Cathy Cress

Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management

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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

 

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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

Dear Governor Newsome – Don’t Sentence Frail Elders To Ca. Nursing Homes Wrenching Them from Free Loving Family Caregivers!

June 18, 2020

Dear Governor Newsome :

I am on the board of the Health Project Center in Santa Cruz, County that operates the MULTI-PURPOSE SENIOR SERVICES PROGRAM (MSSP program ). and CAREGIVER RESOURCES PROGRAM (CRC)  in both Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties.

KEEP THESE NURSING HOMES CERTIFIED SENIORS IN THE CHEAPER COMMUNITY

I am writing to support these programs and implore the governor not to cut their funding. These senior programs were created to keep people out of expensive nursing homes in the 1970s and keep them in the cheaper and nurturing community. By cutting MSSP and CRC the state will only accrue more debt by spending more money to fund now COVID -19 disease-ridden nursing homes. These nursing home certified beneficiaries who are the frailest and poorest of our elderly population. They are kept in the community by MSSP where they receive food services, socialization, and therapy. Their family caregivers receive respite.

Giving these caregivers respite can be the difference between caregiver burnout due to unpaid relentless 24-hour care of a loved one. Burnout ends in placement in nursing homes. But with COVID -19 still rampaging many cannot even get in.

 CAREGIVER RESOURCE CENTER  KEEPS FRAIL SENIORS IN FREE FAMILY CARE VS NURSING HOME PLACEMENT $80,000 a year 

Respite to caregivers to stop inappropriate placement in nursing homes is one of the main functions of the Caregiver Resources Centers in California,  which needs its funding kept intact by the governor. The Center provides support to families caring for loved ones with cognitive impairments such as Alzheimer’s Disease, making referrals to caregiver counseling, support groups, local caregiver service, and giving small respite grants. Without the caregiver falling apart, which the Caregiver Resource Center stops, once again, the older nursing home certified client will just end up being forced to trying to get into a nursing home at $80,000 a year, when the family caregiver was FREE.

 IF these programs are demolished by the governor and MSSP and CRC are axed out in a blood-spattered cut and these frail seniors will be dumped into California nursing homes where the state will spend needless money it does not have.

 

STATE WILL PAY $80,000 A YEAR PER PERSON FOR NURSING HOME PLACEMENT VS. $5000 FOR MSSP

These programs save the state 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 MSSP and nothing for the family caregiver. .This makes the cuts both fiscally wrong and mystifying.

 

 MSSP CUTS MAKE RECIPIENTS GO  TO NURSING HOMES WITH 0 TESTING, JUNK PPE THAT LOOKS LIKE  GARBAGE BAGS WITH HOLES

Seniors have borne the greatest share of death already from COVID-19, as over 50% of the dead in the US are now elders from coronavirus who lived in a nursing home rife with the virus. These MSSP participants, without the support of MSSP, will have to turn to nursing homes.  According to the House Select Committee on Nursing Homes a few days ago, these facilities do not have enough testing and personal protective equipment to stop the virus from spreading. They do not even have PPE and at CMS direction, FEMA has been sending out junk for PPE that looks like garbage bags with holes. This is what you would be sentencing these frail elders to with the scrawl of the governor’s seal.

 

 CRC CUTS SEND Frail ELDERS FROM FREE FAMILY CARE TO $80,000 YR NURSING HOMES

 You are sending these seniors from the loving care of their family to nursing homes with few beds, COVID-19 raging from one bed to the next bed, beds not 6 feet apart, and no

testing or PPE. All this while the state pays $80,000 or $90,000 per person per year in a nursing home when the State pays only on average a little over $5,000 for the person to be in MSSP.

CUTS TRAVESTY IN JUDGEMENT AND MORAL FISCAL BANKRUPT CHOICE 

 

I am a graduate of Berkeley with a master’s in SW in aging planning and community development and this is just planning for more state debt and more seniors dying in expensive, CMS FEMA and Federally caused, death traps called nursing homes.

