Cathy Cress

Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management

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How Reinventing Senior Centers Boosts Boomers Quality of Life

March 27, 2019

Senior Centers have a whole new face in 2019.

Senior Centers, now provide revamped, hip classes and exciting structured events for elders.   On top of that,

Seniors Having Fun In The Community Center

they still offer old fashion opportunities to increase the quality of life for older adults , like dances and trips. But these new innovative programs can include new-age activities for older people. Adaptive yoga, for example, can increase physical  health and at the same time offer social interactions that may lead to  emotional and physical connections for elders

In Santa Cruz California, a city famous for it’s surfing, Lifespan 35-year-old care management agency, has added a game-changing program, called “Well Being” . To enhance clients quality of life. Well Being begins with the quality of life assessments to discover how the client wishes increase the emotional, physical, spiritual or intellectual quality of life. What they look for is what will bring the older person joy again. Older people are often lost in retirement, having left the world of work and trying to fill the void with new friends and new ways to spend their time and finding joy in each day. If they have problems doing this on their own, it can result in depression, self-isolation, loneliness, and physical problems.

Lifespan’s Well Being Program care manager designs a care plan for each Well Being Client that takes their interests, physical and mental abilities and wishes for new things to do or old favorites to resurrect and designs a activities plan that uses among other resources in the community use seniors centers. Seniors centers in Santa Cruz, California, offer innovative programs that seniors are excited to join like Tai Chi, Qui  Gong, boomer yoga, meditation and mindfulness, senior downsizing and much more.

If you are a geriatric care manager or an aging professional, think of adding senior centers and quality of life to your plan of care. Find this need through a quality of life assessment You will create a win-win care plan- for both the elder and the adult children’s emotional quality of life— Really – for the whole aging family.

Filed Under: aging life business, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, Blog, care manager, case manager, elder care manager, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, innovative new senior centers, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Quality of Life, Quality of Life for elders, quality of life in senior centers, Senior centers Tagged With: aging life care manager, care manager, case manager, elders emotional quality of life, friendship and quality of life, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, increasing quality of life, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, quality of life and senior centers, senior centers

How an Art Museum is Combating Senior Loneliness in California?

March 22, 2019

Santa Cruz County, California is combating senior loneliness and isolation, through community organization and art. Following a similar exhibition on foster children MAH (Museum of Art and History), launched the Loneliness exhibition this year. MAH’s former director Nina Simon, who is internationally known, conceived the idea of community organization through museums ( Museum of Art and History) at MAH and is moving that brilliant concept globally.

Over the course of seven months, a group of Santa Cruz seniors, advocates, and artists , cascaded their ideas, art, hopes, and stories on senior loneliness and isolation in the Santa Cruz community together to create this inspiring exhibition. They created personal artwork about loneliness, brainstormed solutions to build connection and offered their words of wisdom for future generations.

Alongside incredible artworks, on loneliness by local seniors, this exhibit created 45 action cards to offer solutions to this growing problem. Examples are Drive a senior to the grocery store. Card ideas also included “Translate written materials into Spanish for a monolingual elder” or “Donate an iPod for entertainment “. If the visitor to the exhibit has a special skill, they are asked to volunteer to help a senior experience that -like get a manicure. Exhibit visitors take home the action card/s that inspires them the most and to help impact change in seniors experiencing social isolation in Santa Cruz County.

The exhibition will travel and be replicated in four other California counties, to give more lonely California seniors a chance to organize and create services for loneliness in other areas, through other museums that use art to create community.

Loneliness and isolation in older adults But what has been found is building social connections through the community as MAH has done is what combats this isolation in seniors, in our society. Loneliness puts seniors at risk for depression, cardiovascular failure, insomnia.  It can, according to NY Times aging columnist Jane Brody raise levels of stress hormones and inflammation, which in turn can increase the risk of heart disease, arthritis, Type 2 diabetes, dementia, faster and result in cognitive decline and even suicide attempts. It also is a factor in unnecessary placement in nursing homes

Increasing the quality of life is one major answer to loneliness. The primary way to bring more joy into a senior’s life is regaining a foothold in town or village, something that this type of community art exhibit and geriatric care managers both have made a major platform in their work. Nina Herndon a pioneer in quality of life in geriatric care management’s chapter in Handbook of Geriatric Care management where she outlines how care managers can deliver this service to conquer loneliness in seniors

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: aging family, aging life care manager, aging life or geriatric care manager, aging parent crisis, art museum, art therapy, care manager, case manager, elders emotional quality of life, friendship and quality of life, geriatric care manager, innovative, isolation and elders, isolation and quality of life, loneliness, Nina Simon, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, parent care crisis, social isolation

Isolation and Loneliness in Seniors = 15 Cigarettes a Day

March 18, 2019

The AARP Foundation’s Connect2Affect has called social isolation a “growing health epidemic” among older adults. It equates the health risks of prolonged isolation with smoking 15 cigarettes daily. Adding a Quality of Life Program to a geriatric care management practice can help serve independent seniors who do not need hands-on care but do need more community and a way to help themselves overcome loneliness and social isolation.

In recent study loneliness in seniors between the ages of 65 and 86 led to a 64 percent increase in the risk of developing dementia, an extraordinary spike in odds highlighting the importance of fostering meaningful relationships at all stages of life.  Helping seniors, through a quality of life services, find new human connections and community, can give an older person a greater sense of happiness and joy. But as this study shows critically- better health.

