How Storytelling Can Give Elders A Happier Family Thanksgiving

November 21, 2020

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

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

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 this 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, ask 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 story. It 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 this 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 parents’ life before. My 10 grandchildren have grown up 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.

StoryWorth For Thanksgiving

Another great idea to capture reminiscence when elders are safely sheltering in place is giving them StoryWorth.

Last Christmas my daughter, sent this gift to my 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 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, who has been sheltering in place since March with me, really enjoys writing about his past and the prompts have brought many vivid memories back to him.

SIGN UP FOR MY WEBINAR

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

Learn how!

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

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

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

Sign Up Now

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

What are 8 Spiritual Quality Of Life Activities for Elders for theHoliday Season?

December 20, 2019

Spirituality Helps Elder Quality of Life Skyrocket With on Holidays

Spirituality can matter more as you age. Now that we are entering a season of high spiritual celebrations like Christmas, Hanukkah, Orthodox Christmas, Feast day – Our Lady of Guadalupe- this is the most important season to involve elders who wish to in spiritual communities. Religious communities offer socialization thus the quality of life to so many elders and can return joy their lives.

Religion Comes in a Filing Cabinet

Leonie Nowitz, a geriatric care manager who has a deep interest in spirituality and writes about it often, once told me to look at spirituality as a question ” What is this all about”. As we age this question becomes primal, as we face death coming at a rapid pace. We wonder- do I go to heaven, to hell, or just energy or dust. Will I meet angels- my wife in heaven.?

Ms. Nowitz said that when you define religion, look at it as a filing cabinet with each drawer is a religion with it’s an answer to spirituality ” “What Is this all About”. There is one for Jews, Protestants, Hindu’s Muslims, Quakers, The Environment- all religions and belief systems.

How to Find An Elder’s Holiday Joy

One assessment care managers can do is a Quality of Life assessment to find out where joy can be found again. If spirituality is something that would increase an elders’ quality of life, here are some activities that you may suggest to an older client or their family, especially on holidays when places of worship have their most spectacular music, smells, and bells and pageantry.

Spiritual Quality of Life Activities During Holidays

If an older person appears isolated and is unable to attend their place a worship, especially on holidays, because of not driving or disability, and they wish to still join a congregation, contact the head of the religious group and ask if members could transport him or if they have a van service or arrange for members to transport them to services. If they cannot get out ask if the spiritual leader or congregation members would make home visits.
If an older person is not now a part of a religious group but what once was and has some interest in returning, holidays are the best times to reconnect. Contact the head of the religious group and ask him/her to make a home visit and the care manager follow-up with transportation arrangements to holiday services if yes.
If an older client has had a recent close relative or friend die and wishes to return to a spiritual group she knew before, connect them, with the congregation they are familiar with for solace or grieving.
If an older person moves to a new area and is part of a religious group connect them to the same religion and place of worship in the new town and arrange transportation to holiday services and a new member to greet them
If an older person has dementia if possible reconnect him or her with his spiritual background through familiar prayer, music, etc.
If an elder has dementia and can attend services without being disruptive, arrange for a caregiver to take them as they can still be drawn in by the ” Smells and Bells’
If you have a homebound client who wishes to return to a religious group, reconnect them by arranging, in their, holiday spiritual music, religious icons (a rosary or image, for example), readings from a sacred text about their own religion on Hannakka or Christmas , watching a service on television, listening to one on the radio or via computer.
Decorate their room with holiday decoration that represents their own religious holiday like a Menorah, Christmas tree, a nativity scene, etc.

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

4 Reminicence Holiday Activities for Dementia Using the Four Senses

December 10, 2019

Looking for dementia activities?

Reminiscence activities provide a way for caregivers or care managers of people with dementia to learn more about them as individuals and begin to see them beyond dementia. Compared to different activities like music, reading, task-oriented, activities that increase live social interaction with the senses have the most impact on effect in persons with dementia.

Reminiscence therapy is a treatment that uses all the senses — sight, touch, taste, smell, and sound — to help people with dementia remember events, people and places from their past lives. As part of the therapy, caregiver or care managers may use objects in various activities to help individuals with a recall of memories. This can give seniors with dementia a feeling of success and confidence because they are still able to recall and have success with some activities.

Reminiscence therapy can include simple activities, such as conversation, as well as more advanced clinical therapies to help bring memories from the distant past into present awareness. Storytelling about past events they recall through the senses can help people with dementia feel less isolated and more connected to the present, experts say.

