Cathy Cress

Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management

  • Home
  • Products
    • Speakers Bureau Package
    • GCM Manual New 5th Edition
    • VIP Care Management White Paper
    • Books
    • Geriatric Care Management – 4th Edition
    • Mom Loves You Best
    • Care Managers
  • Online Classes
    • GCM Operations Manual Online Course
    • Geriatric Care Management Business Online Course
    • CEUs for Individual Modules
  • Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
    • Past Webinars
  • Recommendations
  • About
  • Blog
    • Aging
    • Geriatric Care Manager
    • Siblings
    • Webinar
  • Contact

What Good Life to The Very End Can a Care Manager Bring ?

January 18, 2023

photo.JPG

Bringing Good Life to The Very  End

What Good Life to the very end can you bring -in the terminal phase of life -? Here is a wonderful example 

 Bill died at the home of his son after he had accepted that he was to die of liver failure and stopped all lifesaving treatment, like dialysis at the hospital and entering hospice. The decision was made that he would die at his son’s home with 24 care from his Care Management agency Livhome and his ongoing care manager Mary Brennan.

After his coming to terms with his death, Bill and his family, sons,  grandchildren, and great grandkids were able to say their goodbyes and offer the unconditional love that they had been fearful to express before his acceptance of death. A feeling of light & joy permeated his room, a family room overlooking the garden, where his hospital bed was set up. Great-grandchildren brought pictures and marveled at “grandpa grandpa “ high up in a hospital bed.

The  Good Life to The Very End -Joy of Hearing

His son put headphones with a mike on and William could hear and speak, as he had not in years.  It was like the wonderful film and concept  Alive Inside.  Hearing was a gift that gave him such joy in his last weeks of life.

The Good Life to the Very End- Let Family Just be Family

The family could just be family because they had care providers to care for bill. His 24-hour caregivers were gifted loving care providers from a GCM agency  Livhome. The 24-hour shifts included a nurse of 18 years from Central America and a man finishing his Ph.D. from the Congo. They cared for him with great warmth, so his family could just be family, relaxing in their love and surrounding him, as if in a circle, that swirled with 4 generations, going every which way while he watched, really loved, and melted into his last stage. His sons, grandchildren great grandchildren, and nephew ate meals, chitchatted, and welcomed each new family member coming in to see William, as he remained in the center in his hospital bed, the fulcrum of the gathering.

The Good Life to the End of a Great Care Manager620-amy-goyer-juggles-work-and-caregiving-mobile-technology.imgcache.rev1382542973676.web.jpg

The geriatric care manager, GCM Mary Brennan, from Livhome, a seasoned powerful and so kind LCSW, adjusted here and there, with care providers, and family needs. Bill’s needs followed the guidance of hospice, who were slowly increasing the pain meds, and supporting his health and medical care needs in death. The geriatric care management agency worked as a partner supplying 24 care and support for the family.

Bill was able to have again, a magical care provider from Livhome, who had been with him for almost two years and was so at the end.

You are only as strong as your weakest link- those are the care providers. These people were the raft that floated Bill up while the family, offered love and hospice provided medical and end-of-life support. Together they buoyed Bill into his last stage of dying, knowing that his family was the fabric of every step he took toward forward towards death. They gave him that good life till the very end.

If you want to add an End of Life service and other services, plus all the forms necessary, go to my website,  and check out GCM Manual 

Free Webinar

 

Upcoming Free Webinar

Deliver a Good End of Life 9 Steps to Death &Dying

Jan 24, 2023 02:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

 SIGN-UP 

 

 

 

 Join Us

Learn About Death Doulas

Upcoming Free Webinar

Deliver a Good End of Life 9 Steps to Death &Dying

Jan 24, 2023, 02:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

 SIGN-UP 

 

Good Life to The Very  End

 

Serve Your Client until Death Do You Part
Join me on January 24 2023 and learn why End of Life Services re a perfect new se

 

 

 

Learn to guide the patient/family through the five stages of death. Understand how to help clients be active participants in their care. Give the family caregivers tools to manage care. Find out how to provide family-centered care to caregivers and families. Learn to choose the right support services for the client through all stages of death.
Introduce Hospice and Palliative care to the client earlier and work with their team.
Find out how to Use COVID -19 family coaching for GCM. Discover the role of Death Doula at end of life.

