Why Do Adult Children Hate and Love Parents in Aging Dysfunctional Family?

January 11, 2021

The aging dysfunctional family takes an expert to tackle because violence can break out at any time. In the film version of Tracy Letts August in Osage County. Julia Roberts (the eldest daughter) attacks Meryl Streep (the pill-popping aging mother) at a ritual family gathering- the elder Dad’s funeral after he commits suicide.

In the dysfunctional family, there have been symptoms of problems such as alcohol abuse, drug abuse, child abuse, or emotional abuse, like the demeaning mother the character Meryl Streep plays in August in Osage County. These dysfunctions usually create barriers to nurturing and this affects everyone in the family system.

The family system is also marked by ambivalence and all adults and children live in a love-hate relationship with other family members. (Julia Roberts character and all the daughter both love and revile their mother ).

As systems resist change, it is even more difficult for members of the dysfunctional family to move to make changes when their parent needs care, like Meryl Streep does in August in Osage County. Julia Roberts and none of the daughters will care for their despised mother.

The nearly normal system is shaken to its core by the parent being dependent. However, a care manager can guide the family members into reorganizing their family roles when the parent can no longer act as head of the family, while acknowledging the shift and changes they need to make both emotionally and practically.

The members of the dysfunctional family who may have experienced a lack of nurturing by their parent and have no role model of caring. They are angry and resentful at caring for the parent, and thus will find it difficult to provide the practical and emotional care that their aging parent needs. The challenge to the adult child of the dysfunctional family is how to meet the dependency needs of the here and now old-old parent when the parent did not meet them dependency needs as a child. That is why they need a highly experienced Geriatric Care Manager who can work with dysfunctional aging families.

The challenge to the care manager is to bring the adult child of the dysfunctional family into the here and now and see their parents for who they are- an aging dependent person, flawed and imperfect, but a human being who needs their love, support and nurturing.

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6 Tech Ideas For Long Distance Care Providers During Covid on Holidays

December 12, 2020

Long-Distance Family Stocking Brimming with Coal

Christmas and Hanukkah are upon us, and many long-distance families will be celebrating remotely with elderly parents due to the nationwide COVID onslaught. Long Distance adult children will make the dangerous journey anyway. Those that do travel may call an Aging Life Care Manager after coming across piles of junk mail, consistently dirty clothes, or a house and/or aging parent that looks like lumpy turkey gravy. Those adult children who stay safely home in the pandemic will need their aging parents to have some technology to communicate with them. Both groups should consider technology as a gift to seniors

Technology Pushes Coal Out of Stocking

Before you get that call, you should read 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 in the pandemic. When they call you you might suggest one of the high-tech items Orlov suggests a part of an older family member’s life. Especially during the pandemic. 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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Before a Parent Moves in-Check if You Can Handle the Care

October 14, 2019

Happy Birthday to my Dad, Harry V. Cress.

Today he would have been 99. He was a father who had severe PTSD from being imprisoned in a WW2 prison camp in Germany. So, at times , he was a difficult Dad. He worked all his life as an advertising man. But, he suffered from all the PTSD symptoms from what he thought was the good war, so he never reached out for help. He moved in with me in 1989, after he lost his house on the New Jersey coast to ” The perfect storm”. But, once I got him into the VA in Menlo Park, California, he lived with me and my family for 20 years and was the perfect great grandfather, grandfather, and father.

However, as a cautionary tale, I was first surrounded by a very supportive loving family as a caregiver and second was a geriatric care manager. I also had the full help of the VA and all their incredible GRECC services that covered all the medical care, caregivers, geriatric social workers to support me as a caregiver, as my Dad, as a PTSD survivor was 100% disabled. He was a happy independent person for 14 years making our family a three-generation web of real happiness and constant family celebrations as a living ” whole” family. But as he gradually aged, developed vascular dementia then cancer, dying at our home in 20o8

So, moving a parent in your home is not for everyone

Moving an aging parent in your home encompasses not just the present but perhaps 20-30 years in the future. It means accepting the parent as they are in the moment, which may be ambulatory, cognitively intact and independent but seeing they will be gradually affected by the decrements of aging.

What challenges do you face?

