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

Sign Up for My Webinar on Death Doulas and End of Life

January 11, 2023

Si

Add Death Doula &Death and Dying to Your Care Management Agency

Deliver a Good End of Life-

Add Death and Dying to Your Care Management Agency

Serve Your Client until Death Do You Part

This webinar is free

Join me on January  24 and 2 PM and learn why End of Life Services Are a perfect new service for care managers

Find Out More 

Sign up for my free webinar on Death Doulas

Death Doula – What is that?-In this 1 ½ -hour webinar you will learn “What is Death Doula and how Care managers can work with them.

Sign up for my webinar on Death Doulas and End of Life.  In A Washington Post, this week a Post article said that Death Doulas have become a nationwide death-positive, national movement mirroring the traditional ritual in Mexico that many Americans also celebrate, the Day of the Dead. That ritual holiday celebrates death as a positive part of life by remembering those who have died, honoring them with flowers ( marigolds), and “commemorating death as another element of life.

We live in a culture that is afraid of death- where death, like birth, was hidden in institutions, like nursing homes and hospitals for decades so that families never had to experience it. This hiding away from the entrance and exit of life is one reason why we fear death. Death-like birth used to occur at home, where families could see and feel the dying person, hold them, and smell them, so those fears were not there. Now like a birth, that can happen at home death can too at home with the help of a  geriatric care manager and a Death Doula who like a midwife of birth –  is a midwife of death. This a reason you should sign up for my webinar on Deliver of Good End of Life.

Sign up for my free webinar in Death Doulas and  End of Life and learn from an interview with Patti Urban ALCA care manager and Death Doula

What is a death doula? 

what exactly does a death doula do?

Do Death Doula work with Hospice, Care Managers, or just families

Is there a Charge

How can I contact a Death Doula

How can a care manager be trained as a Death Doula?

 

Patti, a Certified Dementia Practitioner, Senior Advisor, and End of Life Doula, is the owner of Aging Care Planning Solutions, a geriatric care management and end-of-life planning practice.  She is the former Executive Director of Shoreline of Clinton, a memory care assisted living community, and the former owner of Comfort Keepers, a home care company serving seniors, both located in Connecticut.  She is the founder of the Shoreline Area Senior Network, a local networking and educational group for professionals serving the senior community along the Connecticut Shoreline.  Currently, she is a member of the Advisory Council of the Agency on Aging of South Central Connecticut and is a former Board Member of the Shoreline Eldercare Alliance, Association of Women Business Leaders, Orchard House Adults Day Center, Shoreline Chamber of Commerce, and National Speakers Association Connecticut Chapter.

She resides in Connecticut and is the mother of three daughters and one son, all adopted from China.  She can be reached at 845-641-8123, pattiurban@agingcarePS.com, and www.agingcarePS.com.

Sign Up for my free Webinar

Sign up for my webinar on Death Doulas

We will Also Cover Serve Your Client until Death Do You Part

  • Transition the patient/family through the five stages of death
  • Help clients be active participants in their care
  • Give the family/caregiver tools to manage care
  • Provide family center care to  family caregivers and family
  • Choose the right support services through all stages of death
  • Introduce Hospice and Palliative care and work with their team
  • Use ALCA End-of-Life Benefits During COVID
  • 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

Filed Under: 5 stages of death, 5 Stages of Dying, 5 stages of End of Life, Acute Stage of Dying, Aging deaths, Aging Family, aging life business, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, ALCA Role Death and Dying, Atul Gawande, black care manager, black concieirge nurse, black concierge care manager, black concierge RN, Black Entrepreneur, Black Entrepreneur RB, Black Entrepreneur RN, Black Geriatric Care Manager, Black RN, black RN care manager, black social worker, black travel nurse, Black Travel Nurses, Black Travel RN, Blog, Concierge aging clients, Concierge Care Manager, Death & Dying, Death and Dying Care Management, death and dying care manager, End of Life, End of Life Care manager, End of Life Cultural Assessment, Five Stages of Death, FREE WEBINAR, GCM role Death and Dying, GCM workinh with hospice, geriatric care management emergency proceduress, Geriatric Care Manager, Good end of life, Good hospice, nurse advocate, Palliative Care, Quality of Life in Death, Quality of Life in Dying, Recovery phase of death, US Medicalization of Death Tagged With: 5 stages of death, Acceptance Phase of Death, adding end of life services, aging family, aging life care manager, aging parent care, aging parent crisis, Aging SNF deaths, Benefits of Care Managers To Hospice, care manager, case manager, chronic phase of death, COVID-19 Deaths, COVID-19 deaths SNF's, death and dying, Death Doula, Death Douls at end of life, Deaths in Nursing Homes, disputes at end of life, end of life care, end of life care manager, End of Life Diagnosis, families fretting at end of life, family meeting end of life, Free Webinar geriatric care management, Free webinar on end of life, GCM in Death and Dying, geriatric assessment for end of life, Hospice, Hospice at end of life, Hospice Care, hospice for elderly parent, nurse advocate, nurse care manager

