Are You Ready for Thanksgiving Calls From Stressed Long Distance Caregivers ?

October 27, 2022

Long Distance Caregivers Stressed by Distance

Stressed long-distance caregivers are getting ready for holiday travel. So care managers -get ready for the holiday rush -when these long-distance caregivers call you. Many have often been flying or driving to both visit and care for aging family members for a while and have been exhausted for a long time. These usually understand that their parents are deteriorating with age and are savvy enough to have researched options and already found you on the web ( a reason to have a great website).

The Holiday Push Over The Edge

When Long distance family gathers with aging parents on Thanksgiving and everyone sees problems with an older person- the long-distance family may agree to call for help. The brutal stress of the holiday season on top of caring for an aging parent long-distance may push the long-distance care providers over the edge to join the Holiday Rush for care and call you. Are you ready for that holiday rush??

Signs That a Parent Needs Care

Unpaid bills litter Dad’s desk. He refuses to go to church when he was a devoted churchgoer all his life.

He’s drinking too much at the local pub. When the daughter puts the post-turkey leftovers in the refrigerator she finds moldy food on every shelf. When asked about the bills and the moldy food, Dad gets really angry at them when he was an easygoing guy all his life. This is the holiday push where they pick up the phone and scream 911 to a care manager.

Call made to 911- to the GCM from stressed long-distance providers

At that point, the daughter may feel panicked by holiday push and pull out her phone and call an aging life or geriatric care manager because she cannot fly home without getting help. Are you ready for these desperate calls you will be in this holiday rush?

You -Care Manager Gets Call From Stressed long distance care providers- Are You Ready?

Give frantic adult children hope when they frantically call this holiday.

So be prepared for their inquiry and know the needs of long-distance caregivers plus the resources in your area you can use in this holiday rush with long-distance caregivers when they call you. Do not give away the store in your call but let

them know that you are an expert in the needs of long-distance care providers and an ace navigator in your area that can find services and choices that are perfect to end their holiday pu

SIGN UP FOR MY HOLIDAY WEBINAR –

Get Ready for the Holiday Rush

WEDNESDAY, November 16th, 2022, FROM 2 PM – 3:30 PM PST

Learn how to create!

Pre-Holiday Social media campaigns to reach worried caregivers
Pre- Holiday-Materials about the warning signs that a parent needs help
Pre-Holiday Marketing to help you sign up families who might face a serious decline in aging parents
Get ready for the holiday rush

How to sell services to desperate post-holiday callers from Normal dysfunctional & long-distance family
How to use tools to contain holiday chaos & arrange care in festive family fright
How to move the family to New Year’s stability

Position Your Agency ahead of Care Managers who do not have great pre-holiday marketing campaigns and lack the clinical skills how to work with Adult Children and families during the chaotic aging family holiday visit when adult kids find their aging parents need care
Featuring

Cathy Cress MSW author of the Handbook of Geriatric Care

Management

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Featuring Speaker

Cathy Cress MSW author of the Handbook of Geriatric Care Management

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New Years Resolutions To Help Aging Parents

December 30, 2021

Adult child worried about aging parents during holidays visit

Do you make New Year’s resolutions? Here are some RESOLUTIONS TO HELP AGING PARENTS. It’s not “go on a diet,” because you ate some much holiday fare but what you should do after the holiday when you spotted red flags that made you worry about your aging mom or dad. Here is the entire list of New Year’s resolutions to help your aging parents you might make for January as an adult child worried about aging parents after the holiday visit.

Adult child worried about aging parents after holidays visit

RESOLUTIONS TO HELP AGING PARENTS

Adult Child Helping Senior aging mom with Finances

➢ Accompany the elderly person to the doctor, and talk to the doctor in person.

➢ Gather legal financial and insurance paperwork, and meet with professionals.
➢ Have all mail forwarded to yourself or another relative who will manage it
➢ Contact and meet with old and present friends.
➢ If your older family members are in a facility, make contact with staff that cares for them, and the ombudsman.
➢ Meet with your elderly relative’s support network.

