Cathy Cress

Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management

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Sign Up for My Webinar on Death Doulas and End of Life

January 11, 2023

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Add Death Doula &Death and Dying to Your Care Management Agency

Deliver a Good End of Life-

Add Death and Dying to Your Care Management Agency

Serve Your Client until Death Do You Part

This webinar is free

Join me on January  24 and 2 PM and learn why End of Life Services Are a perfect new service for care managers

Find Out More 

Sign up for my free webinar on Death Doulas

Death Doula – What is that?-In this 1 ½ -hour webinar you will learn “What is Death Doula and how Care managers can work with them.

Sign up for my webinar on Death Doulas and End of Life.  In A Washington Post, this week a Post article said that Death Doulas have become a nationwide death-positive, national movement mirroring the traditional ritual in Mexico that many Americans also celebrate, the Day of the Dead. That ritual holiday celebrates death as a positive part of life by remembering those who have died, honoring them with flowers ( marigolds), and “commemorating death as another element of life.

We live in a culture that is afraid of death- where death, like birth, was hidden in institutions, like nursing homes and hospitals for decades so that families never had to experience it. This hiding away from the entrance and exit of life is one reason why we fear death. Death-like birth used to occur at home, where families could see and feel the dying person, hold them, and smell them, so those fears were not there. Now like a birth, that can happen at home death can too at home with the help of a  geriatric care manager and a Death Doula who like a midwife of birth –  is a midwife of death. This a reason you should sign up for my webinar on Deliver of Good End of Life.

Sign up for my free webinar in Death Doulas and  End of Life and learn from an interview with Patti Urban ALCA care manager and Death Doula

What is a death doula? 

what exactly does a death doula do?

Do Death Doula work with Hospice, Care Managers, or just families

Is there a Charge

How can I contact a Death Doula

How can a care manager be trained as a Death Doula?

 

Patti, a Certified Dementia Practitioner, Senior Advisor, and End of Life Doula, is the owner of Aging Care Planning Solutions, a geriatric care management and end-of-life planning practice.  She is the former Executive Director of Shoreline of Clinton, a memory care assisted living community, and the former owner of Comfort Keepers, a home care company serving seniors, both located in Connecticut.  She is the founder of the Shoreline Area Senior Network, a local networking and educational group for professionals serving the senior community along the Connecticut Shoreline.  Currently, she is a member of the Advisory Council of the Agency on Aging of South Central Connecticut and is a former Board Member of the Shoreline Eldercare Alliance, Association of Women Business Leaders, Orchard House Adults Day Center, Shoreline Chamber of Commerce, and National Speakers Association Connecticut Chapter.

She resides in Connecticut and is the mother of three daughters and one son, all adopted from China.  She can be reached at 845-641-8123, pattiurban@agingcarePS.com, and www.agingcarePS.com.

Sign Up for my free Webinar

Sign up for my webinar on Death Doulas

We will Also Cover Serve Your Client until Death Do You Part

  • Transition the patient/family through the five stages of death
  • Help clients be active participants in their care
  • Give the family/caregiver tools to manage care
  • Provide family center care to  family caregivers and family
  • Choose the right support services through all stages of death
  • Introduce Hospice and Palliative care and work with their team
  • Use ALCA End-of-Life Benefits During COVID
  • Use  COVID -19  Family Coaching for GCM

Sign Up 

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

Filed Under: 5 stages of death, 5 Stages of Dying, 5 stages of End of Life, Acute Stage of Dying, Aging deaths, Aging Family, aging life business, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, ALCA Role Death and Dying, Atul Gawande, black care manager, black concieirge nurse, black concierge care manager, black concierge RN, Black Entrepreneur, Black Entrepreneur RB, Black Entrepreneur RN, Black Geriatric Care Manager, Black RN, black RN care manager, black social worker, black travel nurse, Black Travel Nurses, Black Travel RN, Blog, Concierge aging clients, Concierge Care Manager, Death & Dying, Death and Dying Care Management, death and dying care manager, End of Life, End of Life Care manager, End of Life Cultural Assessment, Five Stages of Death, FREE WEBINAR, GCM role Death and Dying, GCM workinh with hospice, geriatric care management emergency proceduress, Geriatric Care Manager, Good end of life, Good hospice, nurse advocate, Palliative Care, Quality of Life in Death, Quality of Life in Dying, Recovery phase of death, US Medicalization of Death Tagged With: 5 stages of death, Acceptance Phase of Death, adding end of life services, aging family, aging life care manager, aging parent care, aging parent crisis, Aging SNF deaths, Benefits of Care Managers To Hospice, care manager, case manager, chronic phase of death, COVID-19 Deaths, COVID-19 deaths SNF's, death and dying, Death Doula, Death Douls at end of life, Deaths in Nursing Homes, disputes at end of life, end of life care, end of life care manager, End of Life Diagnosis, families fretting at end of life, family meeting end of life, Free Webinar geriatric care management, Free webinar on end of life, GCM in Death and Dying, geriatric assessment for end of life, Hospice, Hospice at end of life, Hospice Care, hospice for elderly parent, nurse advocate, nurse care manager

How Does A Care Manager Facilitate End of Life Family Meeting?

