Consider a Companion Pet.

Pets have been known to reduce blood pressure while reducing stress, encouraging social interaction, and boosting levels of physical activity for aging adults.  More importantly, they help to reduce feelings of depression and loneliness making them an excellent fit for aging parents.

But above all, the best things you can do to care for your aging parents is to let them know that you are there for them and that you love them.

GPS fleet tracking offers many benefits that are unique to sewer companies. Your employees have important jobs to help ensure safety, test water quality, and cleaning out sewer lines so families in your community can be safe from the health risks contaminated water represents.

It’s important that your employees arrive timely at the required locations, remain on task, and do the important jobs they’ve been entrusted to do in timely manners. GPS fleet tracking can help you with all these things and more.

Timely Appointment Windows

When someone has a sewer backup in their home, it is an emergency. They want the problem solved then and there. Your sewer company is the closest thing they have to heroes because you can help them salvage precious items that may have been damaged or contaminated as a result. The longer these items sit in contaminated water, the less likely it becomes that some items will be salvageable. The ability to provide accurate appointment windows for service calls and emergency calls provides your customers with peace of mind and helps reassure them that you’re taking their crisis seriously.

Accurate Driving Directions

When there is widespread flooding and sewer issues in abundance, it is important that you find the right home the first time. The last thing you want to do is waste valuable time and resources at the wrong home – even a few minutes to sort out the details and get back on track can be costly. GPS fleet tracking services update maps routinely so that you have the most up-to-date coordinates and highly accurate directions allowing you to make it to the right home the first time and avoid unnecessary delays.

Schedule Vehicle Maintenance

The last thing you want, when dealing with contaminated water and other unpleasant substances on your vehicles is to have unnecessary maintenance related accidents and breakdowns. You can use your GPS fleet tracking tools to schedule routine maintenance that will extend the life of your vehicles, keep them in tip-top operating condition, and prevent many potential accidents along the way. This helps keep your vehicles on the road when emergencies strike and keeps your customers happy with the incredibly valuable services you provide.

Your sewer company provides a necessary and valuable service to your community. You can improve your profits without raising your rates by using GPS fleet tracking to do all the things listed above while planning routes that are more fuel efficient, reducing auto insurance premiums, and keeping your drivers on their assigned routes and schedules. What’s not to love about that?

Do you own or manage a sewer company with a fleet? Call us here at LiveViewGPS at 1-888-544-0494 to learn how GPS fleet tracking benefits sewer companies.

In an effort to gain new insight into Moose behavior, wildlife officials in Steamboat Springs, Colorado have taken to accessorizing the local moose population. The hot fashion accessory they are equipping local moose with is a GPS tracking device attached to a collar around their necks.

The actual goal of this exercise is to help minimize incidents of moose vs. man on the ski slopes. Moose on popular ski trails has been a growing problem in Colorado and these new GPS equipped collars are hoping to reduce the incidents and find ways area wildlife management teams can steer moose clear of these populated trails and areas.

While they may be beautiful to look at, these creatures can be extremely dangerous when they feel threatened. There have been increasing reports of aggressive behavior from moose toward people in the area with several cases involving people being trampled by area moose while walking dogs. Dogs are easily mistaken as wolves who often prey on moose.

Currently, there are 10 moose wearing these GPS equipped collars, which will drop off the moose at a set time. Wildlife officials are hopeful to have the opportunity to tag at least 10 more for the purposes of the study.

This study isn’t about gauging the moose population in the area. Instead, it is focused on where the moose population goes and when they go to these locations.

The multi-year research project is largely being funded by revenue from hunting licenses.

The goal of the study is to find new ways to prevent possible altercations between locals, tourists, and the animals that all share the same playground. The snow is an attraction for everyone and the more we understand about when moose are venturing out into certain areas, the better prepared wildlife management teams are to re-direct them or run interference when needed.

GPS tracking on these moose collars offers a non-invasive way to keep track of the animals in the area without interfering with their normal daily routines. After all, the goal of this project is to better understand their routines and the possible motivations for their wanderings.

GPS tracking provides real time updates on their positions, so scientists can track their movements at all hours of the day and night for the duration of the study.