Cathy Cress

Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management

  • Home
  • Products
    • 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

How Storytelling Can Give Elders A Happier Family Thanksgiving

November 22, 2021

Want to increase aging parents’ and everyone’s enjoyment at Thanksgiving? Try storytelling at Thanksgiving using elders’ memories.

As an aging professional, you can bring joy to an older person  through reminiscence, storytelling, and oral history for elders

This Thanksgiving, if you really do travel to a family home or grandma’s house, travel safely  If not make the safest choice, stay home and  use Zoom and include your elderly

 

parent. You can do oral history for elders if they can use a computer or have a family member or friend who visits often and who lives nearby and is in their bubble serve and share Thanksgiving dinner at their home and use zoom with them to see other family members on the holiday.

Share Your Thanksgiving Story

If you are at a family member’s holiday dinner and use reminiscence for elders by asking everyone to tell their favorite story about a Thanksgiving dinner. Start with midlife members to get the idea and then ask

 

again parents to share their stories. Oral history for elders will bring extra thanks to Thanksgiving by learning about an elder’s past and giving them the opportunity to share, which sometimes they do not do in the hubbub of family talking.

  The “telling ” also means someone documents. That magically gives the elder and a child social interaction and connectedness. Elders vividly recall their past by telling

 

from vignettes in their life – especially life in their 20’s, which sparks the richest recall called the “20’s bump”, according to researchers.

Elders sharing stories means passing on history.

So try storytelling at  Thanksgiving and it becomes intergenerational. The older person is given a chance to give the larger picture of their life and family history to children and grandchildren or extended family, who may not have heard all the details of their grandparent’s or parent’s life before. My 10 grandchildren have grown with their now 80-year-old grandfather telling them exciting stories of when he was a California Highway patrolman. So a dual dose of a higher quality of life for both the older person and the aging family is increased through oral history and reminiscence.

Capture Your Families Past Before It Is Gone

 

 Many midlife adults now do ancestry and regret that they did not ask questions of older family members when they were alive. Capture that past now on this family holiday. An aging professional or a geriatric care manager can suggest family or friends record the Thanksgiving story as oral history using technology like an i Phone or i Pad.

Story Telling at Thanksgiving  with Story Worth

Another great idea to capture reminiscence for elders is giving them StoryWorth. 

 

My daughter sent this gift to her Dad and both he and I love it. Each week  StoryWorth sends a question to my husband that prompts him to write about his past. He writes his reminiscence out longhand and I easily use the dictation on my phone and email his story to Story Worth.

At the end of the year, my daughter will order a bound book of all the stories- a whole collection of memories, an oral history of an elder father that she might never think to ask and will be saved for her and her children to pass on family history. I will order a copy for all her three siblings. Equally important, my husband, really enjoyed writing about his past and the prompts have brought many vivid memories back to him.

SIGN UP FOR MY FREE WEBINAR

Sign Up for My New Years Webinar 

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

Thursday, January 6, 2:00 PM 3:30 PM Pacific 

 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 stockings.

 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 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

Sign -Up Now so even if You Cannot Attend You Get the recording 

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

 

 

Filed Under: Aging, Aging Family, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, Black Aging Family, Black Entrepreneur, Black Entrepreneur RB, Black Entrepreneur RN, Black entrepreneurs, Black Geriatric Care Manager, Black geriatric care managers, Black RN, Black Travel Nurses, care manager, case manager, Clinical Tools Dysfunctional families, Concierge aging clients, Coronavirus safety elders, COVID -19 Safety, COVID & HOLIDAY SEASON, Covid 19 Webinar, Dementia Activities, Dysfunctional Family & Holidays, Dysfunctional Family Inquiry, elder care manager, Elder Reminicence on Thanksgiving, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, Holiday Rituals in Aging Family, Long Distance Safety Travel COVID, Long Distance travel Holidays, New Years, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Oral History, Quality of Life, quality of life -COVID-19, Quality of Life and Reminicance, Quality of Life and Thanksgiving, Quality of Life for elders, quality of life in senior centers, Quality of Life with Dementia, Reminicence on Thanksgiving, Reminicence with elders, Reminiscence Therapy, Remote Thanksgiving Family Visit, Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving Parent crisis, Thanksgiving Safe Visits to Grandma, Thanksgiving with COVID, Thanksgving visits during COVID, Therapist Specializing in Aging, Webinar Tagged With: aging family, aging family Thanksgiving, aging life care manager, aging parent, aging parent care, aging parent Thanksgiving, aging technology, ancrestory.com, assessing for quality of life, black aging family, black american geriatric care managers, black american social workers, Black caregivers, Black Entrepreneurs, Black Heirlooms, Black Nurse Entrepreneurs, Black RN's, Black start-up geriatric care management, Black travel nurses, care manager, care plan, care plan interventions, case manager, COVID THANKSGIVING VISIT, COVID VIRTUAL THANKSGIVING VISIT, family caregivers, Family Caregivers using technology, genealogy, geriatric care management, geriatric care manager, geritaric care manager, grandfather, grandmothers, grandparents, increasing quality of life, LCSW, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, 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, reminisicsence technology, story telling elders, storytelling and elders, technology for caregivers, Thanksgiving Webinar, Thanksgiving with dysfunctional family, Thanksgiving with midlife siblings, You Tube, You Tube and storytelling