Video of GCM Role in 5 Stages of Death

March 5, 2021

photo.JPG

 A Care Manager Can Navigate to a Good Death

Create an end-of-life care management service that provides a service in the 5 stages of death. Every stage of dying can be part of a good death, including the difficult point called the chronic phase if a care manager is a navigator for the dying person and their family.

The chronic stage of death is the time of loss

The Chronic stage is the time between the diagnosis and the result of treatment. During the phase, the dying person tries to cope with the demands of daily life while also going through necessary medical treatment, “often having to struggle with the sometimes brutal side effects of their treatment”.Chronic illness may also involve repeated episodes of deterioration in which the patient confronts and adjusts to these losses. Examples of these losses include cognitive function, sexuality, toileting, the ability to ambulate, eat and dress, and the indignity of losing all your hair. The focus of life for both the family and the patient needs to be redefined, shifting from hope for a cure to coping with the illness

Geriatric care manager tasks:

  1. Assist family to determine the type of long-term care which may  be safest and healthiest for the loved one: institutional: hospital chronic care or nursing home care, in-home nursing care or family care and make arrangements
  2. Co-ordinate help from community organizations through the continuum of care
  3. Assist client and family connect with support groups in death and dying
  4. Assist in learning management of disease skills such as from health care staff, videos, manuals, or brochures.
  5. Monitor anticipatory grief needs
  6. Learn about the disease in order to help the patient make good decisions about his/her care and to help family members monitor their expectations
  7. Monitor caregiver burden: encourage family caregivers to take time for selves, take breaks, get rest get to medical appointments, for grief needs
  8. Assess client’s non-medical needs: transportation, physician’s appointments, household tasks, personal care  if hospice  involved- medical if not involved
  9. Assess family caregiver for overload, burnout, educational supports, home care supplement or family replacement care

 Free Webinar to Deliver a Good End of Life-

Add Death and Dying to Your Care Management Agency

 

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  free 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

 

 

Gwendolyn LAZO Harris MA, CT, and Diane LeVan MA both highly expert care managers created a seminal chapter “Palliative Care and End of Life Care Manager ” in my book Care Manager’s Working With the Aging Family  

 

 

 

 
 

Filed Under: Acute Stage of Dying, Aging, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, Blog, care manager, case manager, Death and Dying, Death and Dying Care Management, death and dying care manager, elder care manager, End of Life, End of Life Care manager, Families, Five Stages of Death, GCM role Death and Dying, GCM Start -Up, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, Good Death, Hospice Care, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Palliative Care, Palliative care manager Tagged With: 5 stages of death, acute phase of dying, adding end of life services, aging family crisis, aging life care manager, anticipatory grief, chemo hair loss, chronic phase of death, death and dying, eldercare manager, end of life care manager, geriatic care manager, geriatric care manager, hospice care manager hospice, nurse advocate, nurse care manager

End of Life-When Do You Need Mediation?