➢ Meet with a geriatric care manager who can do all this for you
DO YOU THINK THIS RESOLUTION TO HELP AGING PARENTS IS TOO EXPENSIVE?

TEN REASONS YOU CAN AFFORD A GERIATRIC CARE MANAGER

The Top Ten Reasons Why You Can Afford A Geriatric Care Manager by Phyllis Brostoff

10. We can do in 2 hours what it would take you 2 weeks to do.

9. We know how to get around that “I’m saving for a rainy day” syndrome when your folks are drowning in their problems.

8. We’re much cheaper than the cost of plane fare if you have to fly into town when your parents say “everything is fine” but you know it isn’t.

7. We can give you the scoop on which nursing home is really right for your parents.

6. We can make your parents hear what you have said over and over again, but they refuse to listen to them, you are still a child.

5. We can tell you’re annoying siblings to shut up, but graciously.

4. We’ve helped hundreds of families a lot worse than yours.

3. Your dad can’t push our buttons.

2. Next time you want to hang up on your mother, you can tell her to call us.

1. We’re available 24/7, so you don’t have to be. Just find us here

If you are a care manager check out my latest free webinar on clinical skills to solve aging family problems post-holidays

With Omicron Make a Plan If Aging Parents Can’t Spend Holidays With You

December 20, 2021

HOLIDAY GATHERING WITH AGING PARENTS NOT SAFE

The CDC has warned again in yet another holiday season – 2021 to be very cautious about traveling on the holidays to keep yourself and your elderly relatives safe with the new variant of Omicron spreading so quickly.

Dr . Anthony Fauci has some very excellent advice about safe holiday gatherings with the specter of Omicron spreading so quickly over our celebrations.

The hygienic shield protecting from virus

What is your short-term plan? Since the crisis with Omicron and its spread soaring through colleges, football games, restaurants, and schools are closing has come down in the last week, what will you do about your holiday travel plans to family.

How are you going to get there? Why are we asking people to sacrifice distancing? If you have considered all the warnings of science and the CDC and if getting everyone tested with a home testing kit is not an option, and you need to cancel seeing older relatives or family with immune problems -consider the advice of a noted scientist below.

Last Holiday season Dr. Michael Osterholm, Disease Expert U of Minnesota, had warned against gathering in person with elderly family members on theHolidays
“We need somebody to start to articulate, a story to use. ‘If we don’t have that storytelling going on right now, that’s every bit as important as the science itself,”

NEED LONG TERM PLAN STARTING NOW

So adult children need to start making a new COVID-19 Omicron spreading so quickly travel plan. What will you say to their aging parents to convey they do not want to infect or even expose them to covid-19 so you cannot celebrate the holidays together? They cannot come to your home for the festivities; you cannot go to theirs.

This change in plans takes, as Osterholm suggested

creating a story and learning how to tell stories if you do not already know.

HOW TO TELL A STORY

Vaile Wright, senior director for health care innovation at the American Psychological Association. suggests creating the story,beginning by explaining how much you care about your family “I feel it’s in my family’s best interests to be more strict, so we’re not going to travel for Christmas.” This type of language, she said, makes the other person less defensive, since it doesn’t come across as “You aren’t doing the right thing so I can’t come to visit.”

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11 Clinical Steps to Work with Dysfunctional Families-Post Holidays –

Thursday, January 21

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Understand the Dysfunctional Aging Family System you must enter to get care for elders

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Great Tech Ideas For Long Distance Care Providers

July 22, 2021

Technology for the Long-Distance Family

Remote Technology to Help Long distance Care Providers

Remote technology like wearables, robotics, videoconferencing,are what an ALCA member or geriatric care manager need always and a way to navigate long distance clients to good choices for aging parents at a distance. Laurie Orlov’s blog, a fellow Geriatric Care Manager now very well known in the field of aging for her expertise in aging technology. This is what Orlov has to say about long-distance technology post pandemic. She can help with robotics , wearables such as smart watches and hearing aides . When these long distance care providers call you you might suggest one of the high-tech items expert Lori Orlov suggests a part of an older family member’s life. This is especially during the post pandemic when many restrictions are actually now coming back with the spread of the Delta variant among the unvaccinated.

