Cathy Cress

Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management

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Avoid Aretha Franklin’s Fate- Help Elders at Risk of Covid & Prepare End Of Life Docs Fast

January 30, 2021

Preparations for Death a Hard Step for Some

Everyone must prepare for the end of life. When Aretha Frankin died a tribute to her was an armada of 100 pink Cadillacs at her funeral. But in spite of the glittery homage to her storied life and career, she died without a will.

According to Aretha’s ‘lawyer, Ms. Frankin was aware she needed to take care of this but ” never got around to it”. This left her estate liable for potentially millions of dollars of taxes and attorney fees and a drawn-out timeline for her 4 sons to inherit the proceeds from her estate.

Franklin was, as many have said, ” a force of nature” and a woman who would be hard to sway. But care managers specialize in working with VIP clients and the rich and famous. These clients are often uber difficult to work with- entitled, narcissistic equally hard to sway. Aretha Franklin’s attorney might have convinced her that she needed to work with him to protect her family and her estate before she died.

In the Year of the Plague Care Managers Preparing Clients For Death  More Urgent

You as a care manager must take a more urgent  approach by yourself or with the client’s attorney because the stakes are so much higher as now elders are likely to die with this virus rampaging throughout the world, striking the people with comorbidity, like people over 65, the hardest

Most geriatric care managers work with the wealthy top 10% if they want to survive as a business as Medicare does not cover long term care. Only the top 10%, like Aretha Frankin, can afford it. But what comes from being a good care manager is knowledge of death. End of Life care is one of their jobs.  Making sure their client has all their legal documents ahead of time is critical at this minute. With COVID-19 that clock runs on speed.

, these documents- one a living will- are an important job of the geriatric manager, as death

may be shrouded and waiting around the corner for many of your clients 

Advanced  Care Planning Discussions In Covid Critical

Once the COVID-19 is known with an elderly client, the care manager who has added “end of life services” to their agency, is often the one who will initiate and guide advance care planning discussions. The problem with COVID-19 is that the onset of the disease can be rapid.  As difficult as these discussions may be, the burden on the family is significantly lessened if decisions about advance care planning are made before the client’s condition worsens.

Hopefully, this has already been done but many people put it off for fear of death. A recent study found that less than 50% of severely or terminally ill patients had an advance directive in their medical record.

Advance directives are legal documents that allow clients to make decisions about their health care and finances in advance of when they are not mentally or physically able to do so. These documents must be signed, dated, and witnessed naming another person to make decisions for you.

Your job as a care manager is the make sure your older client has these documents before they have COVID-19:

  • A durable power for an attorney for healthcare 
  • A living will
  • A do not resuscitate order DNR (efforts to restart the heart after it has stopped

 If No Advanced Care Documents & COVID Strikes Elders Wishes Unfulfilled

If the client does not have these legal documents and wishes to create them, the Geriatric Care Manager will suggest that the documents be put in place with the oversight and consultation of an elder law attorney.

But During Covid-19 could rush an elderly client towards death like a mammoth mudslide sweeping them into a hospital where no one can enter, even the family.

Care Managers play a big role at end of life issues. They are their navigators through all five stages of dying, which is the time before COVID-19 could be long before palliative care or hospice are called. 

 

But in this plague reign, there is little time to plan so the five stages of death are on steroids. So, talk to your clients now before they get into a screaming ambulance to the hospital where no one can follow the including you, and may never return.

GCM Care Planning Stope Elders From Dying Without a Will Like Aretha Franklin

 Proactive discussions and legal planning now can help to reduce the risk of dying like Frankin leaving the legacy of her music, a soundtrack to her life but a family both shattered and at war with each other. The COVID-19 clients you see now could be in this position and their families will be left with no rituals no funeral no advanced directives and only hopefully a zoom family meeting to say their last words. Good legal guidance can also help clients make better decisions,  avoids all this other legal horror on top of the torturous death of coronavirus. Making a will or a trust now will save the family from adding to the burden of a lonely painful death.

SIGN UP FOR MY LATEST FREE WEBINAR

Deliver a Good End of Life- Add Death and Dying to Your Care Management Agency

 

Serve Your Client Until Death Do You Part     

S

 

Join me Thursday, March 11 and learn why End of Life Services Are a perfect new service for care managers

 

 

In this 1 ½ -hour webinar you will learn how to

 

 

1.Transition the patient/family through the five stages of death.   