Quality of Life of the older client can be important to the older person’s family. If the family is involved, which it often is, even if the senior is living alone,  the care manager can assist families by beginning the dialogue to open discussions on preferences and values of the older client and the family. What would give the older person joy in their life? Would it be art, music m going to baseball games, being in a knitting group, having a tea for friends at their home, volunteering with a group?

Quality of Life issues that the care manager should assess is the individual’s need for social interaction or privacy; the value of family; proximity to cultural stimulation; and adaptability to change. These are just some of the many quality of life considerations.

A Care Management Agency can even develop a Quality of Life programs. Lifespan Care Management in Santa Cruz, Ca just developed a Quality of life program Well Being designed to bring back the joy in lonely elders lives by assessing just what would do that and taking and engaging them in the activity with skilled personal assistants with training in recreational therapy. In the body and mind connection, this to heal the mind.

Sage Eldercare in Northern California has developed a unique activity kit called Joyful Moments that helps family members, care managers, and caregivers. Joyful Moments, unique activity cards that give “the tools to re-engage older adults in life—and turn every visit from mundane to memory making. Nina Herndon the director of  Sage Eldercare is also an expert in quality of life for seniors and authored a chapter on how care managers can develop that skills with seniors Handbook of Geriatric Care Management 

Care Managers can be so valuable in not only helping a senior create a path out of loneliness and isolation by assisting in removing barriers to quality of life that family members may, out of care and worry, put in the elder’s way.

Find out more about  creating a Quality of Life program 

Filed Under: Aging, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, Blog, case manager, Dementia Activities, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, Loneliness, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Oral History, patient advocate, Quality of Life, Quality of Life for elders, Reminiscence Therapy, Webinar Tagged With: aging family, aging life care manager, aging parent crisis, assessing for quality of life, care manager, case manager, friendship and quality of life, holistic quality of life, increasing quality of life, nurse advocate, quality of life assessment, Quality of life program

Long Distance Care Provider Help on Mother’s Day

May 8, 2013

PDF-Cover-of-11-10-12My-Geriatric-Care-Management-Agency.jpg

 

If you are a long distance care provider visiting Mom on Mother’s day you can give more than a gift. You can make connections with her formal and informal supports to offer on –going buoys to your aging Mom. You can make good contacts with the informal support network of others who see the your Mom regularly (friends, church members). These contacts will be a great source of information when you, the long distance caregiver get back home.

 

Friends in spiritual groups are a really important contact. If she goes to church a synagogue or mosque, maybe go with her. Get the name of contacts there who might help with driving her to services or find out if the spiritual groups has pick up service for elders.

Contact formal supports. If your mother is in a senior activity program in the community, introduce yourself to the head contact and ask if they will give you periodic updates via e-mail or text. For example, my dad was in a social day program. If your relative is in a similar program, have someone in the program report to you on a regular basis. – Text – e-mail, phone calls, stamped self-addressed envelopes -all good.

 

If your mother is in a community program such as one for exercise, art, knitting, or some sort of support group, make an appointment with them and introduce yourself. Set up periodic reports via e-mail, text, mail  or phone.

 

Take home the telephone directory. Better yet use the web. Find the web site of the local Senior Information and Referral program from the goverment’s  Elderlocator . They will give you the Senior I&R contact in your Mom’s area. Maybe get in touch with a senior information and referral professional ahead of the visit. Ask that Senior Information and Referral professional for suggestions any community programs you think your Mom might want to join.

This is the gift that will keep on giving-  improved quality of life for Mom and peace of mind for you.

Filed Under: Aging Tagged With: Adult Day Care, Adult Day Health Care, aging family, Aging In Place, aging parent, aging parent care, AOA, Area Agency on Aging, art therapy, caregiver burden, caregiver overwhelm, caregiver stress, case manager, Continuum of Care, elders emotional quality of life, emotional quality of life, exercise groups for the elderly, family caregivers, Formal supports, friendship and quality of life, geraitric care manager, Geriatric Assessment, increasing quality of life, informal supports of an older person, joy in older people, knitting groups for the elderly, long distance care provider, long distance caregiver, Marriage and Family Therapist, Medicare, MFT, Mothers Day visit, My Geraitric Care Management Operations Manual, National Association of Geriatric Care Managers, preventative care for elders, Professional in aging, Quality of Life, quality of life assessment, senior centers, Senior Information and Referral, senior non profits, spiritual supports in aging

Enhancing Emotional Quality of Life for A Senior With No Family

April 7, 2013

 

How does an aging professional enhance an elders emotional quality of life if the family in unavailable or just unwilling to be supportive? At that juncture you would enhance emotional quality of life by tapping into the older persons friendships and helping the older person nurture or rekindle relationships.This would take doing a psychosocial assessment , finding present and former friends and contacting them to see if visits could be arranged. Getting the elder client to those friends is the next step. This could be done  by arranging senior transportation or other ways necessary so the client could see his or her friends on a regular basis. So you as an aging professional or geriatric care manager are spinning a new social saftey net for the elder who has no family to enhance their  quality of life

 

 

 

Filed Under: Aging Tagged With: aging family, aging parent, aging parent crisis, AOA, Area Agency on Aging, assessing for quality of life, Care Managers Working with the Aging Family, care monitoring, care plan, care plan as saftey net, care planning, checklist for aging parent problems, Continuum of Care, emotional quality of life, friendship and quality of life, geraitric assessment, geraitric care manager, geriatric care management, geriatric care manager, geriatric care managers, IADL Transportation, joy in older people, Marriage and Family Therapist, My Geriatric Care Management Operations Manual, National Assocaition of Geraitric Care Managers, Psychosocial assessment, psychosocial assessment- social connections, Quality of Life, quality of life assessment, senior transportation

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