Time

Jan 24, 2023, 02:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

SIGN-UP 

 

 

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

Filed Under: 5 stages of death, 5 Stages of Dying, 5 stages of End of Life, Advanced Directives, Aging, Aging deaths, aging family crisis, aging life care manager, Benefits of ALCA to Hospice, Black Aging Family, black care manager, black concieirge nurse, black concierge care manager, black concierge RN, Black Entrepreneur, Black Entrepreneur RB, Black Entrepreneur RN, Black entrepreneurs, Black Geriatric Care Manager, Black geriatric care managers, Black RN, black RN care manager, black social worker, black travel nurse, Black Travel Nurses, Black Travel RN, care manager, care manager operations manual, Death & Dying, Death and Dying, Death and Dying Care Management, death and dying care manager, Dementia & Holidays, End of Life, End of life documents, entrepreneur business, entrepreneur care manager, entrepreneur RN, Geriatric care manager & Hospice, Good Death, Hospice, Hospice Care, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Palliative Care, Private Duty Home Care Tagged With: aging family, aging life care manager, ALCA in End Of Life, Alive Inside, Being Mortal, care manager, case manager, Dying at Home, end of life care manager, GCM in Death and Dying, geriatric care manager, Good Life to the Very end, Hospice, Hospice at Home, Joy in End of Life, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, terminal phase of death, Terminal Stage of Death

Reminiscence on Memorial Day- Serve it to Elders Along With Hamburgers

May 26, 2022

Reminiscence on Memorial Day

What is Reminiscence- It  isn’t new-It’s how history was recorded-

Oral storytellers gave us the Odyssey and other valiant tales. Ulysses and Penelope may be coming to your Memorial Day Barbecue this coming weekend.

Reminiscence on Memorial Day

But storytelling only works if the teller remembers the lines. Family history has to be captured when the older person still remembers. So holiday events are a perfect time to tap into that font before it flickers.

Tips to Capture Elders’s Stories

Here are some tips to use if they want to capture these family tales during Memorial Day weekend with aging parents—a perfect time to do this. If you are gathering at a memorial day barbeque, ask, older family members how they celebrated the holiday that begins supper, when they were young.

Then use empathetic listening.What is empathetic listening? Make all the messages you are giving the older person— tone, how fast you speak, how they are sitting- say, “I want to listen to you

What is Reminiscence-Asking 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.

Start somewhere. If the elder isn’t going to tell stories on his or her own, start the story.

See if they will follow along.” Did you go to Memorial Day parades when you were a kid or march in one after the war ( pick his war)?” Did your parents have barbecues to start the summer ?”. “What was it like being drafted? Where did you serve?  

 

Music is just next to memory in the brain.

 Alive Inside can be used for elders with dementia. So 50’s Rock and Roll, Little Richard, Bill Haley, and if they are older the Four Freshman. Play elder’s music at your event and ask older vets or their wives or widows for stories of the Vietnam War, Korean War, or Iraq.

 Two technology tools to help you with Reminiscence for your older client

Story Worth    

Story Worth is a legacy-building tool that can help families create a book of memories through weekly easy prompts of questions to ask the older person to create a weekly story about their life resulting in a book after one Year. My daughter gifted it to her Dad and he and the whole family loved the legacy book that was created

 

Quick Voice Recorder to catch the memory on your phone and used Dictation to transcribe the memories into written word to print.

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

CONNECT WITH CATHY CRESS MSW

  • Subscribe to my YouTube channel, Geriatric Care Management     
  • Subscribe to my blog 
  • Subscribe to my Facebook page 
  • Visit my website 
  • Follow me on Twitter
  • Explore my GCM Business Class 
  • Check my GCM Operation Manual Class with 15 GCM Services for Clients

Filed Under: Aging, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, Alive Inside, Alzheimers & Holidays, Benefits of Reminiscence, Black RN, Black Travel Nurses, Black Travel RN, Blog, care manager, Dementia & Holidays, Dementia Activities, Families, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric social worker, Holiday Rituals in Aging Family, Holidays, Legacy Tools, Memoria lDay With Elders, Memorial Day, Memorial Day and Aging Veterans, Memorial Day Barbecue, Memorial Day Veterans, Memorial Day with elders, Memories for Elders, Music and Memory, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Quality of Life, Quality of Life and Reminicance, Quality of Life Reminiscence, Quality of Life with Dementia, Reminiscence Therapy, Retired Veterans, Senior Legacy, Seniors&Reminiscence, Spoiled Holiday Rituals, Story Worth, Technology for Geriatric Care Managers, Technology for Reminiscence, Technology for seniors Tagged With: aging family, aging life care manager, aging parent care, Alive Inside, black aging family, black american geriatric care managers, black american social workers, Black Entrepreneurs, Black RN's, Black start-up geriatric care management, Black travel nurses, care manager, case manager, geriatric care manager, Memorial Day barbecue. Music and memory, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, oral history, oral history and quality of life, reminicence and elder, Reminicence and geriatric care manager, Reminicence on Memorial Day, Reminicence Therapy, reminiscence, storytelling and elders, StoryWorth

What Happens When High Priestess of the Holidays Falls off her Throne?