How to Help Avoid a Cat and Dog fight at a Dysfunctional Family Holiday -Thanksgiving

November 10, 2021

cat-dog-fight.jpg

Sparring Cats and Dogs AKA Siblings

The Dysfunctional family on a holiday especially after some holiday liquid cheer, sour step-parents, angry step-siblings, and mid-life adult kids who have grown up in a dysfunctional family can turn into sparring cats and dogs with teeth bared and claws dug in flesh, at Thanksgiving dinner.

 Why Their Stocking Full of Coal

As if COVID has not made the holidays hard enough for family gatherings, the ordinary

aging processes are made far tougher when a family has a history of dysfunction. and the worst occasions happen with a dysfunctional family on holidays Aging professionals, like geriatric care managers, have their greatest challenges in working with these “difficult” families.

Dysfunctional families are not able to organize themselves

They effectively face gut-wrenching eldercare challenges and crises. These families are under more stress as they move from long-established roles into uncharted territory. the dysfunctional family on holidays like Thanksgiving can face an emotional detonation then an explosion with siblings laying into each other not the turkey.

 Why Cut-OFF Ruins Holidays

The dysfunctional family on Thanksgiving faces shunning or cutoff. What if adult kids “ cut off” their Dad years ago and now he had a severe stroke- what do they do?? Someone has to take over Mom or Dad’s care and these dysfunctional midlife adult kids are heavy ambivalent or just don’t want to do it.  They are caught between “ I love you” and “ I hate you” and it only takes a few drinks and snarky remarks to start a fracas.

 

Now that the holidays are soon arriving – they have the same attitude about attending the family Thanksgiving dinner.

 

SIGN UP FOR MY HOLIDAY WEBINAR –

 

Get Ready for the Holiday Rush

Tuesday, November 16th, 2021, FROM 2 PM – 3:30 PM PST

 Learn how!

  • Pre-Holiday Social media campaigns to reach worried caregivers
  • Pre- Holiday-Materials about the warning signs that a parent needs help
  • Pre-Holiday Technology to help you move people from discovery to signing on the dotted line
  • 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 preholiday 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 Speakers & ALCA Corporate Partners 

 Cathy Cress MSW author of the Handbook of Geriatric Care

Management        

 

 

 

 

 

 

Natasha Beauchamp- MSc, Webmaster and Research    Scientist at Elder Pages Online, LLC

Find Out More

THIS FREE WEBINAR IS Tuesday, November 16th, 2021, FROM 2 PM – 3:30 PM PST

Sign Up Now

 

 

 

 

 

 So what to do if you are an aging professional, geriatric care manager, nurse care manager- before the holiday to avoid the scene below.

family-fight-300x223.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

Filed Under: Aging, aging family crisis, aging life business, Aging Life Care, Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, Aging therapist, Blog, case manager, COVID & HOLIDAY SEASON, Covid Holiday Remote Visit, COVID Webinar, Dysfunctional aging family, Dysfunctional Family & Holidays, elder care manager, estranged siblings, Families, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, Holiday Meltdown in Aging Family, Holiday on call, Holiday Rituals in Aging Family, Holiday season, Holiday Sibling Rivalry, Holidays, HolidaySeason and COVID, Long Distance Care, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, POST HOLIDAY CALLS, POST HOLIDAY SEASON, quality of life -COVID-19, Quality of Life and Reminicance, Siblings, Telehealth COVID-19products, TELEHEALTH HOLIDAY PLAN, Telehealth with ALCA, Telehealth with GCM, Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving & dysfunctional family, Thanksgiving and COVID, THANKSGIVING BLOG, Thanksgiving Parent crisis, Thanksgiving Safe Visits to Grandma, Thanksgving visits during COVID, Therapist Specializing in Aging, Webinar, ZOOM CHRISTMAS, ZOOM THANKSGVING Tagged With: aging dysfunctional family, aging family, aging life care manager, aging life care on holidays, aging parent care, aging parent Thanksgiving, alcohol on the holidays, black aging family, black american geriatric care managers, black american social workers, Black Entrepreneurs, Black geriatric care managers, Black Nurse Entrepreneurs, Black start-up geriatric care management, Black travel nurses, care manager, case manager, COVID THANKSGIVING VISIT, danger signs for holiday visit, drunken holiday, dysfunctional family on the holiday, dysfuntional family, Dysfuntional family on holidays, GRANDMA VISIT THANKSGIVING, Holiday sibling rivalry, Holidays Crisis in aging family, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, post holiday parent care, Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving Webinar, Thanksgiving with dysfunctional family, Thanksgiving with midlife siblings

