Cathy Cress

Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management

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Can a Caregiver Assessment Avoid UnnecessaryPlacement ?

April 9, 2021

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When a Caregiver is so Overwhelmed that A SNF is a Choice but a Very Bad Choice

If the family is so overwhelmed by the care that they are considering placement, this threat should trigger the GCM to do a caregiver assessment immediately, found in the Handbook of Geriatric Care Management If the GCM is called to relocate an older person and the underlying cause seems to be caregiver burnout, this can be another trigger to use this valuable GCM tool. By using a caregiver assessment the geriatric care manager may find that building respite for the caregiver, through other relative or paid caregivers, a caregiver support group, or coaching the caregiver to make changes that make her/ his tasks more bearable and doable and avoid inappropriate placement of the older person

Avoid Elder Physical Abuse Though a Caregiver Assessment

 

If caregiver abuse is suspected, a caregiver assessment is a critical immediate tool. This is a situation where the GCM must contact Adult Protective Services, following their own state’s laws. Elder abuse can be triggered by caregiver stress in some situations. Depression that reaches a clinical level in a caregiver can be predictive of elder abuse of an elderly client can prompt a GCM to do a caregiver assessment.  You should also do a geriatric depression scale at the same time. Use the GDS and the caregiver assessment to help both the caregiver and the care receiver and avoid the risk of physical abuse and prevent involvement of APS making the caregiver and care receiver’s lives even more painful and chaotic and risking placement in a nursing home.

Mrs. Handy has Two Dads in Her Head

Let’s take the example of Mrs. Handy, a caregiver daughter caregiver She calls a GCM as she is about to place her Dad. Besieged by so many other stressors,  her own health is deteriorating because she cannot get any sleep, due to her Dad going to bed so late and her inability to rise above her old self when her Dad was 40 and she was 19 and what he said she did. Now he is 70, very impaired with vascular dementia, incontinent and she needs to be who she is in the here and now a woman of 40, caring for an impaired Dad in her 70’s. The care manager coached her to set a new boundary for him to go to bed early. She needs help in getting rid of the old parent in her head and putting the 70-year-old demented incontinent parent before her. In addition, she sees her doctor for depression, joins an online caregiver support group, and asks siblings in other towns to take her Dad once a month for a week. Her Dad is not moved to skilled nursing. This is what a geriatric care manager can do for her to help avoid unnecessary placement.

Find out more on my playlist “Caregiver Assessment” on My Youtube channel Geriatric Care 

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Filed Under: Aging, aging family crisis, aging life business, Aging Life Care, Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, Alzheimers, care manager, caregiver, Caregiver Burn Out, caregiver burnout, caregiver coaching, caregiver mental health, CAREGIVER RESOUCES, coaching caregivers Tagged With: aging family, aging life care manager, aging life geriatric care, aging parent care, aging parent crisis, barrier to caregiver assessment, care manager, caregiver assessment, caregiver burden, caregiver burn out, caregiver burnout, caregiver coaching, caregiver overwhelm, case manager, elderabuse, geraitric assessment, geriatric care manager, innappropriate placement, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, secondary stressors, unnecessary placement

10 Alarm Bells to Give ” Just Shopping” Long Distance Callers Before Holiday

December 24, 2020

 

You will be Showered With Calls Over the Holidays

Long-distance family members from nearly normal or dysfunctional families will call you frantically from now on. 

Why?

It’s almost  Christmas, Hanukkah and Thanksgiving just passed but they could not see their older parents because of the COVID Risk.

They are having to manage their over 65 Mom and Dad’s Shelter in place from afar plus oversee their own families risk plus their own COVID laden holiday. These long-distance family caregivers were already reaching

burnout from constant pre-COVID travel and caring on top of their own work-life demands.

They are reaching implosion so they are going to call you.

Test to Give the Burnt Out Caregiver Calls FOR Information Before the Holidays

If they call for information before the holiday and are not ready to move forward, you can proactively offer them questions from this list of alarm bells that they can answer now or they can monitor during now and New Year holiday that could trigger engaging your services after they compare notes on a post-holiday call with you.

