Cathy Cress

Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management

  • Home
  • Products
    • Speakers Bureau Package
    • GCM Manual New 5th Edition
    • VIP Care Management White Paper
    • Books
    • Geriatric Care Management – 4th Edition
    • Mom Loves You Best
    • Care Managers
  • Online Classes
    • GCM Operations Manual Online Course
    • Geriatric Care Management Business Online Course
    • CEUs for Individual Modules
  • Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
    • Past Webinars
  • Recommendations
  • About
  • Blog
    • Aging
    • Geriatric Care Manager
    • Siblings
    • Webinar
  • Contact

End of Life-When Do You Need Mediation?

February 23, 2021

Why do some families need mediation at the end of life? Mediation is a voluntary process in which the parties, with the help of an impartial third party mediator, work together to resolve their differences or solve a problem they were unable to address satisfactorily without help. These family differences especially happen to dysfunctional families but can beset any family at the end of life. They are faced with overwhelming emotions and decisions that demand that the family work together as a team. What happens to dysfunctional and even nearly normal families during this trying time? They don’t gather as a team. They fight. They fret and they feud. What are the results of this fighting, fretting, and feuding in families at the end of life?                                        family-charis1-226x300.jpg

Unresolved family conflicts emerge

            Dysfunctional families become more dysfunctional

Family members’ grief, pain, and anxiety are often masked as anger and presents as conflict (past and present)                                                 

Older person dies without resolving important family issues

Older person dies in conflict, not in peace

Deliver a Good End of Life- Add Death and Dying to Your Care Management Agency

 

Serve Your Client Until Death Do You Part

 

Join me Thursday, March 11, and learn why End of Life Services Are a perfect new service for care managers 

 In this 1 ½ -hour webinar you will learn how to 

  • 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 caregiver 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: Aging, aging life care manager, Death & Dying, Death and Dying Care Management, death and dying care manager, DNR, End of Life, End of Life Care manager, GCM role Death and Dying, geriatric social worker, Good Death, Hospice, Hospice Care, mediation, Mediation End of Life, Mediator, nurse care manager Tagged With: Advanced Directives, aging parent, aging parent care, aging parent crisis, ALCA care Manager, ALCA in End Of Life, disputes at end of life, dysfunctional aging family, dysfuntional family, elder mediation, end of life, end of life family meeting, facilitator, families fretting at end of life, family meeting, Fighting and Feuding at end of life, GCM mediator, geraitric care manager, Geriatric Assessment, geriatric care manager, geriatric care managers, Handbook of Geriatric Care Management third edition, mediation, mediation end of life, mediiator, My Geraitric Care Management Operations Manual, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, power of attorney for health care, siblings feuding, siblings fighting, step sibling family meeting

Do You Know How to Use Whole Family Approach to End of Life Issues ?

February 10, 2021

Family Working Together as a Unit

The whole family approach is critical with death and dying. Care managers are often engaged to help facilitate the discussions at end of life, and help family members come together to work as a functional unit.

Understanding the differing viewpoints is critical

Knowing what a parent wants and does not want during the last days and hours of life help define and simplify the role of the family. It relieves the family of the burden of having the responsibility of making decisions which may not be what their parents want, and can also avoid family conflicts when adult children may have differing values.” Proactive discussions and legal planning can help to reduce some of the potential conflicts.

Major Family Issues at End of Life

 I found myself with a family member dealing with end of life issues. The

issues were:  money as the elderly man would need to have 24-hour care to return home to die and where he would return home, as although the son was unsure, everyone agreed that the son’s home where all the grandchildren and great-grandchildren gathered was the best place.

The most important was should the elderly man withdraw dialysis and extreme measures that were not saving his life. He was competent and had chosen this. 

Issues  Solved by A FamilyMeeting

All, these problems were solved by two things. The man’s physicians helped him understand the dialysis would not save him from dying.  Then a family meeting with hospice and his care managed home care agency LivHome the son and his wife, and myself was set up using the whole family approach.

Hospice facilitated the discussion. The end result was to move to the son’s home, with 24-hour care and Hospice, where the entire family, were gathered in and out all day and the old man died a ” Good Death” knowing that his family surrounded him. 

Deliver a Good End of Life- Add Death and Dying to Your Care Management Agency

 

Serve Your Client until Death Do You Part

 

Join me Thursday March 11 and learn why End of Life Services Are a perfect new service for care managers

 

In this 1 ½ -hour webinar you will learn how to

 

 

1.Transition the patient/family through the five stages of death

2.Help clients be active participants in their care

3.Give the family/caregiver tools to manage care

4 Provide family center care to caregiver and family

5 Choose the right support services through all stages of death

6.Introduce Hospice and Palliative care and work with their team

7 Use ALCA End of Life Benefits During COVID

8.Use  COVID -19  Family Coaching for GCM

Sign Up

 