Sincerely

Cathy Cress MSW

 

 Cathy  Cress
cressgcm@got.net
CressGCM Consult
https://cathycress.com/

Santa Cruz, Ca 95062

Filed Under: Adult children, Aging Family, aging family crisis, Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, Aging therapist, Blog, caregiver, Caregiver Burn Out, caregiver burnout, CAREGIVER RESOUCES, CMS & Nursing Home Policy, Coronavirus safety elders, Covid-19 Death Nursing Homes, CUTS to California Caregiver Resource Centers, Cuts To California MSSP, Free Family Caregiver, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, Infection Control Nursing Homes, MSSP cuts in California, nurse care manager, Nursing Home Deaths, Poor Nursing home staffing, PPE, PPE Nursing Homes, Skilled Nursing Facility, SNF death COVID-19 Tagged With: Aging advocate, aging life care manager, aging life or geriatric care manager, aging parent, California Senior Program Cuts, care manager, caregiver burden, caregiver burnout, case manager, CRC cuts IN CALIFORNIA, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, Governor Newsome-Ca, MSSP cuts in California, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Stop Cuts to Frail Elder in California

The 2 Deadliest US Sites of COVID-19 Nursing Homes & Prisons

May 2, 2020

PRISON INMATES AND NURSING HOME PATIENTS NOT  6FT APART – 6 FEET UNDER

70% of inmates in federal prisons have COVID-19.  In Kansas, the Lansing Correctional Facility had a riot of inmates over COVID-19 lack of care or protection  It took the rebellion to get the coronavirus testing PPE and care. The  Bureau of Prisons in Kansas confirmed finally that 79 staff have coronavirus and 88 prisons and prisoners dead.   

Older residents in nursing homes cannot rebel like prisoners. Many can’t even walk. The Atlantic Magazine just published an article, We are Killing Elders Now. The writer states “In at least six states, these fatalities account for half of all COVID-19 deaths, and according to the World Health Organization, half of all coronavirus fatalities in Europe have been traced to nursing homes too. Some of this mortality is linked to long-term-care facilities that are shoddily run or that violate health standards. But most of them are doing the best they can with what they have. And they don’t have much”.

KAISER FOUNDATION NURSING HOME STAFFING AND USE OF PPE NOT REQUIRED IN MOST STATES

Kaiser reports -Staff Screening. It is more common for states to recommend rather than require daily screening of staff for illness in NFs (24 states recommend, 16 states + DC require)

Use of PPE. More states recommend (23 states) than require (7 states + DC) staff to use PPE

 Two States that require testing for coronavirus of ALL  residents of nursing homes are  Maryland where 556 have died as of the Washington Post article. and Tennessee 

THE FEDS HAVE NO CMS FEDERAL GUIDELINES OR REPORTING

We have no federal guidelines for safety testing according to an article by the Kaiser Foundation

It is now estimated that 16,000 deaths have occurred in nursing homes and that is without the federal government revealing any numbers and not making available any testing. But the numbers are probably huge- if we could just do testing. 

CMS announced it would have a meeting of a “panel” of experts “ sometime at the end of May”. After probably 20,000 older people died and the feds did nothing this shows their sense of urgency about this pandemic’s national “elder cleansing”.

WHAT CONNECTS PRISONS AND NURSING HOMES – CONCENTRATION CAMPS

So, what is the connection between the viral spread of COVID-19 in nursing homes and prisons- 6 feet ? Prisoners and residents, in nursing homes, and prisons cannot social distance. Jails and prisons have human beings crammed together with no choice. Nursing homes have 2 beds or if you are on Medicaid three to a room. Neither group has a choice to social distance. They are ” concentrated” as in concentration camps or death camps.

Do SOMETHING – HELP NURSING HOMES PREVENT MORE CARNAGE

So, as someone who has spent her career in aging, I am calling out to everyone, especially professional in aging – do something. Since the feds appear to be doing little- call your congressman, write a letter to the editor.

BE KIND LIKE RACHEL MADDOW REPORTS LA JEWISH HOME LA WAS

Rachel Maddow suggests calling your local nursing homes and see what they need. Be kind like the LA Jewish Home was to a smaller nursing home LA Brier Oaks. They wanted to test their residents and had no tests and the larger LA Jewish Home had tests and shared them with the smaller as a good neighbor. What they found was ravaging but it also showed caring and generosity. Care and be generous and show the helpless elders in nursing homes in your town you are opposed to -nursing home being prisons or concentration camps.