 

2.Help clients be active participants in their care

3.Give the family/caregiver tools to manage care

4 Provide family center care to caregiver and family

5 Choose the right support services through all stages of death

6.Introduce Hospice and Palliative care and work with their team

7 Use ALCA End of Life Benefits During COVID

8.Use  COVID -19  Family Coaching for GCM

Sign Up

If you really want to add End of Life to your care management business sign up for this webinar now

Recommendations

 Cathy is a great consultant who has helped me remain focused and balanced while developing my business and juggling other responsibilities.   I highly recommend using the operations manual as a guide for businesses, especially startups.   Also, tools such as Cathy’s competition survey, marketing survey, and Cathy’s book entitled Handbook of Geriatric Care Management are great resources to use now and future.  Cathy is the business coach/business consultant I needed.  I will always be grateful for the time and money she saved me during this process.  Thanks, so much Cathy for all that you do!  I appreciate you!

Patrice Harrison LMSW, IPR

 

 

 

 

Presented by:
CATHY CRESS, MSW

 

 

Filed Under: Aging, Aging Family, aging family crisis, aging life care manager, Aretha Franklin, case manager, Concierge Senior, coronavirus, Coronavirus emergency plan, coronavirus shut down, Covid-19, Death and Dying Care Management, death and dying care manager, DNR, elder care manager, Elderlaw Attorney, End of Life Care manager, End of life documents, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric care manager, living will, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Quality of Life in Dying, Wealth Management Departments Tagged With: Advanced Directives, aging life and geraitric care manager, aging parent crisis, coronavirus, coronavirus and seniors, COVID_19, COVID-19 Deaths, COVOD_10& Advanced directives, death and dying, death and dying in COVID-19, geriatric care manager, Hospice Care, hospice for elderly parent, nurse advocate, nurse care manager

10 Do’s and Don’ts of Doing the Dysfunctional Family Inquiry Post Holidays

December 28, 2020

More than half of the aging families who call you inquiring about services after the holidays will be dysfunctional families. The great majority of calls will come from adult children. If you want to make the sale during the inquiry you have to know how to handle these dysfunctional family members on the phone and give them enough trust in you to sign your contract and give you a deposit for your services.

  1. Do Be Objective
  2. Do Use Active Listening
  3. Do Give them Hope you can solve their family problem
  4. Do a two-part inquiry and have the problem defined in the first part done by a skilled administrative Assistant?
  5. Do study the problem before you do the second call and have exactly how you would solve the problem ready in a planned elevator speech
  6. Do a complimentary 30-minute consultation
  7. Do not give away the store but outline how you are an expert at solving the problems (moving, keeping at home, Alzheimer’s wandering and a bare outline of your solution
  8. Do not criticize
  9. Do not blame,
  10. Do not take sides if several family members points of view and expressed them

Sign Up for My Free January Webinar  

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

             Thursday, January 21, 2021.  

                            2 PM -3:30 PM Pacific Standard Time

 

  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 Emily Saltz and Lynn Hackstaff’s chapter Family Conflicts, Dependence and Mutuality: Care Management and the Dysfunctional Family. Handbook of Geriatric Care Management 4th edition.Jones and Bartlett 

Find out more in this YouTube for My YouTube, Channel  Geriatric Care 1

Watch my Free YouTube Channel – Inquiry With Dysfunctional Aging Family After Holidays

 

Filed Under: Aging, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, Blog, Care Management Inquiry Call, Concierge aging clients, Concierge Senior, Contract signed, Dysfunctional Aging Familu, Dysfunctional aging family, Dysfunctional Family & Holidays, Dysfunctional Family Inquiry, Families, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric social worker, inquiry, inquiry call, Intake COVID-19, Make the Sale, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Sign Up Dysfunctional Aging Family, Sign Up GCM Client Tagged With: aging dysfunctional family, aging life care manager, aging life inquiry, aging life or GCM inquiry, care manager, case manager, Clinical Tools Dysfunctional Holiday, dysfunctional aging family, dysfunctional family roles, geriatric care manager, Holiday Inquiry call, nurse care manager, Tools with Dysfunctional families

Take This Test -Can You Take A Dysfunctional Family Case Over the Holidays ?