These gero-technologies can help an older parent or relative shelter safely in place, avoid loneliness and isolation through connecting with others, age in place, and improve communicating with loved ones.

Videoconferencing

Videoconferencing is a great way to keep elderly parents connected and less lonely and isolated. It can also be a good tool for adult siblings who live apart to have chats or meetings about Mom or Dad. Free programs like Skype or another parent-friendly plus easy choice Facetime and the built-in webcams on many computers, make this easy on elders. Zoom has become the number one way that families communicate, during the pandemic. . For the holidays, birthdays or even a crisis, it is how we virtually gather now and has a free version.

Amazon Echo Show uses Alexa, by activating Amazon’s voice and can make calls to adult children or anyone, making it easy for seniors to talk to anyone including family. An older standard telephone conference service is still highly rated and still free, as well. Freeconferencecall.com

Med Dispensers

Here is a review of several med dispensers on the market

A device that is very appropriate for elders who have medication abuse problems is Hero Electronic Pill Dispenser

Alexa has a new pill reminder feature

A more modest choice is Electronic Pill Box with Flasing Reminders

Caregiver Video Cameras

Cameras like Google Nest can monitor an individual’s activities of daily living and provide caregivers with direct video feed on a smartphone, tablet app, or the Web to check on the status of a family member.

Monitoring sensors

Wireless systems. Cameras can be viewed remotely from a smartphone or computer. You may be able to get video motion alerts and the ability to pan and zoom

GCM Laurie Orlov at Aging Tech suggests many new 2020 sensor programs among them. Caregiver Smart Solutions

Canary Care. lets you place wireless sensors around the house to monitor the activity of an elderly parent who is declining, while the family is long distance. The information is sent to your Canary Care portal. The sensors are battery powered and the hub uses mobile data to send the information, so no need for a landline or broadband.

TruSense – can alert long distance or even local adult children if a probable fall occurs. An alert is triggered when TruSense detects that your loved one has not moved from high-risk fall areas (such as a stairwell or restroom) in an unusually long time. Other alerts include doors where the older person could wander.

Other Sensor Products

Sensor products can check a number of items within a house: motion patterns, stove on/off status, carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide levels, air quality, and presence of smoke or fire. They can also lock doors and control other items in the home remotely.

Daily activity monitoring. Activity sensors can be placed on the refrigerator, stove, door, and other objects around the home. Your relative may also wear a watch that monitors activity. You can allow caregivers and physicians to access the data. Set up notifications to be delivered by e-mail, text, or mobile app.: Live!y is a good choice

GCM Technology Guide

Technology moves in nano-seconds and changes almost as fast. Give clients and their families the updated information. For a totally overhauled technology chapter,” Technologies That Support Aging in Place “, by GCM Julie Menack and Berkeley’s head of the Center for Aging and Technology, David Lindeman Ph.D. Get the new Handbook of Geriatric Care Management 4th edition

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

December 24, 2020

You will be Showered With Calls Over the Holidays

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

Why?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Unpaid bills if long-distance family members monitor bill pay from afar
Missed appointments with their physicians that long-distance care provider monitor with their doctors
Clutter reported by neighbors, friends local senior agencies a home that was once always neat
Weight loss reported by the aging parents Dr’s or local visitors
Memory loss, change in short-term memory when they zoom, call facetime, etc.
Poor grooming for a person who was once meticulously, observed by local visitors friends senior agencies food delivery who visit.
Reports of getting lost
Reports of wandering
Refusing to go to holiday religious services with friends or church transportation to holiday religious services
refusing any suggestion or conversely agreeing to everything with-out consideration
Mood swings, getting angry when normally easy going
Refusing to go to medical providers
Not taking care of activities of daily living: cooking, bathing, dressing, housekeeping, etc.
Entering contests, credit card maxed out on shopping channels
Set up a meeting when the holidays end. You have helped them proactively, begin to engage your services.

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

Thursday, January 21, 2021

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

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

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