Filed Under: 4th of july, 7 touches marketing, adult child physical abuse, Adult children, adult emotional abuse, ADULT SIBling, Aging, Aging Alcohol Abuse, Aging Community & Covid-19, Aging deaths, Aging Family, aging family crisis, aging life business, Aging Life Care, Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, Aging therapist, ALCA & Skilled Nursing Facility, ALCA Beneifits, ALCA business Loans, ALCA Cobtract, ALCA COVID-19 Crisis, ALCA Disaster Plan, ALCA Ethical Dilemma, ALCA Financial literacy, ALCA Products for COVID_19, ALCA sales, Alcohol Abuse and Aging, Angela Jolie, Aretha Franklin, Assisted Living, Assisted Living & Geriatric Care Managers, Assisted Living Crisis, Assisted Living sales, bankruptcy, Barack Obama, Benefits, Benefits of ALCA to Hospice, Benefits of Care Management, Benefits of Care Management to Hospice, Benefits of Geriatric Care Management, Benefits vs Features, Benifits & Assisted Living, Bill Clinton, billing, Billing 85%, billing 85% of GCM 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What Type of Care Provider Do You Recruit for Older Concierge Clients?

March 27, 2020

Medicare Does Not Fund Long Term Care

Concierge Clients are sadly the only clients a GCM or ALCA experts because of income inequity in the US and the fact that Medicare does not cover long term care,  like home care and geriatric care management.

You Are Only As Strong As Your Weakest Link

So you must serve the top 10%  of aging Americans as those clients to have your ALCA business or GCM  business make money and thrive. But to deliver the gold standard services that concierge care demands, let’s take the weakest link in your business- your care staff. You are only as strong as your weakest link. These incredibly important employees’ skills will measure how clients really rate you.

First and foremost you need highly skilled care providers with a CNA background or years of experience. But older generations, especially entitled clients, are likely to be

less trustful of an individual with numerous visible tattoos and a Mohawk. They would rather have a clean-cut employee wearing a uniform. You want background checked employees with experience with demanding clients and willing to be servile and assertive and know when to use either.

The care providers for concierge clients should be

  • WELL GROOMED
  • WELL DRESSED
  • SERVILE
  • GOOD COOK
  • GOOD TABLE SETTERS
  • WILLING TO BE CONFIDANTE but under GCM supervision and control
  •  

 

For COMPANION CARE hire 

  • Sophisticated employee
  • Can Order Opera theater tickets
  • Accompany to these events

    GCM has to:

  • Set Boundaries with clients
  • Care providers can cook French Cuisine but with “Heavy Care “– Priority -must have transfer skills and CAN or HHA skills
  • Cannot often get gourmet cook who changes diapers

CONCIERGE NON -medical CAREGIVER’S SAMPLE to do list

  • Doing her groceries shopping or grocery home delivery
  • Post office run
  • Pet-care
  • Waiting in line at the DMV
  • Taking the car for Car repairs, oil change, car wash
  • Event planning- GCM
  • Gift-buying
  • Plant care
  • Picking up dry cleaning
  • Running miscellaneous errands
  • Making travel arrangements
  • Mail pickup
  • chef services
  • Dinner reservations
  • What Cannot do
  • Performing bank transactions, such as depositing or withdrawing money, or shopping for the client without pre-arranged payment through the store could pose a liability
  • Assist with finances, online banking, bill paying/tracking
  • pickup of prescription medications -Only GCM to do because of medication abuse and liability
  • Open mail unless all checks already forwarded to another account

    Learn 5 critical success steps to start and run a profitable Concierge GCM business

    Free Webinar-Sales and Marketing to Find the VIP Concierge Client March 31, 2020 -2 PM -3:30 PM PST

  • Concierge Clients are the only way a GCM or ALCA care manager can make a profit and have their business thrive. Find out who are they, how you find them, design GCM Products they will purchase, and create a marketing plan and gold standard services to have them sign your contract and use your services long term

