Aging Life Care Archives ⋆ Page 2 of 13 ⋆ Cathy Cress

How Do Geriatric Care Managers Give Quality of Life and Joy to LGBT Clients?

February 24, 2018

A recent report found that LGBT elders tend to have more medical problems, higher poverty levels social isolation than straight elders. Same-sex partners are not allowed many of the resources afforded to spouses and biological family members during the aging process. LGBT elders tend to lack support from many mainstream aging programs such as senior centers and places of worship or they are afraid of the stigma and discrimination that could result from joining those programs.

Mainstream retirement communities often deny LGBT elder couples the right to live in them so they often continue to live on their own, even if they need access to the services offered by those communities. These elders may fear discrimination and being ostrasized by housing staff and and often stay in the closet to obtain housing. Because large numbers of gay elders choose to live alone, they have fewer opportunities for social interaction than their heterosexual peers.

As a result many live in the community and can really benefit from quality of life activities that geriatric care managers can bring into the home through a personal assistance service .

One LGBT program in California, created social connections through arranging dinner parties, shopping trips and grocery shopping .

Finding activities that help elders grow and nurture their emotional, intellectual, physical, and/or spiritual quality of life can help to nurture an older person’s whole life and bring back joy. For example, look at this you tube on an older woman who reconnected with art, which is her talent and spirituality and younger people plus her family, through a quality of life assessment.

But what about the quality of life for LGBT aging clients. This recent article in the New York Times shows how one retirement community responding and found joy for LGBT clients, where many LGTB aging clients have to fight for acceptance.

If aging life or geriatric care manager want to find resources for LGBT aging clients or more about their issues, The Journal of Aging Life Care has an article with many resources to help you serve these vulnerable clients in finding Joy and acceptance.

The Journal Of Aging Life has a resources list for research tool for aging LGBT clients In the article below By Jennifer Crittenden

Aging, Relationships, & Sexuality: Tools and Resources for Geriatric Care Managers

The Handbook of Geriatric Care Management 4^th edition has a seminal chapter written by geriatric care manager Nina Herndon with a quality of life assessment to help you pinpoint the quality of life needs of all clients .

Nina also has developed the first activity kit for the quality of life, Joyful Moments

Cat Burglar’s Stealing Retirement Funds Under the Trump Administration

January 8, 2018

I wrote a blog Saturday about families being the number one con artists in the game of elder fiscal abuse. Now I am going to bring in the big time thieves the- white-collar cat burglars of elder fiscal abuse

The so-called fiduciary rule, which was scheduled to go into effect in April, would have required financial advisers working with retirement accounts to put the interests of their clients ahead of their own—

Brokers are currently allowed to follow a less-stringent “suitability” standard, which lets them recommend options that cost seniors more—and pay them more—even if a cheaper or more appropriate choice is available.

The Trump administration “blocked this rule and continues to block many retiring and aging client interests – putting them second and financial advisors interest (or ) profit first. This rule was supposed to go into effect January first, 2018 but was blocked again until 2019″

The rule’s dogged attack force has been led by Gary Cohn-president of Goldman Sachs before he became Mr. Trump’s top economic adviser. So, this is a pure Wall Street heist to hijack elders highly lucrative accounts.

In addition, the Wall St. Journal story reports that many of the comments made to the rule, are fake, bringing even more fears of government fraud and outside corrupt amputation to the democratic process that seems to slipping away

A care manager’s clients are most often affluent seniors in the top 10%, these clients will be affected by this delay in implementation, steering funding away from care into the coffers of Wall Street.

Call Wonder Woman- A Geriatric Care Manager- After The Holidays

January 4, 2018

Make a New Years resolution to hire Wonder woman before your next visit to your long distance family member. Call an a geriatric care manager in their area. Do it before you your visit again. Make an appointment to go to their office and meet with them. Most GCM’s will see you to discuss their services at no charge. You can shop around and interview a few if you wish. Geriatric care managers can be located on the Aging Life Care Association web site Use your long distance family’s parent’s zip code.
It’s a preventative and prudent idea to have a geriatric care manager in the town where your older relative resides. If there is a crisis, it is cheaper to have them solve it. In an urgent situation, they can go to the hospital or emergency room,. This is saner and cost-effective than you getting on last-minute, expensive flights. You can still go but they can immediately be there to deal with the crisis. They are good insurance.

Before any crisis, you can have the GCM do an initial assessment and visit your older relative periodically (once a month, once every two months).This is preventative. That way they are there for you when you need them and have all the information to solve the problem. Think of them the way you do one of those blow-up beds. You can pump them up when you need them in a crisis—perhaps avoid that crisis, and you yourself can sleep more soundly and with more peace of mind in your own bed. Some of the things a geriatric care manager can do for you are:

1.Save you money by helping keep your parent out of the hospital and you off emergency long-distance flights.