Some activities the can activate memory in different parts of the brain and help individuals with dementia to reminisce

Looking through photos and keepsakes of prior holidays. Photographs are keepsakes because they bring back memories that help individuals recall- the place where the photo was taken, who was there, even the occasion where the photo was taken. The visual stimulates the part of the brain that holds that memory. Getting out old albums or high school yearbooks and looking at them with the person who has dementia can stimulate good feelings and a time when they were happy and safe.
Listen to their favorite Hanaukka or Christmas music. Music memory and emotion are located in the brain right behind our forehead and are the last parts of the brain to atrophy. That’s why reminiscence is recommended with even the most advanced cases of dementia. If you do a quality of life assessment and find music as a form of joy in a person ‘s life, you can bring tambourines’ shakers or bells or use headphones that play their favorite music. Alive Inside is a famous example of this.
Smell different scents and taste favorite foods. Our sense of smell is embedded in our brain next to memory. So some activities that might work with elders with dementia are making scent cards or bringing scent bringing their favorite food to taste like Hanukka Cookies decored holiday Christmas tree cupcakes have them help prepare simple recipes
Touch is another sense that evokes reminiscence is all of us but is really helpful with Dementia. Knitting, sewing or other crafts in a quality of life assessment show a past skill. Just touching yarn or fabric can bring back memory A walk in the woods or the beach or bringing them to the client with dementia, with a shell from the shore sand, seaweed or keep, bark from a tree, pine needles, pine cones can replicate the touch of these places

How Storytelling Can Give Elders A Happier Family Thanksgiving

November 1, 2019

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

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

This Thanksgiving ask 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 story. It 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 this 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 parents’ life before. So a dual dose of quality of the older person of both the older person and the aging family is increased through oral history and reminiscence

Capture Your Families Past Before It Is Gone

SIGN UP FOR MY NEWEST FREE WEBINAR.

5 Ways to Tame the Turbulence of Holiday Meltdown in Aging Families

THIS FREE WEBINAR IS NOVEMBER 21, 2019 FROM 2 PM – 3 PM PST

Learn how!

How to give hope to frantic children who call, after seeing their aging parent struggling with the rituals
How to sell services to desperate adult child callers
How to use GCM tools to contain Holiday chaos
How to use financial forecasting to prepare for growth during the holidays
How to work with both dysfunctional and long-distance families who call during the holidays
Sidestep the Many Care Managers Who Do not know how to work with Dysfunctional Aging Families so the client choose you

SIGN-UP NOW

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

How Do You Create Emotional Quality of Life in Homebound Seniors?

August 14, 2019

Homebound seniors are miserably isolated and lonely with a devastating emotional quality of life.

AARP has estimated the there are 19.6 million in the US. This can be deadly to their quality of life. There are many answers new approaches throughout the US. One is called Virtual Senior Centers. These game-changing idea magically allow older people, who cannot get out, to use technology or the phone to enhance their emotional and physical quality of life. This is a brilliant idea

Senior Center Without Walls, another approach has been around since 2004. Each week, homebound seniors can access ,over 70 groups by phone or online, all from the comfort of home. Nancy Lynn Jarvis a mystery writer living in Santa Cruz reads each of her mysteries, as they are published live on the telephone to an entire group of homebound seniors in the San Francisco Bay area. Isolated seniors can access a wide breadth of fun and games the isolated seniors can find- just by joining

The Virtual Senior Center really opens up the world for homebound senior enhancing their emotional and intellectual quality of life. It also elevates the quality of life of the caregiver because it gives them a respite and the comfort that their loved one is experiencing a program that offers joy- the joy that comes from joining a community, making new friends and learning new things you choose to be part of, an amazing benefit for homebound seniors.

We’re Still Here an art exhibit is presently in Santa Cruz California and will travel to other museums in the state, addresses the plight of lonely and isolated seniors . Art and community organizing about the lives of lonely seniors are the thrust of this exhibit , for the the 70,000 visitors expected to attend this year in its run from April to September. They can to pick cards that offer one lonely senior a visit, a ride a chances to interact with a visitor. This exhibit will travel counties throughout California through other art museums, spreading the message that lonely isolated seniors need help- all through art. The exhibit was spearheaded by Nina Simon who is now world famous museum director and author who builds and teaches community driven museums.

Quality Of Life in Geriatric Care Agencies

Sage Eldercare Solutions a geriatric care management agency is Millbrae , California, developed a brilliant program , called Hummingbird designed by Nina Herndon a geriatric care manager with a passion for quality of life for seniors.The innovative idea engages clients through one-on-one activity sessions, carefully planned outings, and individualized Therapeutic Activity Kits that can be used by family members, care providers, and other care team members at any time to engage clients in a range of meaningful and stimulating activities. Sessions might include memory or sensory games, memoir writing, armchair travel, gardening, creating art or crafts, or special outings to a place connected with a client’s past or special interests.

Lifespan a 35 year old geriatric care agency in Santa Cruz, California recently opened their Well- Being program , another quality of life program that which encourages activities to enhance emotional, physical, intellectual and spiritual quality of life for seniors living in the community. Through a Well-Being Assessment of functional, psychosocial and general quality of life, a professional Lifespan Care Manager will identify areas that may promote the older person’s sense of well-being

If you are a geriatric care manager and think of adding a quality of life program that can enhance not just quality of care but the joy you give isolated seniors in your community, check out the quality of life Concierge Companion service included in my Geriatric Care Operations Manual

Contact

Connect with Cathy

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