How Does Atul Gawande View Quality of Life in Dying ?

September 15, 2021

 

   A good life to the very end 

Atul Gawande’s acclaimed book, “Being Mortal“ opened our eyes to the medical way of death. He showed millions of readers how the quality of life and human interaction while dying trump the number of years gained through questionable painful procedures and dying in an institution.

He tells us that “our ultimate, goal, after, is not a good death but a good life to the very end

 

Quality of Life Can Be There to the End of Life

GCM Nina Herndon brings you that same quality of life message- about dying –where an elder can still live the end of life with joy. Her chapter “Supporting Clients’ Quality of Life: Drawing on Community, Informal Networks, and Care Manager Creativity” in the Handbook of Geriatric Care Management 4th edition is a geriatric care management Nina has devoted her career to giving elders a care plan for a happy life and a happy life to the very end.

 Bringing Joy in the here and now of Dying

 Bringing joy in the here and now of dying can be done through using quality of life tools- Spiritual, emotional, intellectual, creative, and physical quality of life. Increasing the spiritual quality of life can mean for a person is dying and wishes to return to a spiritual group she knew before, connecting them to the faith they are familiar with. Even homebound clients can have visits from members of a religious community or a prelate. They can have hymns sung, prayers said or whatever religious ritual their spiritual group follows, like communion, at home. Care providers can be trained to engage them by reading religious texts or playing hymns.

The Power Reminiscence at End of Life

Spirituality can be the environment. I once had a client who was in a nursing home dying of cancer and wanted to go home to die with hospice and 24-hour care. Hisgrandma_holding_rosary_shutterstock_40017103-255x255.jpg spirituality was the environment and he had been a lead volunteer to build a trail in Santa Clara California from Los Gatos up the steep winding highway 17 over the Santa Cruz mountains to the Lexington Reservoir. He had no family so the care manager asked the volunteers he had worked with if they would visit him at his home. They happily agreed and 300 volunteers took shifts, 24 hours a day to sit with him reminisce, tell stories and sing while he died over several weeks. This is what joy that bringing a spiritual quality of life can offer in dying.

Tools for Reminicance at End of Life

Friends emailing short personal videos with good wishes and memories, that a family member can show on a phone or computer- can bring emotional joy at end of life. Sending notes, not of condolences but great memories can be a salve to dying. Volunteering to give respite to family members, if visiting is allowed during COVID or post the pandemic, can give an opportunity to share old memories or look at old photos and give family respite. You may have thought those old photo albums should be dumped but they can bring the joy of reminiscence if shared at end of life or with seniors at any time.

 

 

Subscribe to my Youtube channel 

Filed Under: Aging, Aging Family, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, care manager, case manager, Death & Dying, Death and Dying, Death and Dying Care Management, death and dying care manager, End of Life, End of Life Care manager, Families, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric social worker, Good Death, Hospice, Hospice Care, Hospital care manager, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Photo Albums& Reminicance, Quality of Life, Quality of Life and Reminicance, Quality of Life for elders, Quality of Life in Death, Quality of Life in Dying Tagged With: aging family, aging life care manager, aging parent crisis, assessing for quality of life, Atul Gawande, Being Mortal, black aging family, black american geriatric care managers, Black Entrepreneurs, Black geriatric care managers, Black Nurse Entrepreneurs, Black start-up geriatric care management, Black travel nurses, care manager, case manager, death and dying, geriatric care manager, Handbook of Geriatric Care Management, nurse care manager, Quality of Life at end of life, quality of life in dying, Reminicence Therapy, Reminiscence at End of Life

Serve Reminiscence for Elders Along With Hotdogs on Memorial Day

May 27, 2021

Reminiscence isn’t new. Before the printing press, storytellers and bards were 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.