February 23, 2021

Why do some families need mediation at the end of life? Mediation is a voluntary process in which the parties, with the help of an impartial third party mediator, work together to resolve their differences or solve a problem they were unable to address satisfactorily without help. These family differences especially happen to dysfunctional families but can beset any family at the end of life. They are faced with overwhelming emotions and decisions that demand that the family work together as a team. What happens to dysfunctional and even nearly normal families during this trying time? They don’t gather as a team. They fight. They fret and they feud. What are the results of this fighting, fretting, and feuding in families at the end of life?                                        family-charis1-226x300.jpg

Unresolved family conflicts emerge

            Dysfunctional families become more dysfunctional

Family members’ grief, pain, and anxiety are often masked as anger and presents as conflict (past and present)                                                 

Older person dies without resolving important family issues

Older person dies in conflict, not in peace

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

 

Serve Your Client Until Death Do You Part

 

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 

  • Transition the patient/family through the five stages of death     
  • Help clients be active participants in their care
  • Give the family/caregiver tools to manage care
  • Provide family center care to caregiver and family
  • Choose the right support services through all stages of death
  • Introduce Hospice and Palliative care and work with their team
  • Use ALCA End of Life Benefits During COVID
  • 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

 

Filed Under: Aging, aging life care manager, Death & Dying, Death and Dying Care Management, death and dying care manager, DNR, End of Life, End of Life Care manager, GCM role Death and Dying, geriatric social worker, Good Death, Hospice, Hospice Care, mediation, Mediation End of Life, Mediator, nurse care manager Tagged With: Advanced Directives, aging parent, aging parent care, aging parent crisis, ALCA care Manager, ALCA in End Of Life, disputes at end of life, dysfunctional aging family, dysfuntional family, elder mediation, end of life, end of life family meeting, facilitator, families fretting at end of life, family meeting, Fighting and Feuding at end of life, GCM mediator, geraitric care manager, Geriatric Assessment, geriatric care manager, geriatric care managers, Handbook of Geriatric Care Management third edition, mediation, mediation end of life, mediiator, My Geraitric Care Management Operations Manual, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, power of attorney for health care, siblings feuding, siblings fighting, step sibling family meeting

Do You Do Cultural Assessment With an End Of Life Client?

February 13, 2021

 

 

 Each Culture Has Different Customs and Beliefs in End of LifeiStock_000063346301_Medium-1.jpg

There may be cultural differences in end-of-life decision making as a result of underlying cultural values with disclosure of a terminal illness and very critically -use of life-sustaining medical treatment. With the widespread availability of advanced medical technology in the United States, people are encouraged to do everything possible to seek a cure for a life-threatening medical condition or sustain life. However, there are many other cultures for whom quality of life is more important than the length of life.

Other Cultures Do Not Follow US Medical Model ChiCheng_hmpgHdr.jpg

There are some societies, such as Japan, where a terminal illness may not be disclosed to a patient and it is culturally inappropriate to discuss impending or imminent death. For instance, among some Chinese, it is considered bad luck to discuss death because such talk may cause death to occur. Sometimes the ethnic elder is not expected to make healthcare decisions and the responsibility may be based on a traditional family hierarchy. For instance, in many Filipino families, there may be a designated decision-maker who is not the patient (e.g., the oldest son or a daughter or son who is a health professional) and who articulates the wishes of the elder or family.

Some Cultures Follow Religious  Customs and Beliefs in Death & Dying

Other end-of-life decisions are based on religious tenets. In many Catholic immigrant communities, there may be strong resistance to an advance directive because the document would signify a “loss of hope” or be interpreted as suicide, which is against church doctrine. These beliefs may also influence the use of hospice services.

 

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

Serve Your Client until Death Do You Part

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Advanced Directives, advanced directives& COVID-19, Aging, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, ALCA Role Death and Dying, Benefits of ALCA to Hospice, Cultural Assessment, Cultural Assessment Death, Cultural Beliefs in Death, Death & Dying, Death and Dying, Death and Dying Care Management, death and dying care manager, End of Life, End of Life Care manager, End of Life Cultural Assessment, End of life documents, Families, FREE WEBINAR, GCM role Death and Dying, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, Geriatric Care Manager Cultural Assessment, geriatric social worker, Good Death, Hospice, Hospice Care, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Palliative Care, Palliative care manager, SNF death COVID-19, US Medicalization of Death Tagged With: 5 stages of death, Acceptance Phase of Death, adding end of life services, Aging Life Care Association, care manager cultural assessment, chronic phase of death, COVID-19 Deaths, cultural assessment, Cultural Beliefs in Death, Cultural Customs in Death, cultural diversity, death and dying in COVID-19, geriatric care manager, Hospice at end of life, Palliative Care at end of life, US medicaization of Death

11 Parts of Care Manager’s Role With Family Death and Dying of COVID-19?

February 4, 2021

 

GCM Role is Working With Family In COVID-19

Care managers cannot be in the hospital with a  patient dying of COVID-19. They can support their bereft adult children, who cannot see their parents during the hospitalization, in those last moments of goodbye’s or after the death in this deadly pandemic.

