care manager Archives ⋆ Page 3 of 12 ⋆ Cathy Cress

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.

Technology Tools to Help with Reminicsence Over the Holidays

December 17, 2017

Reminiscence isn’t new. Before the printing press, storytellers and bards were how history was recorded- in the new mind not on tape.

Oral storytellers gave us the Odyssey and another valiant tales. History exists in their family, and Ulysses or Penelope might be sitting in their living room this holiday season.

Here are some tips to use if their want to capture these family tales during this holiday season—a perfect time to do this. Use empathetic listening if you can. Make all the messages you are are giving the older person— tone, how fast you speak, how they are sitting- say, “I want to listen to you.”

Ask questions that prompt the story but don’t make judgments. If there are going to record the family tale, do it in a way that doesn’t distract or stop the older person from talking. Recording on your i phone , ipad etc is simple and non-intrusive

Start somewhere. If the elder isn’t going to tell stories on his or her own, start the story and see if they will follow along. “That chair there are sitting in, where did their get it, Mom?” Pick an ornament off the Christmas tree and show it to dad to see if he can tell its story.

Reminiscence is sparked by the senses, and buried memories flow into our brains. That’s why the holidays are a perfect time to have their older family members share stories with them. The sense of taste spurs memories. Just think of making that pie that tasted a lot like their mom’s, a brisket, traditional Christmas pudding, latkes

Here are two technology tools to help you with this legacy building for your older client

Life Bio

Grandma’s Pie

Check out my Book Handbook of Geriatric Care Management with more tools for legacy building written by David Lindeman Director Of the Center for Technology at UC Berkeley and Julie Menack of 21 st Care Solutions

Are You Ready for Post Thanksgiving Inquiry Calls From Long Distance Care Providers

November 27, 2017

Long Distance family members are caregivers under constant stress. They have been flying or driving to both visit aging family members for a long time. These caregivers at a distance usually understand that their parents are deteriorating with age and are savvy enough that they have researched options and already found you on the web ( a reason to have a great website).

When the family gathers on Thanksgiving and everyone can see problems with an older person like memory loss or ambulation problems- the family may agree to call a care manager. Or the very stress of the holiday season on top of caring for an aging parent long distance may push the designated long distance care providers over the edge to seek help and call you.

More than 7 million American Families care for older family members from afar. This holiday season many of those long-distance families will come home to an elder Mom or Dad’s house and find a scene they saw coming but still fill them with white fear.

Unpaid bills litter Dad’s desk. He refuses to go to church when he was a devoted churchgoer all his life. When the daughter put the post-turkey leftovers in the refrigerator she finds moldy food on every shelf. When asked about the bills and the moldy food, Dad gets really angry when he was an easygoing guy all his life.

At that point, the daughter may pull out her phone and call an aging life or geriatric care manager because she cannot fly home without getting help. Are you ready for these desperate calls?

Give frantic adult children hope when they frantically call this holiday.

So be prepared for their inquiry and know the needs of long-distance families well plus the resources in your area that you can suggest in your inquiry call. Do not give away the store in your call but let them know that you are an expert in the needs of long-distance care providers and an ace navigator in your area that can find services and choices that are perfect for their needs.

When Cut Off in The Family is a ” Phantom Limb” at Thanksgiving – Katie Holmes Brilliant Role

November 22, 2017

Thanksgiving can be the gateway to the dysfunctional families worst time of year- the holidays. You face family across the table you despise or just both love and hate. Or there is that empty seat- the uninvited guest- the brother-sister, aunt, son, daughter who you never invite- the cut off-family member.

But since this leaves the family with that “phantom limb”- like the awful sensation that an amputated or missing limb is still attached and where it was is pulsating in pain- families reach out for someone to fix it.

The ordinary aging processes are made far tougher when a family has a history of dysfunction. Aging professionals, like geriatric care managers, have their greatest challenges in working with these “difficult” families around this time of year.

Dysfunctional families are not able to organize themselves effectively in the face of eldercare challenges and crises. These families are under more stress as they move from long-established roles into uncharted territory.

What if they “ cut off” their Dad years ago and now he had a severe stroke-what do they do?? Someone has to take over Mom or Dad’s care and these dysfunctional midlife adult kids are heavy ambivalent or just don’t want to do it.Now that the holidays are arriving – they have the same attitude about attending the family Thanksgiving dinner.

Pieces if April is my favorite aging dysfunctional family ” cut off ” Thanksgiving film. Made as a comedy in 2003, it touches death and dying, sibling rivalry, mother-daughter estrangement, interracial love- and Alzheimer’s all fueled by deep family fault lines and how to cook a turkey on a broken stove.The film manages to make the old theme of fraught family Thanksgiving, crisp, funny and ultra worth watching.

Shot in 3 weeks for a measly $350 K, it received a Sundance Film award and accolades for its pedigree cast including 21 year old Katie Holmes as the grunge Goth daughter who her family has ” Cut Off”,.Patricia Clarkson as the dying Mom who distains then forgives her rebellious eldest child and Alice Drummond as the demented grandmother who comes along and plays the most rational person in the film in her obliviousness to the family holiday freak-out.

Watch this classic before the holiday

How To Do an Aging Family Inquiry Call and Make the Sale on the Holidays

November 14, 2017

How To do a 2 Part Inquiry Call from the Aging Family and Make the Sale

Intake is the most critical point in opening or losing a case. A successful intake means increasing your aging life or geriatric care management business. Over the Holidays you will get many desperate calls from adult children visiting their family and discovering- unwrapped gifts, a disheveled Mom – trouble they may not have known about if they lived long distance or just saw Mom infrequently.

Here are steps to success over the holiday intake or any inquiry
1. You must assure the caller that your geriatric care management services can be counted on to thoroughly assess the elderly person’s and family caregiver’s situation at the intake, determine the level of care and level of GCM monitoring to sell your services.
2. You sell these services through convincing the caller that you offer highly personalized and compassionate approach to the family and older client. This breaks down to gaining client and family trust that your GCM services are the very best path leading them the care they desperately need- led by a professional guide they can count on.
3. You persuade them that they will get unbeatable customer appreciation, you will exceed their customer expectations, ensure the quality of life for the older client and offer a concierge driven service.
4. You explain how your hands on professional staff can make families relieved and happy because they understand they save precious time and overwhelming stress by using professional GCM’s.
5. You show them you can access all community services and resource options they could not find alone and are now available to them through your services.
6. In this one sometimes short call, you show potential new clients how your concierge care management service will solve their problems through -you the GCM being there for them every step of the way.
7. You persuade them that by scheduling the next step, a free complimentary consultation call, you will help them make sound decisions based on reality and assessment.

The GCM sells all of this through a free complimentary consultation done by a compassionate and highly skilled professional the director of the agency

How to Help Step Grandparents on the Holidays

When Cut Off in The Family is a ” Phantom Limb” at Thanksgiving – Katie Holmes Brilliant Role

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