V

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 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. Use empathetic listening if they can. Make all the messages you are are giving the older person— tone, how fast you speak, how they are sitting- say, “I want to listen to them.”

Ask 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 into to service ? Where did ou serve?

Music is just next to memory in the brain .

 Alive Inside  and 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 elders 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 Remiscence 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  the 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, Blog, care manager, Dementia & Holidays, Dementia Activities, Families, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric social worker, Holiday Rituals in Aging Family, Legacy Tools, Memorial Day, Memorial Day and Aging Veterans, Memorial Day Barbecue, Memorial Day with elders, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Quality of Life and Reminicance, Reminiscence Therapy, Retired Veterans, Senior Legacy, Spoiled Holiday Rituals, Story Worth Tagged With: aging family, aging life care manager, Alive Inside, care manager, case manager, geriatric care manager, Memorial Day barbecue. Music and memory, 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

How Does Atul Gawande View Quality of Life in Dying ?

February 21, 2021

iStock_000003595079_Medium.jpg

 

   A good life to the very end 

Atul Gawande’s acclaimed book, “Being Mortal“ opened our eyes to the medical way of death. He showed millions of readers how the quality of life and human interaction while dying trump the number of years gained through questionable painful procedures and dying in an institution.

He tells us that “our ultimate, goal, after, is not a good death but a good life to the very end

 

Quality of Life Can Be There to the End of Life

GCM Nina Herndon brings you that same quality of life message- about dying –where an elder can still live the end of life with joy. Her new chapter “Supporting Clients’ Quality of Life: Drawing on Community, Informal Networks, and Care Manager Creativity” in the Handbook of Geriatric Care Management 4th edition is a geriatric care management Nina has devoted her career to giving elders a care plan for a happy life and a happy life to the very end.

 Bringing Joy in the here and now of Dying

 Bringing joy in the here and now of dying can be done through using quality of life tools- Spiritual, emotional, intellectual, creative, and physical quality of life. Increasing the spiritual quality of life can mean for a person is dying and wishes to return to a spiritual group she knew before, connecting them to the faith they are familiar with. Even homebound clients can have visits from members of a religious community or a prelate. They can have hymns sung, prayers said or whatever religious ritual their spiritual group follows, like communion, at home. Care providers can be trained to engage them by reading religious texts or playing hymns.

The Power Reminiscence at End of Life

Spirituality can be the environment. I once had a client who was in a nursing home dying of cancer and wanted to go home to die with hospice and 24-hour care. Hisgrandma_holding_rosary_shutterstock_40017103-255x255.jpg spirituality was the environment and he had been a lead volunteer to build a trail in Santa Clara California from Los Gatos up the steep winding highway 17 over the Santa Cruz mountains to the Lexington Reservoir. He had no family so the care manager asked the volunteers he had worked with if they would visit him at his home. They happily agreed and 300 volunteers took shifts, 24 hours a day to sit with him reminisce, tell stories and sing while he died over several weeks. This is what joy that bringing a spiritual quality of life can offer in dying.

Tools for Reminicance at End of Life

Friends emailing short personal videos with good wishes and memories, that a family member can show on a phone or computer- can bring emotional joy at end of life. Sending notes, not of condolences but great memories can be a salve to dying. Volunteering to give respite to family members, if visiting is allowed during COVID or post the pandemic, can give an opportunity to share old memories or look at old photos and give family respite. You may have thought those old photo albums should be dumped but they can bring the joy of reminiscence if shared at end of life or with seniors at any time.

 

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

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

Filed Under: Aging, Aging Family, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, care manager, case manager, Death & Dying, Death and Dying, Death and Dying Care Management, death and dying care manager, End of Life, End of Life Care manager, Families, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric social worker, Good Death, Hospice, Hospice Care, Hospital care manager, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Photo Albums& Reminicance, Quality of Life, Quality of Life and Reminicance, Quality of Life for elders, Quality of Life in Death, Quality of Life in Dying Tagged With: aging family, aging life care manager, aging parent crisis, assessing for quality of life, Atul Gawande, Being Mortal, care manager, case manager, death and dying, geriatric care manager, Handbook of Geriatric Care Management, nurse care manager, Quality of Life at end of life, quality of life in dying, Reminicence Therapy, Reminiscence at 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 © 2012–2022 CressGCMConsult & Cathy Cress - Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management | Developed by wpcustomify

Powered byHow to get udemy courses for free