February 18, 2016

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            The threat of a life-threatening illness produces considerable distress for family members caring for their possibly dying loved one. After the diagnosis, in the acute phase of dying they need family meeting even more.

 Family meetings can be used to establish a safe environment where plans, decisions, conflicts and grief issues can be discussed honestly and openly. The overall goal of family meetings in end of life care is to enhance family support and functioning.  The care manager should promote cohesiveness in the family meeting to help the family:

             Reduce conflict

             Co-operate and communicate among family members in decision making”

·              Share thoughts and feelings with each other.

·             Make plans for the united family support of the dying person

 

Care Managers role

The care manager’s role will be facilitating the meetings, communicating information, explaining, negotiating care and having empathy and understanding. If Hospice is involved or Palliative Care, the Hospice/ Palliative Care  Medical Social Worker or Hospice Discharge Planner at the hospital will lead the meeting. A highly dysfunctional family will need a mediator or someone with mediation skills.Hospice can often supply a member of their team to do this.

            It’s important to realize that discussions involving end of life decisions can take often involve numerous family members in a series of meetings spaced over time. Setting an agenda for the meeting and letting all parties know ahead of time what you plan to discuss is an important part of the process. Research on improving care planning with older people and their families show that a family meeting is unsatisfactory when they go into it with an unclear agenda. The patient, the staff and the family members must all be clear on the meeting’s purpose. This requires conveying and gathering information with the patient, adjusting expectations of all parties, and resolving any differences. For example information from meetings with other professionals or results from medical tests may be needed. When the meetings begin, it is good for the case manager to review the meeting goals and to clarify if specific decisions need to be made. Before the meeting ends the team checks back with the participants and each other, to debrief and identify any unmet needs. The care manager should summarize the decisions made in the meeting and circulate those to all who attended the meeting so everyone know what was agreed to at the meeting and what role, they individually agreed to take and what they agreed to do.

 

  • Join me on my Free webinar February 25th 11 PST.
  • How to Add ” Death and Dying to Your Care Management Services and Deliver End of Life Care”   

 

 

 

 

 

 

            

Filed Under: Aging Tagged With: aging family dynamics, death and dying, dysfunctional aging family, family meeting end of life, geriatric care manager

How a Care Manager Facilitates a Geriatric Death and Dying Family Meeting

April 5, 2014

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Care Manager’s Role in Family Meetings With Death and Dying

            In a pre- diagnosis period the threat of a life-threatening illness produces considerable distress for family members caring for their possibly dying loved one. After the diagnosis, in the acute phase of dying they need family meeting even more.

 Family meetings can be used to establish a safe environment where plans, decisions, conflicts and grief issues can be discussed honestly and openly. The overall goal of family meetings in end of life care is to enhance family support and functioning.  The care manager should promote cohesiveness in the family meeting to help the family:

             Reduce conflict

·       Co-operate and communicate among family members in decision making”

·       Share thoughts and feelings with each other.

·       Make plans for the united family support of the dying person

Integral to this process is the sharing together of family grief, “while the family’s strengths and successful ways of coping together are affirmed.

Who should attend?

            Patient, family members, the case manager and other health care professionals whose expertise is needed for the matter at hand should be present. Whenever possible or practical, the meetings should include the sick person. If he/she is unable to attend let him/ her know who has been invited and exactly what you plan to discuss. If he/she is unable to attend, report back to him/her immediately about the meeting. This keeps the locus of control with the patient where it belongs. It is after all their life being discussed. If the sick person is unable to attend, then the person most familiar with needs of dying person should attend. An appointed spokesperson (a legal decision maker/ health care power of attorney) such should attend if the patient is unable to speak for him or herself.  There may be some cases where due to dementia or some other condition it might be appropriate to hold a meeting without the patient present. Depending on the condition, a follow up with the sick person may be appropriate. Another situation where the ill person should not be present is if the family members need to share with each other thoughts or feelings about family grief or other issues that would be to painful for the ill person to hear. In this case it would be appropriate to hold one meeting to focus on these matters only.           

           

Care Managers role

The care manager’s role will be facilitating the meetings, communicating information, explaining, negotiating care and having empathy and understanding. If Hospice is involved, the Hospice Medical Social Worker or Hospice Discharge Planner at the hospital will lead the meeting. A highly dysfunctional family will need a mediator or someone with mediation skills.Hospice can often supply a member of their team to do this.

            It’s important to realize that discussions involving end of life decisions can take often involve numerous family members in a series of meetings spaced over time. Setting an agenda for the meeting and letting all parties know ahead of time what you plan to discuss is an important part of the process. Research on improving care planning with older people and their families show that a family meeting is unsatisfactory when they go into it with an unclear agenda. The patient, the staff and the family members must all be clear on the meeting’s purpose. This requires conveying and gathering information with the patient, adjusting expectations of all parties, and resolving any differences. For example information from meetings with other professionals or results from medical tests may be needed. When the meetings begin, it is good for the case manager to review the meeting goals and to clarify if specific decisions need to be made. Before the meeting ends the team checks back with the participants and each other, to debrief and identify any unmet needs. The care manager should summarize the decisions made in the meeting and circulate those to all who attended the meeting so everyone know what was agreed to at the meeting and what role, they individually agreed to take and what they agreed to do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Aging Tagged With: death and dying, end of life, family meeting end of life, geriatric care manager

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