The NCCNHR $20,000 Challenge

The main goal of Assisted Senior Living.net is to help caregivers get really good information about senior care options. ASL is the only site that has ABSOLUTELY NO CORPORATE SPONSORS so the site is unbiased and I need to get this information out to more people. This resource is very valuable to caregivers but it will be even better if I can get more people to create reviews. That is why I created the NCCNHR $20,000 challenge

After attending the recent National Citizen's Coalition for Nursing Home conference, I created a new program to help fund NCCNHR. When you create a review on ASL, you do more than help spread the word about the best long-term senior care options. You help NCCNHR. For every publishable review over 25 words created before 2011, ASL will donate $1 to NCCNHR, up to $20,000. As one of the highest-traffic senior care directories, your review(s) can help a lot of people. Please create a Nursing Home or Assisted Living Review.

ISO 9001:2008 Quality Management

During the past year, my main focus has been on assisted living. This week I learned something that might change that. There is a new tool called semrush.com that ranks sites buy analyzing their search engine referrals and multiplying that by the CPC for that keyword. This tell you what the value of a site would be if you could convert all the organic search engine traffic into a click.
One of my first sites was ISO 9000 Resources. It was an experiment to use some of my recent ISO 9001 quality management consulting experience and see if I could get some quality consulting work. It has never generated any consulting business. That could be because the site currently gives away a complete quality system for FREE. No one want to pay for something they can get for free. For small companies, this can save them a lot of work and money. The site is all about the developing quality systems that comply with the International Standards Orginization (ISO) standard for quality systems. The site has been slowly growing in traffic even though it does not have many links. Now, Check out these ranking.

The site is doing well for many competitive terms and the traffic exceeds my expectations. Now, I need to change focus on try to make some money off the traffic. Using Semrush as a standard, the site should be make 2-3k per month. These rankings are outstanding so I want to improve the site and try to get the revenues where they should be. This site helps support the ongoing cost of maintaining assisted senior living which currently generates no revenues.

I think I will start building the links for ISO 9000 Resources and try to expand into some other quality related keywords like quality management. In some cases, it is already maxed out. I don't think I should ever outrank ISO.org for the keyword "ISO certification." After I finish a campaign, I need a new business model that makes an appropriate level of income for the traffic. This is so cool.

Nice People Everywhere

Since I have started working in the senior market, I keep meeting nice people everywhere. My other sites are all in very competitive areas where helping people is not highest priority, making a buck is. That is why I love the senior care market, people are really nice. People like Dr Katrina Gwinn. Her site: http://www.doctorgwinn.net is a great example of someone trying to help people. After finding her site, I ask my wife to stop taking GLUCOSAMINE AND/OR CHONDROITIN. She has been taking it and thinks it helps but the research says no. It also seems like additional load on your liver that you don't want if doesn't really help. Of coarse we both still swear by cold laser therapy for joint pain releif but the technology still escapes most people. But I digressed.
Thanks Dr Gwinn.

Living A Long And Healthy Life

I had a long conversation last night with a friend about being healthy and living a long life. I think that most people have it wrong. They lead a fast paces stressful life and try to offset this lifestyle with exercise, eating well and other activities. They think that this lifestyle will keep them healthy and help them live a long life. My father has proven everyone wrong. My father has been a raging alcoholic for about 60 years. He even lost his second wife to liver failure because she was a alcoholic too. He gets absolutely no exercise. He did mow the lawn before I was a teenager but that was the extent of his athletic activities. He eats the worst food ever. His diet is almost exclusively carbonized beef and pork. He does not each vegetable and he always has his steak burned black (well done). He also eats lots of candy between meals. Now he has almost totally recovered from his stroke and he is 83 and going strong. How does he do everything wrong by todays standards and stay so healthy.

No Stress
My dad has never had stress in his life। He was too busy drinking and relaxing in the basement. He spent hours there every night by himself. He had only one job in his life. He stayed at the same company over 50 years and found a niche where he had no stress associated with work. He did not make much money but never had any stress about his career or work. He was friends with the president of the company and never had to worry about being let go. He never worried about the family because my mother took care of everything. He only worried about himself and so life was simple.
So if you want to live a long and healthy life, reduce your stress level. All the other factors may have an impact but stress is the real killer. My father has proven it.