2.Facilitate a family discussion of needs, resources, and division of labor among friends family

3. Recommend ways to proactively prepare and plan for a parent’s possible health care crisis.

4.Work on family cooperation to formulate the realistic parent-care plan.

5.Assess strengths and weaknesses of all of the potential caregivers

6. Help adult siblings resolve conflicts about care decisions.

7.Help siblings act together in the best interest of the parent

8.Decrease the tension between hometown and long distance siblings

9. Help the long-distance care provider deal with guilt and frustration that may result from their inability to provide more of the day-to-day care.

10.Locate aging resources ( both no -cost through the Older Americans Act) in your aging parents’ area quickly and without you having to do it

If you are a professional who wants to be Wonder Woman Check out this book.

Handbook of Geriatric Care Management 4th edition

15 Red Flags for Holiday Visit With Aging Parents

December 24, 2017

It’s almost Christmas and time for the family visit with older relatives. If you suspect festive cheer with aging family could devolve into some scary scenes, here are some red flags to put in a checklist and share with your midlife siblings before the holiday celebration.

Perhaps your older parents have piles of junk mail, dirty clothes, unwrapped gifts when Mom used to shine through her color-coordinated presents. All are cause for the sibling 911 alarm- then action.

You can use this list to assess your parents or older family members during the holidays and compare notes on a post-holiday conference call. If all midlife siblings have the same criteria, it makes easier to agree what to do and what to flag as family New Year’s resolutions.

Below is a list of red flags. If you saw any of these problems on Thanksgiving or Hanukkah or face them on Christmas- now is the time to do something about it. Use this is a checklist.

Alarm Bells List for Visiting Long Distance Relatives During the Holidays

Unpaid bills
Missed appointments
Clutter in a home that was once always neat
Weight loss
Memory loss, change in short-term memory
Poor grooming by a person who was once meticulous
Getting lost
Wandering
Refusing to go with friends on outings or to religious services
refusing any suggestion or conversely agreeing to everything without consideration
Mood swings, getting angry when normally easy going
Refusing to go to medical providers
Not taking care of activities of daily living: cooking, bathing, dressing, housekeeping, etc.
Entering contests, credit card maxed out on shopping channels
Recent fall

When midlife adult children return from the holidays, the family can have a family meeting alone or with an aging professional and look at the problems on everyone’s the list, agree on the top red flags and start helping the long distance family.

Don’t wait till you and your midlife siblings are shocked out of sleep by late-night calls from brothers and sisters, frantically telling them of a crisis with aging Mom or Dad. Don’t force yourself and the other adult children to book last minute, high-cost flights, and gather in scary, sterile hospital rooms with brothers and sisters they have not really communicated in years.

Call an aging life or geriatric care manager for help

How to Help Step Grandparents on the Holidays

December 23, 2017

During the coming holidays like Christmas and Hanukah step-grandparents are faced with their status as outliers.

Christmas Day may find the giving gifts as a step-grandparent. But blending families means multiple parents, two houses, and myriad grandparents.

Each kid can have a divorced Mom and Dad plus his or her newly remarried mother and father. Each set of children will spend Christmas twice- once with their divorced father and once with their divorced mother but in different houses. It is worthy of an excel spreadsheet.

Merging families means blending rituals. If one family celebrates Christmas on Christmas Eve and the other Christmas day -it’s a clash of cultures

Blood grandkids can spend Christmas morning with their blood dad or mom or stepmom or dad or some combination of all. New step-grandparents need to have to have the same schedule.

If step-grandchildren are teens, time with friends and boyfriends must be allowed. So getting all children- blood and step – gathering with their blended parents and two sets of grandparents on Christmas Day or evening is a challenge. The complications are myriad. The shores treacherous.

Holiday giving takes a genogram to map.

Step-grandparents have to be assuming the supportive role to shore up their adult children and grandchildren, both blood and step.

They need to be anchors to this rebuilt ship.

On the bright side, in the exponentially exploding numbers, you might have multiple piles of gifts, for the grandchildren. If you love to give this answers a deep need for the holiday and all year round

If you your clients are step grandparents-ask them to see themselves as a gift this holiday season. The Mantra is Stay steady, stay married, stay the same grandmother or grandfather, the same steady presence,

Be the counterpoint to incredible change.

They have to be the background, the supporting cast, the backstage crew that helps the play go on. For the new cast members, you are the green room, the welcoming place for the nervous and many times damaged – new stars.

How to Help Step Grandparents on the Holidays

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