News & Impact

Question: My mother has just been diagnosed in the early stages of Alzheimer’s at age 69. Right now it seems like she is coping better than I am. How can I find resources about clinical trials? Answer: A diagnosis of Alzheimer’s is never easy. Know that you are not alone; there are many others struggling to get the support, answers, and care needed for their loved one, and themselves! You mentioned that you feel that you aren’t doing so well. You may be scared for your mom and her declining mental health, knowing that your roles will be changing over… Read More

Looking at Helen, you’d think 92 is the new 75. Spry, quick-witted, and intellectually curious, she believed, until recently, she could do it all. But when a pulled muscle in her leg turned out to be severe arthritis in her hip, she acknowledged, “Now I know that I can’t do everything on my own.” That’s when she turned to Seniors At Home, JFCS’ senior care program that had served her late husband so well while in the final stages of Parkinson’s disease. “My laundry was piling up because I couldn’t get up and down the stairs so easily any longer,”… Read More

Josef, an 89-year-old Holocaust survivor, never saw it coming. “I survived the Lodz Ghetto and three camp selections, but I didn’t see that a distant cousin who asked me to contribute to a special fund was stealing from me,” he said. Josef became so distraught that his Seniors At Home homecare attendant, Elvira, contacted his son. “He was very upset,” she said, “and I was worried he would have a stroke.” Son and father talked, and both agreed that the time had come for Josef to have his finances managed by a trusted third party: Seniors At Home’s Fiduciary Services… Read More

Seniors At Home, the senior care division of Jewish Family and Children’s Services, has today announced the expansion of its services with the opening of a new Center for Dementia Care. “The population of seniors in the Bay Area who suffer from dementia-related conditions, including Alzheimer’s disease, is growing dramatically,” says Traci Dobronravova, MSW, Associate Director of Seniors At Home. “As one of the leaders in senior care in the Bay Area, we are pleased to be able to meet the requests of our clients by starting a new program that provides the specialized support needed for dementia care.”… Read More

Forty-four-year-old Ben has not had an easy year. Only three weeks after sitting shiva for his wife, Susan, who succumbed to aggressive metastatic breast cancer last December, he was told by his employer that his company was relocating to Texas—without him. “I was dealing with unspeakable grief, trying to take care of my son, and barely holding it together,” recounts Ben, who had worked as a mid-level sales manager for a high-tech firm. “On top of that, my 77-year-old dad, also a widower, had recently had heart surgery and needed help. If my rabbi hadn’t recommended JFCS, I don’t know… Read More

A survivor of Auschwitz, Sam came to this country in 1947, the only member of a large extended family to have escaped death. After many years as a shipping clerk, he finds himself frail and alone at 89, living on a modest income and the support of JFCS’ Seniors At Home program, which provides him with subsidized home care and care management.”I don’t know how I’d carry on without this help,” says Sam, who has diabetes and gout and still suffers nightmares from the war. “The people at the Seniors At Home are angels and JFCS is an absolute… Read More