Below is a list of red flags. If they see any red signals on Thanksgiving, Hanukkah,

remotely or in-person if they take the very dangerous risk of travel on Christmas-encourage them that is the time to do something about it by hiring you as a care manager. You can question them with this  a checklist of worrisome  signs that signal the need for a local geriatric care manager,

 

Alarm Bells List – Dealing with Long Distance Aging Relatives  Before or During the Holidays

  • Unpaid bills if long-distance family members monitor bill pay from afar
  • Missed appointments with their physicians that  long-distance care provider monitor with their doctors
  • Clutter reported by neighbors, friends local senior agencies a home that was once always neat
  • Weight loss reported by the aging parents Dr’s or local visitors
  • Memory loss, change in short-term memory when they zoom, call facetime, etc.
  • Poor grooming for a person who was once meticulously, observed by local visitors friends senior agencies food delivery who visit.
  • Reports of getting lost
  • Reports of wandering
  • Refusing to go to holiday  religious services with friends or church transportation  to holiday religious services
  • refusing any suggestion or conversely agreeing to everything with-out 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
  •  Set up a meeting when the holidays end. You have helped them proactively, begin to engage your services.

    Sign Up for My Free January Webinar  

    5 Vital Clinical Tools to Help Aging Dysfunctional Families-Post Horrid Holidays- 

                 Thursday, January 21, 2021

      Give frantic adult children hope when they desperately call after the holiday  

     Join me and learn how to come to the rescue of concierge dysfunctional families who found coal in their stocking.      

    Learn how to!

    • Understand the Dysfunctional Aging Family System you must enter to get care for elders
    • Understand 11 Warning Signs You Are Working with Dysfunctional Family
    • Master Vital Clinical Tools, you to solve client problems
    • Take Six Steps Professional Must Take to Work with These Difficult Families
    • Get care for aging family members when the dysfunctional family members resist

     SIGN UP NOW

     

     

    Find out more in the YouTube for My YouTube, Channel  Geriatric Care

Filed Under: Aging, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, Alarm Bells For Long Distance Family, Blog, caregiver burnout, caregiver mental health, Close The Sale, Closing a GCM Sale, Families, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric social worker, Holiday Meltdown in Aging Family, Holiday Rituals in Aging Family, Holiday season, HolidaySeason and COVID, Long Distance Care, Long Distance Care & COVID-19, Long distance caregiver, long distance caregiver burnout, Long distance family impostion, Long Distance Safety Travel COVID, Long Distance travel Holidays, Long Term Care Coverage, nurse advocate, nurse care manager Tagged With: aging life care manager, care manager, case manager, eldercare manager, geriatric care manager, holiday burn out, Holidays calls to GCM's, long distance care provider, Long distance family burn out, nurse care manager, patient advocate

Best Tool for Dysfunctional Family on Holidays- Hope

December 22, 2020

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Hope is the Best Tool on the Holidays

During Christmas and Hannaka family caregivers, especially in the dysfunctional family can be drinking or numbing themselves from the pain of caregiving. They will ruin the holiday celebration one way or another. Maybe they are drugging themselves with the telly or abusing prescription drugs. Depression and anxiety ( rife among caregivers) are predictors of increased alcohol use. Social isolation, which is experienced by some caregivers, is also predictive of increased alcohol use.

 

How do you as a geriatric care manager change the script for these aging dysfunctional families – family caregivers and older members who are supposed to care for but can’t. How does a professional GCM make the characters transform? 

 

It’s actually simple –but loaded with skill- give them hope. You need to and use yourself to give them hope that things will change. It’s the best tool in a geriatric care manager toolbox- especially on and after the dreaded holidays.

 Use of Self

The use of Self is perhaps the most powerful tool for geriatric care managers. The use of Self provides families with guarded optimism. GCM’s have to offer a vision of the future that is based not only on a desire for hopeful outcomes. This has come from our own clinical knowledge and belief that change to their nasty crippled, family

system is indeed possible.

