friendship and quality of life Archives ⋆ Cathy Cress

Solo Agers Are Vulnerable to Social isolation

March 5, 2023

Solo agers are vulnerable to social isolation and mental health problems, particularly if they lack close family or friendship ties.

Also, known as Elder Orphans, Solo Agers represent about 22% of older adults in the United States. Solo agers are vulnerable to social isolation or are at risk of doing so in the future, according to a 2016 study. “This is an often overlooked, poorly understood group that needs more attention from the medical community,” said Maria Torroella Carney, the study’s lead author, and chief of geriatric and palliative medicine at Northwell Health in New York. Solo agers are vulnerable to social isolation, according to a recently released survey of 500 people who belong to the Elder Orphan Facebook Group, with 8,500 members. Seniors living alone, being unmarried, and not having family or friends nearby are more often lonely and more likely to be depressed and have a poor quality of life. In the study understanding older adults who are aging alone 45% reported being sad and 52% reported being lonely.

Because adults with children may effectively be solo if their adult children live far away or they have a child with a disability who can’t care for them, or they are estranged, more aging adults are looking elsewhere for support to increase their quality of life.

Solo agers are vulnerable to social isolation although loneliness is a serious concern as all ages are found out during COVID. During the epidemic loneliness, isolation, and depression were experienced by everyone including kids who could not go to school. Seniors experience this all the time. Social isolation is associated with a multitude of problems, such as high blood pressure, insomnia, depression, and cognitive decline. If you lose the ability to drive, develop mobility issues, or live far from friends and family, Solo Agers may have very limited social interaction while aging in place. this a poor quality of life

Geriatric Care Managers can bring socialization, increase quality of life and so much more to Solo Agers.

Increasing Quality of Life socialization and networks of friends can help solo agers who are lonely. They can also help Solo Agers who are planning their aging plan to increase socialization to avoid pitfalls that so many seniors face in retirement- loneliness, isolation, and depression. The great thing about Solo Agers is that they are planning their aging, are highly educated and have the income for care managers, and can afford private care aging without Medicare covering long-term care

Solo Agers: Your Next Generation Client in the Upper 10)%

Sign -up for Free Webinar

Description

Who are solo agers
Why you should know about them
What makes them unique as clients
What services you can offer them
How do you market to Solo Agers
How you can do life care planning for them with wealth managers and attorneys

Sign Up

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.

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

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

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.

Long Distance Care Provider Help on Mother’s Day

Contact

Connect with Cathy

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