December 13, 2021

 

Mothers are the high priestess of the ritual- like Queen Elizabeth without servants.

This sets up a filial crisis as women age. The UK estimated that there are 25 to-do’s women have on the holiday. It takes years to accumulate objects ritual dishes and religious objects used. It takes the left side of your brain executive skills, plans and organize, remember details, does things based on your experience. This eventually leads to a filial crisis and passing the torch.

Holidays are often done on autopilot

Women as they age –recalling all the jobs that must be done year after year get worn down in their assigned role as ” Mothers are the high priestess of the ritual.”

 It also takes their IADLs- (Instrumental Activities of Daily Living) meal planning, shopping, plus ambulation. Then add depression – widowhood, loss and you have the challenges of aging in managing these entire titanic rituals mothers are assigned by society.  Many times the aging Mom can no longer balance all these plates and the holidays shatter with the crashing ritual dishes.

When Mom Cannot do all the Holiday Preparation a Filial Crisis Occurs

 

Then the torch has to be passed and an adult child (usually an adult daughter must take over to resolve this filial crisis. This passing the torch is like secession, – Princess Elizabeth taking over for her Dad, King George, (who hated it and had a lifelong stutter) made famous in The King’s Speech who was handed the throne by his brother Edward who quit being king.   

WhenMom needs to Pass the Torch-Some  Baby Boomers Kids Shocked

Baby boomer-adult children and aging parents are unprepared by their own culture for this new developmental phase of passing the torch. They do not expect it as they did

the nights of the crying newborn or the rebellious teen, and are thrown off balance by the sometimes sudden and usually unexpected loss of their anchoring aging parents, when they find elderly mom is unable to pull off running the holidays  Indeed, what must happen in this new developmental phase is that the adult child must evolve beyond the needy child, he or she has been, depending on his or her parents for that fiscal, emotional, social support and ritual organizing parents, like managing the officiating over the Christmas or Hanukkah celebration and take on filial responsibility to avoid a filial crisis.

 Geriatric Care Manager to the Rescue

In the normal healthy family system this filial crisis of Holiday rituals can be overcome and the adult children with the brief help of an aging life or geriatric care manager they can let go of their former dependent roles and confront their parent’s loss by organizing and providing care. They can take over Christmas and Hanukkah by stepping in and grabbing that torch.

Geriatric care managers understand that the adult child must transition to what social work pioneer Margaret Blenkner labeled the filial crisis to filial maturity or a new mature state where they, as midlife adults, can give up their former roles as dependent, needy children and start to provide care to their old/old parents.

Dysfunctional Family Do Not Want to Take Over for Mom

In the dysfunctional aging family, this filial crisis is incredibly hard to trounce from both the parents’ and the adult child’s point of view. They really need a geriatric care manager’s services

Sign Up for My Free January Webinar  

11 Vital Clinical Tools For Desperate Families Post-Holidays

             Thursday, Jan 6, 2022, 02:00 PM Pacific Time (the US and Canada)

 

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

 Join me Post-holiday and learn how to come to clinically rescue 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
  • Master 11Vital Clinical Tools you to solve client problems
  • Take Six Clinical 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 

  1.  