    Ethical Dilemma in serving only Top 10%

    Who They Are- 4 Types

    How to Locate them in your service area

    How to create a strategic marketing plan to sell to them

    How to Develop Gold Standard GCM Products and Services

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Filed Under: Aging, Aging Life Care, Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, Blog, care manager, caregiver, CAREGIVER RESOUCES, case manager, Concierge caregivers, elder care manager, Families, FREE MARKETING WEBINAR, FREE WEBINAR, Geriatric Care Management Business, geriatric care management emergency proceduress, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, Marketing Home Care, marketing to the top 10$, marketing to upper 10%, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Nursing home abuse, paid caregiver, paid caregiver for concierge client, Private Duty Home Care, Webinar Tagged With: aging concierge Clinets, aging life and geraitric care manager, case manager, Certified Senior Advisors, Concierge care givers, concierge care providers, concierge clients, Concierge Home Care, entiled older clients, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, recruit care provders, supervision of in home care staff, training in home care staff

How Important are Nurse Care Managers?

February 28, 2020

 

My husband Pete and our family have our own RN case manager.

Pete had open heart surgery 3 days ago at Stanford Hospital. The utility and utter comfort of having a care manager hit me personally on this health care journey.

Our Stanford Cardiac Care Manager

Stanford’s cardiac unit is a wonder to behold. Your family touchpoint is, of course, the care manager. She is your navigator, comforter in chief, and patient-friendly-dispenser of information framed in a  digestible synopsis.

In her warm yet filled with authority voice, our care manager Christine Harris RN BSN greeted us in pre-op and explained what would happen during the surgery. She soothed our fractured nerves. Facing open heart surgery was, as with all patients, like taking a long trip you researched well but never understand the whole journey nor the wrong turns you just might take. 

It had taken Pete 7 years to get to this point as he was one of a category of 2% heart patients that had no symptoms. He had not wanted to do the surgery and they respected his wishes. In the last few months, they found his heart not getting enough oxygen, so he finally decided to do it. The day before surgery he was chopping down a plum tree, among the many, in our California yard.

12 Hours of Open Heart Surgery

As the open heart surgery was 12 hours long- most of it pre-op and then post-op, Christina our care manager became our navigator through the long hours of waiting  She came to us at every stage, shared information that calmed us and made us feel health literate about what was happening to Pete.

Trouble on the Tracks

But in the late afternoon, when we were feeling so sure he was sailing through the procedure, we became alarmed. Stanford has a color-coded electronic screen of all patents in surgery showing you their operating stage. We were watching this large electronic surgery board, much like an airline flight board with scheduled take-offs and landings. Pete was about to land in post-op then before our eyes -reversed to the operating room. Pedro, the navigator of the board,  had no idea what happened but told us Christine would be down to talk to us. My two daughters and I were then on red alert and our lovefest with the ease of all this dumped back into reality.

Tear in the Heart

As any case manager would, Christine arrived with calming information. As they were about to close up Pete’s chest after the new valve went in flawlessly, they noticed a small tear in the aorta. She explained that the aorta, like all of Pete’s body, was almost 8o- years old and thin enough to tear. Dr. Fichbine saw bleeding, along with the  30 residents who were watching, did a small patch, closed up the incision then sent him on his way to post-op. In reality, it was more serious, but she shared the steps taken and he was in truth patched up and on his way to recovery. She gave us the right information mellowing it out enough that we went from Post  9/11 color-coded red- terrorist attack imminent —to calming green – low threat. Pete arrived back in post-op and we got to see him at 7:30 that night 13 hours after his trip through the surgical theaters.

Christine is also our head discharge planner and goes to see Pete every day, along with Dr. Fishbine on rounds. She will be there at discharge when she, a Stanford pharmacist, and a cardiac nurse share discharge plans.

So thanks to all the care managers who like Christine, guide us over troubled waters, comfort us and hold our hands while they navigate us to a safer shore.

Filed Under: Adult children, Aging Family, aging family crisis, Aging Life Care, Alcohol Abuse and Aging, Benefits of Care Management, Blog, cardiac care manager, care manager, caregiver, case manager, geriatric care manager, Hospital care manager, nurse advocate, parent care, Stanford Hospital care manager Tagged With: aging family, aging life care manager, care manager, geriatric care manager, geriatric care managers, Hospital care manager, nurse care manager, open heart surgery, RN care manager, Stanford Cardiac, Stanford hospital, Stanford Hospital care manager

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