In normal times care managers play a big role in end of life issues. They are their navigators through all five stages of dying, many times long before palliative care or hospice are called. Often GCM’s can help the family and client to bring in hospice or palliative care. But is COVID -19 they can offer guidance to the family through the sometimes weeks of hospitalization, intubation, their loved one is on a ventilator and ultimately often- death separated from loved ones.

Navigation Through a COVID-19 Death

 The normal final passage through life can emotionally charged.  If the family is following a long labyrinth to the end, in coronavirus, the blind alleys may be blocked by a rushed hospitalization, banned from seeing their loved one in the hospital, and not understanding the disease that is killing their loved one.

Care managers can find an opening through this maze.  Family dynamics and fear of dying can all explode a fraught crisis of care in dying of coronavirus. When vital end-of-life decisions need to be made, the stress of the responsibility and the seriousness of the situation can break into a mammoth wave of distress fear, and anxiety over the “ whole family system”. The geriatric care manager specializes in solving these end of life decisions for whole family system even at the end of life.

Facilitate Family talks over hospitalized COVID-19 Elder

Care Managers can facilitate terrified discussions outside the hospital, and clear the way for family members to come together to work as a functional unit around an unknown killer disease that preys on their loved one. Understanding the differing viewpoints is critical.  Knowing what a parent wants and does not want during the last days and hours of life help define and simplify the role of the family.  It helps the family bear the burden of having the responsibility of making decisions that their parent wants. Turning this around can also help families have some solace that they carried out their parent’s wishes after their parent’s death. 

 

Care managers can help family members handle the stress of an elder’s hospitalization and death by:

  • Encouraging routines, exercise, and social connectedness with friends and family
  • Advocate for them with the hospital staff to get updates in this chaotic time in hospitals
  • Help them maintain contact with the” hospital quarterback “ to get updated medical status and give input
  • Find technology for the family to communicate with the hospitalized family member  via text, telephone, email, or video chat
  • Support and mediate if necessary proactive discussions and advanced directive preparation in a rush if not done
  • Build a circle of care can help to reduce some of the potential conflicts,
  • Support them in having essential conversations, prior to needing  intubation, on last wishes if health status deteriorates  
  • Provide opportunities to say goodbye via technology
  • guide them in setting up rituals that can celebrate the end of life and give solace to a family during a time when there are yet no rituals for a COVID-19 death.
  • Work with the hospital to set up Zoom with the family to say goodbye to a loved one. 
  • Geriatric care managers do much more with clients and families but especially now with Covid-19 elder’s and their families facing a  separated, fractious end of life
  • Deliver a Good End of Life- Add Death and Dying to Your Care Management Agency

     

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

     Sign Up   

    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 care3.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

     

     See more about Cathy and her book Care Manager’s Working With The Aging Family

  • DyingGriefandBurial in the AgingFamily

Filed Under: Advanced Directives and Covid-19, Aging, Aging Community & Covid-19, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, ALCA COVID-19 Crisis, ALCA Role Death and Dying, Blog, care manager, case manager, CIRCLE OF CARE, coronavirus, Coronavirus emergency plan, coronavirus shut down, Covid 19, COVID-19 & Care Management, Covid-19 Death, Death and Dying, Death and Dying Care Management, death and dying care manager, elder care manager, End of Life, Families, FREE WEBINAR, GCM role Death and Dying, GCM Working With Aging Family, Geriatric Care Management Business, geriatric care manager, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric social worker, Good Death, nurse care manager, Therapist Specializing in Aging Tagged With: adding end of life services, aging life and geraitric care manager, death and dying, death and dying in COVID-19, Death and Dying in hospital, end of life care manager, geriatric care manager, Hospice at end of life, Hospice Care, hospice for elderly parent, Navigation through END of LIfe, Palliative Care at end of life, Technolog COVID-19 in Hospital, Tools to manage end of life

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