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

     

Filed Under: ADL Loss & Holidays, Aging Family, aging family crisis, aging life business, Aging Life Care, Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, Aging Mother, Aging therapist, Alzheimers & Holidays, Blog, care manager, case manager, Dementia, Dementia & Holidays, Dysfunctional aging family, Dysfunctional Family & Holidays, elder care manager, Families, Filial Crisis, GCM Webinar, Geriatric Care Management Business, geriatric care management emergency proceduress, geriatric care manager, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric social worker, Hanukkah, Holiday Meltdown in Aging Family, Holiday on call, Holiday Rituals in Aging Family, Holiday season, Holiday Sibling Rivalry, Holidays, Nearly Normal Aging Family, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, POST HOLIDAY CALLS, POST HOLIDAY SEASON, sibling rivalry, Sibling Strife Christmas Tagged With: aging life care on holidays, Aging Mom on Christmas, aging Mom on holidays, aging parent crisis, aging parent crisis on holiday, alzheimers & holidays, black aging family, black american geriatric care managers, black american social workers, Black caregivers, Black Entrepreneurs, Black Nurse Entrepreneurs, Black RN's, Black travel nurses, Dementia & Holiday Tasks, dysfunctional family holidays, Filial crisis on Christmas, Filial crisis on Hanahka, geriatric care manager. aging family crisis, Holiday Crisis For Aging Family, holiday misery, Working With Dysfunctional family

How Can Someone with Dementia Have a Better Quality of Life on a Holiday ?

April 2, 2021

 

Reminiscence and Story Telling

 

This Easter holiday is the perfect occasion to engage elders with dementia. The role of storytelling and reminiscence is very important for elders, as they look back on their life and holidays bring strong long-term memories. It gives them a chance to socialize as they tell their story. It also means someone usually listens or documents. That magically gives the elder social interaction and connectedness. So many Easter rituals can prompt stories for elders with some level of dementia. The ritual of dying easter eggs, finding easter baskets on Easter morning, dressing up for the local Easter Parade, eating ritual foods at Easter dinner or at Easter Brunch. Whether the older person is actually participating or watching, these rituals can prompt stories from their long-term memory.

 

Elders sharing stories means passing on history.

This gives the older person a chance to give the larger picture of their life and family history to children and grandchildren or extended family, who may have not heard all the details of their grandparents or parents’ life before- what they cooked, what they did on holidays like Easter. So the quality of the older person of both the older person and the aging family is increased through oral history and reminiscence

The aging professional can suggest family or friends just sitting down and prompting a story or oral history using  technology like your phone

Even elders with Alzheimer’s can find new joy with Reminiscence

When an elderly person develops Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia, the short-term memory is frequently affected but long-term memories can remain as intact and vivid as they have always been during the course of the patient’s life. As a result, a family can use a practice called reminiscence therapy to help combat the frustration, confusion, and depression that can often accompany dementia and even bring joy to the older person

What is reminiscence therapy?

 Reminiscence therapy is like a therapy session where the elderly person will spend time recalling memories of his or her life, perhaps telling stories about things that happened and events the person can recall.

Sometimes senior experts or family members can use photos, familiar objects, or other such things to help jog the memory of the patient. Some therapists and family members can a scrapbook of a person’s life, including photos, letters, and other such personal memorabilia. This becomes a visual biography of the patient’s life and helps the older person remember who he or she is.

How does this quality of life therapy help? Almost all elderly men and women can start feeling discouraged and frustrated with their memory issues. Reminiscence can give peace and acceptance of the current situation by helping the person remember that he or she has had a good and full life. It also prompts communication skills of elderly people who otherwise may not feel very compelled to open up and share anything with anyone else.

Dementia and Reminiscence of Easter

So this Easter holiday try reminiscence. People with dementia can receive a richer quality of life when people actually listen to them. They feel as their thoughts and feelings actually matter. For anyone who has an elderly loved one suffering from dementia, this benefit alone can make reminiscence therapy a form of joy for a very confused elder. So when you dye Easter eggs, create easter baskets, do an Easter egg hunt, serve an Easter brunch or dinner, get them involved, let them watch, allow them to help if possible, serve them ritual food or to taste it and ask when how they experienced these rituals, when they were young. If you have old albums of pictures from their childhood of them at Easter, look and the photos with them. Then listen.

Reach Cathy in Social Media

Social media links

YouTube channel:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaoHdozwS0RvKD

Social media links

YouTube channel:  Website: https://cathycress.com/

 

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: Adult children, Aging, Aging Family, Aging Life Care, Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, Dementia, Dementia & Holidays, Easter, Easter and Reminiscence, Easter Rituals, Emotional Quality of Life, Families, GCM Working With Aging Family, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric care manager, Good Death, Holiday Rituals in Aging Family, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Quality of Life on Easter Holiday, Quality of Life with Dementia, Reminiscence Therapy, Spiritual Quality of Life Tagged With: aging family, aging parent, aging parent care, aging technology, ancrestory.com, assessing for quality of life, care plan, care plan interventions, family caregivers, Family Caregivers using technology, flip video, genealogy, geriatric care management, geriatric care manager, geritaric care manager, grandfather, grandmothers, grandparents, increasing quality of life, LCSW, oral history, oral history and quality of life, oral history and You Tube, parent care, Quality of Life, quality of life assessment, reminicence and elder, Reminiscence and 4th of Jul;y, Reminiscence and Dementia, Reminiscence on the Holidays, storytelling and elders, technology for caregivers, You Tube, You Tube and storytelling

Dysfunctional Family Holiday Mayhem – Mom Can’t 4 Manage the Ritual any Longer

December 4, 2020

What is the Normal Family vs Dysfunctional?