December 18, 2020

Do You Have the Clinical Skills to Give Hope to  The  Dysfunctional  Family Calling Desperately On the Holidays –

What does it Take?

    1. Do you know the right caseload mix so you have the intense time to handle these very heavy care families?
    1. Do you have 5 years of geriatric care management practice, a master’s degree to understand and work with them??
    2. Do you have care managers who can work with these complex aging dysfunctional families?
    3. Do you have the business model to realign your caseload for many of these time-intensive cases?
    4. Do you know aging family dynamics or do you have a staff member who does?

    5. Can you increase your staff to do this?
    6. Do You Know How to do a two call intake and complimentary consultation?
    7. Do You know how to make the sale to dysfunctional aging clients?
    8. Are you ready to be fired and have account receivable problems that come with these cases?
    9.  Do you know how to answer the challenge the dysfunctional, needy demanding adult children face and the client’s needs at the same time?
    10. Do you know how to hold an impromptu family Dysfunctional meeting with adult children, over the hectic holiday to plan care for aging parents?
    11. Can you work with narcissistic entitled older clients who are very demanding?
    12. Can you  emotionally handle the demeaning, blaming attitude of narcissistic old and new monied clients
  1. SIGN UP FOR MY WEBINAR To Find Out Clinical Tools to

  2. Work With These 

  3. Families 

  4.  

      Sign Up for My January Webinar  

     Working with Aging Dysfunctional Families- January and February-Long Day’s Journey into Night- 

                 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:family-charis1-226x300.jpg 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 the 5 Clinical Tools – you need – to solve these problems with your clients   Learn Six Steps Professional Must Take to Work with These Difficult Families    

     

     

     

    Find out more in the YouTube for My YouTube, Channel  Geriatric Care 1

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  1.  

Filed Under: Aging, Aging Family, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, Blog, care manager, case manager, Clinical Tools Dysfunctional families, Concierge Senior, Dysfunctional Aging Familu, Dysfunctional aging family, Dysfunctional Family & Holidays, elder care manager, estranged siblings, Families, Filial Crisis, FREE WEBINAR, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, Holiday Meltdown in Aging Family, Holiday Rituals in Aging Family, Long Distance Care, Narcissistic Personality, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Quality of Life for elders, sibling rivalry, Sibling Strife Christmas, Sibling Strife Holidays, Siblings, Spoiled Holiday Rituals, Therapist Specializing in Aging, Webinar Tagged With: aging dysfunctional family, aging family, aging life care manager, aging parent, aging parent care, care management, care manager, case manager, dysfunctional family, geriatric care manager, nurse care manager

Can Blue Blue Christmas and Hanukkah Come From Dementia ?

December 2, 2020

As Elvis Predicted

Many families have a Blue Blue Christmas-or Hanukkah. Why does an aging crisis occur so often during the holidays? How can so many desperate adult children get care managers on the phone and howl about Mom or Dad in December? There are a million bad reasons, – too much alcohol, too many folks who do not get along and drink that alcohol.  But the physical basis for all of this misery in an elder is often a loss of executive function and IADL’s and ADL’s

Why ADL’s and IADL’s.

It takes  IADLs- (Instrumental Activities of Daily Living) shopping for gifts, cooking ritual meals and ADL’s walking to shopping

, decorate serve a ritual meal, climbing ( getting all those decorations out of the attic), grooming ( Mom can be found – in a “messy ensemble” at the feast) by the older person in charge of the holiday to pull it off.  Then add depression to the aging stew – widowhood, loneliness and you have the challenges to an elder, usually the woman in the family,  in managing this entire titanic ritual.

Crash of Executive Skills

The holidays in aging families can be a disaster for another neurological reason. Mom or Dad’s Executive Skills have crashed just like a computer.

Executive functioning involves the ability to organize, plan, and carry out a set of tasks in an efficient manner. It also includes the ability to self-monitor and control our behaviors and multiple other cognitive functions and to perform the goal-directed behavior. It can be described as high-level thinking skills that control and direct lower levels of cognitive functioning.