By being direct, empathetic, and

nonjudgmental, we become a holding bay for

stressed caregivers, creating a place of safety, c

onfidentiality, consistency, and support.

Finally, GCM’s offer our clients a model of

perseverance. By giving up on the possibility of

positive change and by exploring all options,

the GCM enables families to feel that, regardless of the outcome, they have done all that they can to support the older adult.

Be like Judy Garland  on the holiday offering hope


Have yourself a merry little Christmas.
Let your heart be light


From now on
our troubles will be out of sight

Give the” Merry Christmas – next year

 

Sign Up for My Free January Webinar  

5 Vital Clinical Tools to Help Aging Dysfunctional Families-Post Horrid Holidays- 

             Thursday, January 21, 2021

  Give frantic adult children hope when they desperately call after the holiday  

 Join me and learn how to come to the rescue of concierge dysfunctional families who found coal in their stocking.      

Learn how to!

  • Understand the Dysfunctional Aging Family System you must enter to get care for elders
  • Understand 11 Warning Signs You Are Working with Dysfunctional Family
  • Master Vital Clinical Tools, you need to solve client problems
  • Take Six Steps Professional Must Take to Work with These Difficult Families
  • Get care for aging family members when the dysfunctional family members resist

 SIGN UP NOW

 

SUBSCRIBE TO MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL GERIATRIC CARE 1

Filed Under: Aging Alcohol Abuse, caregiver, Caregiver Burn Out, caregiver burnout, caregiver mental health, CAREGIVER RESOUCES, Dysfunctional aging family, Dysfunctional Family & Holidays, elder care manager, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, Holiday Meltdown in Aging Family, Holiday Rituals in Aging Family, Holiday season, Loneliness, Long distance caregiver, Therapist Specializing in Aging Tagged With: aging life and geraitric care manager, aging life care manager, aging parent crisis, alcohol on the holidays, Alcolhol abuse in the elderly, care manager, case manager, dysfunctional family, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, Holidays Crisis in aging family, holidays with aging parents, My Dysfunctional Family, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Use of Self

Helping Older Adults Stay Socially Connected While Sheltering in Place

July 17, 2020

How do we stay socially connected while social distancing? During COVID -19?

We all need contact with other people

 During COVID -19 this becomes harder as we age, especially as older people are at a greater risk to contract COVID- 19. Many of these elders live alone and are sheltering in place. But they suffer from isolation as they miss the social connections that bring joy to their lives. Some become depressed in the lonely world of shelter in place.

Connections promote wellness and are essential for good health. COVID-19 is not a time to completely isolate ourselves, rather, we need to take this time as an opportunity to foster relationships in new and creative ways, like technology and creative old fashioned pastimes.  This takes a family member to help with, which is part of the socialization. If you live long distance find a local friend or neighbor who will wear a mask and social distance or if you are a long-distance care provider hire a geriatric care manager who can place a quality of life companion with your older relative like Geriatric Care Management Agency like Lifespan that offers a Well-Being Program 

Use Technology

  • Call or video chat family and friends, if you have a computer or phone use facetime or Skype but better to use better technology, designed for seniors like   Alexa Show 8 
  • Have a virtual meal together invite your loved one through a link on Zoom and order a meal online for both of you at the same time.
  • Purchase Birdsong   for seniors an easy touch tablet for games and to connect with family and friends
  • Help elder join a book club at the local library as libraries are opening up again 
  • Help elder sign up for on-line local community college extension classes that might interest him or her
  • Subscribe to free online games for seniors through AARP
  • Have your older loved one play brain games for entertainment with Luminosity- https://www.lumosity.com/en/

  • Subscribe to audible
  • Identify what music they like and help them arrange to watch and listen on television or TV if they have an I Phone Make an I Phone  playlist of their favorite
  • Find art they like and have them tour Google virtual museum collections
  • Go back in time

     