Your parent may have perfect vision now and because of macular degeneration need a great deal of support in mobility, eating, and all the activities and daily living in the future. They may eventually be bedbound or is the later stages of dementia. The geriatric care manager needs to discuss the move in terms of what the future may bring for the adult child caregiver and discuss whether they feel they can accept this increasing level of care, if they could face caregiver burnout, if there are financial assets to hire caregivers to assist them or should there is a plan that may move the older person eventually to a higher level of care when care needs to increase.

What are the answers?

The GCM can do a GCM caregiver assessment if care needs to be rendered when the parent moves in. This will help the adult child see their strengths, skills, and abilities needed to provide care. This might include their own medical issues preventing caregiver tasks like lifting and tasks that they find and tasks they find repulsive, like changing adult diapers. This assessment can include a care plan that recommends family caregiver solutions, like aging technology, social supports, formal supports, respite, and training.

At my Dad’s funeral, my daughter said, ” we thought we were saving him but is so many ways he saved us. So Happy Birthday Dad you saved all the love for you I might have missed. Thanks for that grace.

What are the 3 Steps to Do a Caregiver Assessment?

October 12, 2019

Where Do You Do A Caregiver Assessment?

Caregiver assessment is best done in the care receiver’s home so you can actually observe the care. It is best completed out of earshot of the older person who is cared for so the caregiver can feel free to talk openly. As caregivers suffer high levels of stress, giving them a separate space to share their feelings is an important part of the caregiver assessment. However, the caregiver assessment should be done in a place that is convenient to the caregiver, which could be a donut shop, the home, or any comfortable venue. If to do the caregiver assessment the GCM must arrange respite, like bringing in another family member or paid caregiver, then that is another way to make this assessment go forward.

How Will A Genogram Help A Caregiver Assessment?

A genogram also helps the GCM assess whether any extended family and friends will make suitable and emotionally appropriate caregivers or not. For example, if a son has a historically strained relationship with his father, is he a good choice as a caregiver? The genogram helps to assess this old family tension and helps the GCM decide with the family as to who can really be good caregivers.

How Does a Psychosocial Assessment Bolster a Caregiver Assessment?

In addition, a psychosocial assessment, done at intake or updated as more care is needed, assesses key abilities and availability of the extended network of family caregivers. The psychosocial assessment illuminates the client’s financial status, including income, assets, benefits currently being received, health and long-term care insurance coverage, and eligibility or potential eligibility for entitlement programs. This information helps the GCM assess whether outside paid care providers can be afforded if needed to replace a family caregiver. The psychosocial assessment also tells about the family, formal and informal support networks, present and potential caregivers, and cultural variables.

Find out more in the YouTube from My Geriatric Care 1 Channel.

Caregiver Assessment- Can it Prevent Caregiver Burnout?

October 3, 2019

Caregiver Burnout is Big Federal Problem

Family caregivers are so many times in a complete state of caregiver burnout. From a policy perspective, the federal government and the long-term care system in the United State cannot afford to neglect the burnout and strain of millions of Americans caregivers any longer.

Despite the rewards caregivers get from giving care we know from years of research that being a family caregiver results in brutal losses. These degradations and deficits include role conflict and overload from the never-ending tasks demanded of a caregiver. Left in a permanent state of worry and anxiety much of the time, caregivers are working in a deteriorating and unpredictable situation.

Caregivers Feel Trapped

Caregivers can feel entrapped by there the restrictions on their own life. They are often beset by fiscal worries because they are not paid except in some states, like California under Medicaid. Yet the caregiving situation explodes in cost through medical bills, medical equipment and informal care that must be brought in, if the family can afford it.

Caregivers Are Not Attorneys

Family caregivers face a quagmire of legal problems including untangling wills, trusts, and inheritance issues which generally complicate care both emotionally and physically. Many times these family caregivers compound their fiscal woes by having to quit their job, running the risk of never being hired again, and that is if they can eventually return to work.

Caregivers Mental Health Ravaged

The caregivers own physical and mental health is often ravaged. They have to do medical tasks that years ago family caregivers never had to do. If they were paid by an agency, this would be a workman’s compensation nightmare for the company, yet these family caregivers are never even paid. So it is time that geriatric care managers and other professionals in aging started to respond to this family caregiver nightmare and use a caregiver assessment every time they assess an older client tended by a family caregiver.

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