Planning for the holidays takes those high-level thinking skills -to execute and carry out 25 different major tasks according to a study in the UK- Just think, planning a 

specific holiday ritual menu,( brisket and latkes or popovers and beef prime rib )- then shopping for it cooking it, planning the ritual items in the celebration – a menorah and

Hanukkah bush, Christmas tree, and creche buying them or getting them out of storage on and on.

Why we may end up with burned brisket or turkey.

This is a massive task event/ planning job taken on by one woman usually and as executive functioning power down in her brain- the computer-, which is our aging brain starts to crash- the result- the family freaks out because Mom forgot the ritual steps.

That’s why we need aging life or geriatric care managers to help divide the tasks when Mom cannot do this any longer

Subscribe to my YouTube Channel to learn More- Geriatric Care 1 

SIGN UP FOR MY HOLIDAY WEBINAR

FINAL DAY TO SIGN UP!

8 Ways to Tame the Turmoil of the Holidays & Twindemic in the Aging Family

 

 Learn how!

  • How to sell services to the desperate Aging Family during the holiday surge
  • How to give hope to frantic children who call when their aging parent struggling with Loneliness and isolation on the holidays
  • How to help the Aging Family make holiday visits remotely or safely in person
  • How to counsel the Aging Family to track aging decline &Twindemic risk in loved ones
  • How to work with both dysfunctional and long-distance families who call during the holidays
  • How to use GCM tools to contain Holiday chaos
  • How to use financial forecasting to prepare for business growth during the holidays

Sidestep the Many Care Managers Who Do not know how to work with Dysfunctional family or do COVID Coaching of Aging Families so the client chooses you

THIS FREE WEBINAR IS Thursday, December 3, 2020, FROM 2 PM – 3:30 PM PST

Sign Up Now

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: ADL Loss & Holidays, Aging, Aging Family, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, Alzheimers, Alzheimers & Holidays, Blog, care manager, case manager, Concierge Senior, Dementia, Dementia & Holidays, Dysfunctional aging family, Families, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, Holiday Rituals in Aging Family, Long Distance Care, nurse advocate, nurse care manager Tagged With: aging family, aging life care manager, aging parent crisis, Alzheimers, alzheimers & holidays, care manager, case manager, case manager geriatric social worker, COVID & Christmas, COVID & Holiday Season, COVID Virtual Hanukkah Visit, Dementia & Holiday Tasks, early Alzheimers, Executive Skills, Functional Assessment, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, holidays with aging parents, IADLs, nurse advocate, nurse care manager

What Types Concierge Clients Can Afford Paid Care Besides Donald Trump On the Holidays?

November 1, 2020

 Types of aging families who can afford care management

Families who can afford geriatric care management and home care  long term can do so because they have the financial resources, which are usually over a million dollars in assets.. Part of this is drawn from Claudia Fine and Nick Newcombe excellent chapter ” Entitlement in the Aging Family”, Care Managers Working With the Aging Family, Jones and Bartlett) 

Narcissistic-Entitled Families:

Entitlement in these families usually develops from a specific kind of “not good enough parenting” in which the parents themselves have struggled with personality disorders, most typically, in this type of family, narcissistic borderline personality  ( example President Trump)They struggled with a borderline personality that went undiagnosed or was formally diagnosed and untreated. The narcissistic or borderline parent essentially does not experience the child/children as separate and discreet from themselves and, moreover, uses the child/children to serve parental needs.  This parent-child relationship is characterized by severe boundary issues in which seduction and abandonment are ever-present dynamics and where emotional unpredictability and instability are constant.  ( Fine and Newcombe- Entitlement in the Aging Family, Care Managers Working With the Aging Family)

 

 Rich and Famous-Entitled Families:

These families are identified by the parents’ socioeconomic, financial and political prominence.  ( example President Reagan)They are families in which all basic needs, services, resources and creature comforts are obtained via income, assets, abundant discretionary cash flow and/or come from the political position, station or power.  Once again, the entitlement of the family is passed from the parent to the child who in turn brings these behaviors and actions to the caregiving milieu and care management relationship.  In this category, the entitlement arises out of a family that is accustomed to purchasing everything.  They look to paid others to meet their needs (as opposed to families who must themselves find and orchestrate ways to meet basic and complex needs themselves or with the help of the extra-familial system).  Often these families have household staff, i.e., nannies, butlers, drivers, private pilots, cooks, and maids.  They may have available to the business and family lawyers and accountants, as well as, teams of medical professionals and concierge physicians.  Consequently, in almost all situations they are uninvolved in processes, especially those that are difficult, stressful and time-consuming.  ( Fine and Newcombe- Entitlement in the Aging Family, Care Managers Working With the Aging Family)

 

Well-heeled seniors,affluentseniors.jpg

According to the New York Times, may be middle-class retirees who buy shoes from Payless but have a defined pension can afford care at home when they need it and private care management. They rode the post-war economy, held jobs long term and through that defined pension (no 401K) face a very healthy financial picture in aging.  They worked for city, county, state government are teachers, truck drivers, social workers or were union members in all trades. They had a career at Xerox, IBM, Campbell Soup and big Fortune 500 companies.

 

Professionals- Physician, Attorneys, CPAs

This group made a very healthy living during the late 20th Century, probably had a defined pension and have very lucrative investments that allow them to afford home care and care management. They usually come from nearly iStock_000063346301_Medium-1.jpgnormal families and have been well parented although you will find a mixture of dysfunctional aging families. Their adult children tend to be supportive of their parents, although again you will find a mixture of dysfunctional families in this category.

If you are in any of these families, how will you spend the coming holidays with them- and will you spend the future COVID-ridden Holidays with them. If you are a geriatric care manager or geriatric therapist, what will you advise your clients do during this star crossed holiday on ice.?

SIGN UP FOR MY NEW FREE WEBINAR

 

8 Ways to Tame the Turmoil of the Holidays & Twindemic in the Aging Family

 Learn how!

  • How to sell services to the desperate Aging Family during the holiday surge
  • How to give hope to frantic children who call when their aging parent struggling with Loneliness and isolation on the holidays
  • How to help the Aging Family make holiday visits remotely or safely in person
  • How to counsel the Aging Family to track aging decline &Twindemic risk in loved ones
  • How to work with both dysfunctional and long-distance families who call during the holidays
  • How to use GCM tools to contain Holiday chaos
  • How to use financial forecasting to prepare for business growth during the holidays

Sidestep the Many Care Managers Who Do not know how to work with Dysfunctional family or do COVID Coaching of Aging Families so the client chooses you

THIS FREE WEBINAR IS Thursday, December 3, 2020, FROM 2 PM – 3:30 PM PST

Sign Up Now

 

 

 Blog: https://www.cathycress.com/blog/

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Gerontologist/Cathy-Cress-MSW-633836950007072/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/cathyjocress

Email: cressgcm@got.net

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Aging, Aging Life Care, Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, Aging therapist, ALCA & Skilled Nursing Facility, Blog, Concierge aging clients, Concierge Client, concierge clients, Concierge Senior, COVID & HOLIDAY SEASON, Covid 19 Webinar, Covid Holiday Remote Visit, COVID Webinar, Covid-19 and GCM SERVICES, COVID-19 Webinar, elder care manager, Families, Geriatric Assessment, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, high end clients, Holiday Meltdown in Aging Family, Holiday Rituals in Aging Family, Holiday season, Holiday Sibling Rivalry, Holidays, HolidaySeason and COVID, home care, Long Distance Care, Long distance caregiver, Narcissistic Personality, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Remote Thanksgiving Family Visit, Webinar Tagged With: Aging Concierge client, aging family, aging life care manager, aging parent care, aging parent crisis, care manager, case manager, Certified Senior Advisors, Concierge Care Manager, Covid, COVID & Holiday Season, COVID VIRTUAL CHRISTMAS VISIT, COVID VIRTUAL HANN, COVID VIRTUAL THANKSGIVING VISIT, Covid-19 Telehealth, COVIF VIRTUAL THANKSGIVING VISIT, Entitled, Entitled Family, geriatric care manager, Holiday COVID Celebration, Narcissistic Personality, nurse advocates, nurse care manager, Rich and Famous, Virtual COVID Holiday Celebration, well heeled seniors

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