  • Write letters or give you loved-one a gift box or notecards with pictures or art they like, print out address labels for them and give them an address book with family and friends addresses
  • Play board games, word games, or even work on jigsaw puzzles together when you visit.
  • Watch a movie together. There are a variety of apps that can help you watch movies together, but it may be easier to find the same movie, and for everyone to watch at the same time. Get the popcorn ready!
  •  Enroll a homebound client in a Senior Center Without Walls where they read books to them on the phone.
  • Take a walk. Fresh air is good for the body and mind. Movement is a great way to release endorphins in the body, which can soothe any existing feelings of stress but wear a mask, and stay 6 ft apart
  • Sit outside the front of your house with a mask on and wave to those walking by. The act of smiling raises endorphins.
  •  For a loved one who likes nature, if they like crafts make a birdseed ornament purchase a birdfeeder and hang outside the window where the loved one can see. Get a bird field guide for the area and help identify birds who visit the ornaments or feeder to feed.
  •  
  • Subscribe to audiobooks for seniors from your library
  •  
  • REMINISCENCE- a win win-as people age they love this and you get their memories

  • Give your parent Storyworth. Print the prompts and drop off to your loved one then pick up and enter using the dictation on your phone then send it into Storyworth. At the end of the year, they get a printed book of reminiscence.

  • Join ancestry yourself and bring your computer to your older loved one’s home and show them your family tree as you build it. They can give you family history and memories as you create the family tree that you would miss when they are gone.

  • Get out old family albums and have them identify people in photos then upload the photos later to Google photos so you have both names of relatives, stories of pictures and photos digitally saved.

 

JOIN ME FOR MY NEW FREE WEBINAR

Create 5 Telehealth Products for COVID 19

WHEN. THURSDAY AUGUST 6

TIME- 2 PM Pacific Standard Time

 

Care Management businesses are struggling with pandemic close-downs.

Support your business bottom line, clients, and their families.

Create 5 COVID-19 products.

Products from sheltering in place through the hospital, recovery at home, discharge from an SNF, or hospital for local and long-distance elders. Increase your bottom

line as COVID spreads throughout the US and more shutdowns loom

 

Learn Step by Step How to Consult with Aging Families and Seniors to:

 

 

  • Choose the best Hipaa Compliant Telehealth Products to Remotely Consult with Client

 

  • Help a Local Family Help a Loved One Safely Shelter in Place

 

  • Help a Long-Distance Family Help a Local Loved One Shelter in Place

 

  • Help an Aging Family Help a Loved on Hospitalized for Covid-19

 

  • Help an Aging Family Help a Loved one Recover when Discharged from a Nursing Home

 

 

  • Help an Aging Family Help a loved one Recover when Discharged from a Hospital

 

WHEN. THURSDAY AUGUST 6

TIME- 2 PM Pacific Standard Time

 

 

 

       REGISTER NOW

Free Webinar Button, Badge, icon, logo. Vector stock illustration.

Filed Under: aging family crisis, Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, ALCA COVID-19 Crisis, Blog, Care Management Products, caregiver mental health, CAREGIVER RESOUCES, case manager, coronavirus, Coronavirus Coaching, Coronavirus emergency plan, coronavirus marketing, coronavirus quality of life virtual program, Coronavirus safety elders, coronavirus shut down, COVID-19 & Care Management, Covid-19 GCM Products, COVID-19 Webinar, Quality of Life, quality of life -COVID-19, Quality of Life Virtual Program, Quality of Life Virtually Tagged With: aging family, aging life care manager, aging parent crisis, case manager, coronavirus, Coronavirus virtual quality of Life, CORONAVIRUS WEBINAR, COVID-19 SERVICES, free webinar, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, quality of life COVID-19, shelter in place depression, shelter in place isolation, shelter-in place social connection

California Cuts Pushing Frail Elders into the Cesspools of COViD-19

May 22, 2020

Here in California, the frailest, poorest and oldest in the state are being potentially knifed in the back by slashing budget cuts to the very services that keep them out of nursing homes.

 The Multipurpose Senior Services Program , one of the first geriatric care management programs in the nation, designed to keep fail elders out of nursing homes, is set to axed from the California State budget.