The normal family is the hand grenade compared to the nuclear bomb of the dysfunctional family. When both are faced with a filial crisis with an aging parent being dependent and the adult child needs to take over they cower or explode.

Dysfunctional families have many characteristics.

They lack the ability to resolve conflicts and have frequent psycho-social blockages that prevent the family from growing emotionally. They fail miserably at moving through all family stages and orchestrating family rituals.

Most life transitions in the family, like birth, adolescence, and marriage have been very difficult to make, marked by a lack of support from the parents. Every holiday might have been drunkenly ruined. The parental figures are usually not in charge, nurturing, or able to establish establishes clear rules. They have never created an excel spreadsheet on tasks to do to orchestrate a holiday. Like a disease spreading down generations, they never knew how themselves, as their parents wrecked the holidays too.

Bad or just NO Family Leader

There are murky roles for everyone in the dysfunctional family with the chief role of the parent characterized by a lack of leadership of the family and the ability to nurture the children. Mom rarely became the high priestess on Hanukkah or Christmas, the family members generally do not believe the parent is there for them and can be depended upon. The dysfunctional family is colored by bloody strained relationships and unresolved conflicts and drunken ruined Christmas memories

Dysfunction Families Inspiration For Great Literature

is the inspiration for great literature. O’Neil’s wrenching plays A Long Day’s Journey into Night”  ed6855aa32d877d7fc1ef9ee757e0f17-98.jpgportrays the most miserable of dysfunctional families. Alcohol, secrets that have been kept by all for generations splatter the pages of this great play like it does in all the ruined holiday’s children of dysfunctional families recall with horror.  Prince of Tides a tale of a southern dysfunctional family gives us timelier glimpses of a family whose center can never hold together and whose blood oozes all over everyone from one generation to the next. Award-winning plays and films, like Tracey Letts August in Osage County about a ruined ritual funeral from hell when Julia Roberts tries to beat up drug-addled, drunk presiding mother Meryl Streep.

Burnt Latkes or the Christmas cookies-inflame the family

When Mom does not make the very small things she was able to pull off like the latkes or the Christmas cookies-  she always made every Hanukkah and Christmas, or burns them to a crisp- someone else has got to be the cook, and resentments skyrocket – tempers flare – and the torch just might never get passed.

Someone must take over the holiday rituals

The family is again thrown into crisis. That means someone must take over and the dysfunctional family has no model or spreadsheet to pull off the holidays while caring for a parent who did not care for them.

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Aging, Aging Life Care, Blog, Dementia & Holidays, Dysfunctional Aging Familu, Dysfunctional aging family, Dysfunctional Family & Holidays, elder abuse, estranged siblings, Families, Filial Crisis, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric social worker, Holiday Meltdown in Aging Family, Holiday Rituals in Aging Family, Holiday Sibling Rivalry, Nearly Normal Aging Family, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, parent care, Sibling Strife Holidays, Spoiled Holiday Rituals Tagged With: aging dysfunctional family, aging life and geriatric care management, aging life care manager, aging parent care, aging parent crisis, alzheimers & holidays, care manager, case manager, dysfunctional family on the holiday, geriatric care manager, Holiday Meltdown in Aging Family, Holidays Crisis in aging family, holidays rituals, Long Days Journey Into Night, nurse care manager

  • 1
  • 2
  • Next Page »

Contact

Use the form on the
Contact page to email Cathy.

Email

Latest trending news

Connect with Cathy

Get Cathy’s “10 Critical Success Steps to a Profitable Aging Life or GCM Business”

  • Home
  • GCM Manual New 5th Edition
  • Books »
  • Services »
  • About
  • Recommendations
  • Blog »
  • Contact

Copyright © 2012–2023 CressGCMConsult & Cathy Cress - Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management | Developed by wpcustomify