Don't worry, just be happy

The Savages Review

I recently watched the movie "The Savages" starring Laura Linney, Philip Seymour and Philip Bosco. My wife got it from Netflix. It was originally released in 2007. Because of my work on the website, I was really interested in the movie. The story is about a brother and sister who need to make decisions about what to do with their aging estranged father who was abusive to the children when they were young. Their mother has already passed away and the problems start when their father is evicted from his girlfriends house. The father, Lenny Savage, ho no place to go and no one to help him so the burden fall back on the children. The acting in the movie was excellent, they really made the story real.
Although the movie was originally release to entertain, this is not a very light subject and I would not recommend it for casual viewing. The dominant emotions in the movie are pain, guilt and anguish. Not emotions you want to activate on an everyday basis or a date night. The movie is how ever a great educational film.
If you are in a similar situation, caring for a parent or loved one, this movie will demonstrate that you are not alone. It demonstrates, very well, that everyone who puts part of their family into an institution struggles with the decision and financial impact. At one point Wendy Savage visits an upscale and very expensive facility as an option to the standard facility. These assisted living and nursing home facilities are all across the country and some cost over a hundred thousand dollars/year. In the movie, the father has no retirement funds so the family would have to foot the bill. Jon Savage, the brother, goes on a rant about how this is just to help with the guilt of institutionalizing their father and financial impact would devastate their lives. He also states that sending their facther to the facility is just to help reduce the guilt of sending their father to a public home. Everyone wants the best for their family, even if the family member was less than best. This movie shows the realities to caring for aging parent.
If you are struggling with decisions about an aging parent or loved one, this movie will show you that you are not alone. It is a difficult life and you rarely get any thanks. I would define recommend this film for all those children of "baby boomers" that will be care taking for a family member. Just make sure you have a box of tissue ready before you start the movie.

Cold Laser Therapy For Seniors

Most people would consider my family a tree-hugging granola-eating bunch. We spend about as much time in alternative doctors offices as we do in MD doctors offices. This includes our kids. At one point, I was taking my son three times a week to the MD and always getting the same answer. All I heard was "I wish I had a magic wand" or "There is nothing we can do". Then we started seeing an acupuncturist and herbalist who said "I can fix his problems" AND DID. Since then, my son goes for normal checkups but when he is sick, we go to the doctor with answers, Dr Jake Fratkin. So both my wife and I also see a different acupuncturist who also has access to a cold laser therapy equipment. She even has access to a LaserPrism (Terraquant) Low Level Laser. I have had knee paid for about the last 5 years so I was game to try it. After just one treatment, I had less inflammation and less pain. Now I get the treatment every time I go and it really work. I also really like the Apollo laser but it requires a license to buy it. I am currently saving up my money to buy my own cold laser. Once I do, I plan some experiments on family and friends. I think cold laser treatments could be especially good for seniors. Many seniors have bad joints, inflammation and pain. The cold laser treatment only takes a few minutes and there is no pain. It seems like every assisted living facility should have a cold laser for routine treatments. There are a lot of claims that cold laser can do other amazing things including stimulating hair growth. I don't know about that but I know it works on my crunchy knees.

California Assisted Living Update

I just finished uploading all the assisted living facilities for Arizona and am currently working on North Carolina. Arizona was a big surprise with almost 2000 assisted living facilities. I think that California has almost 6000 facilities but currently I only have around 400. One I get all the California facilities including Los Angeles assisted living facilities entered, I will have over 12,000 facilities in the directory. Not Bad.
Most of the state governments have been good to work with. By the end of August, I must have every assisted living and Alzheimer's facility in Georgia. I am going home to meet with dad's facility manager and nurse so see if they can give him additional assistance. His mental condition seems to be changing rapidly as he reverts into a child. That is why I will need to have a complete list of dementia care facilities ready when the assisted living facility will no longer accept him. We are very thankful that he is happy in his dementia. So many seniors get angry, frustrated and mean. My dad is mostly sweet with an occasional bit of angry confusion. The nurses raided his apartment this week and took his bottle of vodka. The alcohol that destroyed his frontal lobe should be avoided but my dad's doctor (Dr. Tucker) is an idiot. He told my dad that it was OK for him to drink so he won't listen to anyone else. It really stinks when your parent doctor is actually doing damage. Anyways, this should be a big month for my dad and for the site so stay tuned.