The Governor has also proposed elimination of $2.9 million of state funding and $3.9 million in federal matching funds for the 11 statewide Caregiver Resource Centers, 

providing critical respite care and counseling to caregivers of adults with chronic and disabling health conditions.images_20130906-154817_1.jpg

Both programs were designed 4 decades ago to keep elders at home and out of more expensive nursing homes and staunch family caregiver burnout. They offer huge safety nets, designed to keep frail seniors in the community.

MSSP is of a daycare program providing rich social and health services to frail elders and their families. The Care Resources Program caregiver respite and support to overwhelmed family caregivers.

These programs save the state a bundle of money. Each of the MSSP clients is disabled enough to be eligible for nursing homes and poor enough to be eligible for MediCal. So instead of the state paying $80,000 or $90,000 per person per year in a nursing home, the State pays only on average a little over $5,000 for the person to be in GunnDadJacket.jpgMSSP.This makes the cuts both fiscally stupid and mystifying.

What California government is doing is ripping giant holes in this web plummeting 45,000 seniors into the cesspool of COVID-19 skilled nursing facilities, where almost  half of California COVID-19 deaths occured.

 Without the services and supports available through MSSP, and the Caregiver Resource Center, many older Californians will have no other choice but to be admitted to nursing homes, where nearly half of all deaths related to COVID-19 have occurred. 

But the doors may be barred. Given the high risk of COVID-19 in nursing homes, owners are reluctant to take new patients. So, the elimination of the Caregiver Resources Center and  MSSP is really a death sentence to frail elders. It leaves no fire extinguisher for caregiver burnout of the family caregivers who care for elders with the toughest disease: brain impairment- Alzheimer’s, stroke, dementia, Huntington’s disease, Parkinson’s other conditions that may cause memory loss or confusion.

This may cause a cascade effect- placement of these horribly demented elders, into the plague-infested nursing home or also to death’s doorKali--Bill-Connies-book-.JPG

Governor Newsome has been a national hero as the first governor to issue a stay at home order to close counties down in California. He slowed the spread of coronavirus and kept California in a safe zone compared to most other states. But this was at the cost of taxpayer dollars as 4.7 Californians were put out of work. 

 He finds himself in a double bind now with a chasm of a budget hole, that he is trying up to fill with cuts like the ones proposed to the senior program. But the cuts will lead seniors to nursing homes  costing $80,000 a year instead of the $5000 for MSSP  into those caldrons of coronavirus

California is always the canary in the coal mine- the innovator that most states follow. So, these cuts can be expected across the nationwide. Who is the real villain in these cuts, the Trump Presidency. 875 billion was approved in the House of representatives in the HEROES Act. Cutting both programs saves $119 million. But these cuts would be eliminated if Congress OKs this aid for state and local governments — a prospect many state lawmakers believe is unlikely as President Trump is threatening to veto the money to the states . This has spurred a cacophony of outrage from local legislators and senior advocates. angered state lawmakers from both 

major political parties who say it’s irresponsible in light of the coronavirus pandemic that has spread through nursing homes across the state. It’s one of many conflicts emerging this week as lawmakers hold public hearings examining Newsom’s proposal before they must vote on a spending plan by June 15.

Want to help save these programs

 

PUBLIC COMMENTS – WRITTEN: Submit written public comments by email to: sbud.committee@sen.ca.gov

Filed Under: Adult children, Aging, Aging Family, aging family crisis, Aging Life Care Assocaition, Blog, Caregiver Burn Out, caregiver burnout, caregiver mental health, CAREGIVER RESOUCES, case manager, Coronavirus emergency plan, coronavirus shut down, Covid 19, Covid-19 Nursing Home, Dementia Activities, elder care manager, Families, geriatric care manager, MSSP cuts in California, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, quality of life in senior centers, SNF death COVID-19 Tagged With: aging family, aging life care manager, aging parent crisis, barrier to caregiver assessment, California Budget cuts for seniors, california caregiver resource center, caregiver burden, caregiver depression, case manager, Cuts to programs for frail elders, Family Caregiver Alliance, geriatric care manager, MSSP cuts in California, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Trump veto

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