family caregiver Archives ⋆ Cathy Cress

What Do Care Manager, Caregiver and Care Receiver Get From a Caregiver Assessment?

September 11, 2019

Identify Caregivers Problem

A caregiver assessment will allow the care manager to clearly identify the caregiver’s problems. This can be a duel fix. Often it is a way of solving the care receiver’s problems

Find Out the Ms Handy’s Caregiver’s Problems

Let’s take Mrs Handy .The care manager Ms. Helpmate is called by stressed-out family caregiver Ms. Handy, who is thinking of placing her Dad, who lives with her. Ms. Helpmate does a caregiver assessment and a geriatric depression assessment. Ms. Handy is depressed. Ms. Handy has a score of 17 indicating caregiver depression. That’s one of the 14 symptoms of caregiver overload

The care manager then suggests that Ms. Handy begin getting her Dad ready for bed at 10:00 PM.instead of midnight herself when her Dad goes to bed. Ms. Handy is exhausted= caregiver overload.

The daughter is reluctant because she is still locked in her old role of” I’m the kid and he’s the Dad”. She fearful to change her Dad’s routine, even though she is so tired, is actually 50, not a kid anymore. After months of this that she is at the breaking point.

Using the Caregiver Assessment to Coach Caregiver

After much coaching by the care manager, the daughter starts to stay up until 10:00, go through all the prompting to get her Dad changed then turns off the TV. The Dad is angry and resistant at first but gradually goes to bed at 10:00 PM.

The care manager coaches the daughter over the few weeks and the Dad slowly adjusts to this new routine, giving Ms. Handy encouragement to continue. Ms. Handy then is able to sleep all night pulling her off the edge of the cliff where her next step was nursing home placement, which she promised her Dad she would never do.

The caregiver assessment stops Mr. Wilson from staying up late and missing adult daycare and Ms. Handy from being so tired she can’t go to work one of her primary caregiver stresses.

Find out more about how to do a caregiver assessment in Handbook of Geriatric Care Management 4th edition in the Chapter, “Assessing and Supporting the Caregiver”.

Genogram -Tools to Relieve a Family Caregiver-

September 9, 2019

What should be in your caregiver assessment toolbox?

A tool that you can tools use to solve the caregiver and care receiver’s problems you found in your care plan is a genogram.

A geriatric care managers assessment of the family caregiver is critical. Caregivers can and do fall apart. If you already did your caregiver assessment- great. But the extended family of the care receiver (client) should be assessed to find their strengths, weaknesses, dangers and real ability to help render caregiving services. This is where a genogram comes in.

A genogram allow you to see family patterns on a single page

Using a tool called a genogram can really show you the view of a family on a chart.Patterns in a family, especially the aging family that geriatric care managers and ALCA members serve, can be seen in a genogram showing you, for example, the generational cut off that happens over and over or alcoholism, or spousal abuse. You can see the weakness of family ties and where the care managers needed to focus to help the family get care for an older person.

A genogram allow you to see family support

A good genogram can be helpful in assessing the care receiver’s family support network and each relative’s relationship to the older client. Your genogram when paired with a psychosocial assessment, can help you assess whether the older client is living with a helpful spouse or partner, living with a difficult spouse, has relationship with an ex spouse, has cooperative and supportive children or grandchildren, has fighting or alienated children or grandchildren, has warring or alienated stepchildren or adoptive, has several children but only one child who “does it all,”.

In other words you pull up a traffic light, it is green, yellow or dangerous red. The genogram also can help tell the GCM whether you have ex spouses or partners who want to participate as caregivers and what their emotional relationship is the care receiver. In other words is there green-lighted support or red saying stop here-when the family caregiver desperately needs your GPS to find that that new road.

What are VA Spouse/Caregiver Support and Benefits ?

May 27, 2017

As we approach Memorial day this weekend, if you work with a veteran that survived a war, here are some ways to get help for them.

The spouses of veterans can receive VA benefits. A care manager should check whether they are providing care as part of a support system for a veteran or if they themselves are your clients.

If they are a caregiver of a veteran you should do a caregiver assessment. Then create a care plan outlining caregiver supports through local veterans’ organizations or area agencies on aging or caregiver support agencies like Family Caregiver Alliance

Some local organizations may have support, training, or another programming available specifically tailored to caregivers of veterans. If not, general caregiving programs available in the community are a great place to start.

Also, spouses of veterans may be eligible for support and benefits through the VA system depending on a variety of factors associated with the military service status of the spouse who served in the military. General spousal benefits, regardless of caregiver status, include burial benefits, Dependency, and Indemnity Compensation (DIC), Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Department of Veterans Affairs (CHAMPVA), educational assistance, and survivor’s pension for low-income surviving spouse and children (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 2012.

Handbook of Geriatric Care Management 4th edition includes a new chapter that will help you help vets Maximizing the Health and Wells-Being of Older Veterans by Dr. Lenard Kaye, director of the Center for Aging at the University of Maine and Glenn Osbourne, director of the National Veterans Legal Aid Group . As an aging life or geriatric care manager, or senior advocate, learn how to to get elder veteran’s the benefits they so deserve.

Pay Family Caregivers to Stop Free Labor of Love

January 10, 2016

Excellent article in the New York Times today suggesting the US recognize caregiving as legitimate work and stop the free “infrastructure of care” through puny family leave, making work and family a lifestyle choice and setting up a universal basic income for caregiving.

What are VA Spouse/Caregiver Support and Benefits ?

August 24, 2015

The spouses of veterans can receive VA benefits. A care manager should check whether they are providing care as part of a support system for a veteran or if they themselves are your clients.

. If they are a caregiver of a veteran you should do a caregiver assessment. Then create a careplan outlining caregiver supports through local veterans’ organizations or area agencies on aging or caregiver support agencies like Family Caregiver Alliance https://caregiver.org/support-groups

. Some local organizations may have support, training, or other programming available specifically tailored to caregivers of veterans . If not, general caregiving programs available in the community are a great place to start.

Also, spouses of veterans may be eligible for support and benefits through the VA system depending on a variety of factors associated with the military service status of the spouse who served in the military. General spousal benefits, regardless of caregiver status, include burial benefits, Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC), Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Department of Veterans Affairs (CHAMPVA), educational assistance, and survivor’s pension for low-income surviving spouse and children (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 2012.

What Do Care Manager, Caregiver and Care Receiver Get From a Caregiver Assessment?

Identify Caregivers Problem

Find Out the Ms Handy’s Caregiver’s Problems

Using the Caregiver Assessment to Coach Caregiver

What are VA Spouse/Caregiver Support and Benefits ?

Pay Family Caregivers to Stop Free Labor of Love

What are VA Spouse/Caregiver Support and Benefits ?

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