 Gwendolyn LAZO Harris MA, CT, Seniors at Home, San Francisco and Diane LeVan MA both highly expert care managers, created a seminal chapter “Palliative Care and End of Life Care Manager ” in my book Care Manager’s Working With the Aging Family 

Filed Under: Aging, aging life care manager, Blog, care manager, case manager, Death and Dying Care Management, death and dying care manager, elder care manager, End of Life Care manager, Families, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric social worker, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Palliative care manager Tagged With: aging family, aging life care manager, aging parent, aging parent care, aging parent crisis, care manager, care plan interventions, caregiver, caregiver burden, caregiver family meeting, case manager, end of life, end of life care manager, end of life family meeting, family meeting, Geriatric Assessment, geriatric assessment for end of life, geriatric care manager, Hospice, National Assocaition of Geraitric Care Managers, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Palliative Care, parent care, parent care crisis

Why Phyllis Brostoff Says You Should Get a D on Your Written Geriatric Assessment

January 16, 2020

How To Score an A Writing a Geriatric Assessment

A written Geriatric assessment is the toughest skill a care manager can have in their toolbox. You want your A-game because they frequently go to elder law attorneys who submit them to court in conservatorship or guardianship lawsuits. As evidence, they must be perfect. You the care manager pull all your other skills of assessment, care planning, investigation of a case to find the right solution for the clients and objectivity. Plus what is not taught in gerontology classes – writing skills.

Phyllis Brostoff a legendary now retired geriatric care manager an ALCA board member taught this skill and published it in the Handbook of Geriatric Care Management in the Geriatric Assessment. Here is both how you might garden a D or even a flaming F and how to present that attorney your A-game.

WHAT ARE THE BIGGEST ERRORS GCM MAKE IN WRITING A GERIATRIC ASSESSMENT?

  • Sloppiness: not enough information is gathered, or used to evaluate problems
    • You are a detective and need to gather all the information (clues about the case in the beginning). This means talk to all family members, friends, formal supports,  to understand what are all the problems and how will you evaluate them. This includes using all assessment tools and gathering all records, medical, hospital, etc.

 

  • Errors: questionable information, information not checked–

 

  • One daughter says her father is confused and needs her care– not a paid caregiver. Another daughter says that the first daughter has taken financial advantage of the client by withdrawing money from Dad’s bank and should not be the care provider. You do not check the father’s bank account to see that the daughter has made withdrawals for her father’s accounts, which she has.

 

  • Poor spelling, grammar, sentence structure

 

  • Even though your geriatric assessment has every section included and fully filled out, with your care plan and logical conclusions well stated and correct, with perfect recommendations —if you used poor spelling and grammar, the family or attorney will discount it because of your poor writing presentation.
  • Poor organization of information.
    • For example, don’t put information about the client’s depression in the Home Management section of your geriatric assessment. Mrs. Typhoon feeling depressed does not go in the home safety section. Do not commingle sections. Write a tight outline, follow it, and make your written assessment cohesive.

 

 

  • Conclusions based on assumptions, not facts

 

  • Make sure your facts are presented clearly. In Mrs. Typhoon’s geriatric assessment, you would not say Problem: Mrs. Typhoon suffers from anxiety, based on your visit where you charted.” Ms.Typhoon looked full of anxiety.” You would state, “When visiting Mrs. Typhoon on November 1, 2026, Mrs. Typhoon stated to the GCM that she very anxious and wanted to take more of her Xanex.” GCM checked with Dr. Feelgood and he said she is taking 10mg of Xanax as needed.

 

  • Lack of coherence between problems, solutions offered in recommendations
  • Your geriatric assessment must lead to coherence between solutions and problems. At the beginning of Mrs. Typhoon’s geriatric assessment, her daughter Ms. Tornado wanted you to find out why her mother had multiple falls, and what level of care her mother belonged in. You state she has fallen five times and needs a walker but never state where she falls, which is going down the steps to the laundry room or offer a solution which could be a care provider do the laundry or moving to a single floor dwelling or both.

 

  • Recommendations incomplete: no or not enough choices offered, no argument put forth to guide decision-making
    • Recommendations in Ms. Typhoon’s geriatric assessment are incomplete. As stated above

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Aging, Blog, Care Plan, Families, Geriatric Assessment, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, Webinar, Written Geriatric Assessment Tagged With: aging life care manager, care manager, eldercare manager, Geriatric Assessment, geriatric care manager, nurse care manager

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 Trappedchannel_caregiver_burnout.jpg

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.

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

 

 

Filed Under: Aging, Aging Family, aging family crisis, Aging Life Care, Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, care manager, caregiver assessment, caregiver burnout, caregiver mental health, CAREGIVER RESOUCES, elder care manager, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric social worker, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Webinar Tagged With: aging parent care, aging parent crisis, assessing the caregiver, caregiver, caregiver assessment, caregiver burnout, caregiver overload, caregiver overwhelm, caregiver stress, caregiving family members, case manager, elder care crisis, Functional Assessment, geraitric assessment, Geriatric Assessment, geriatric care management, geriatric care manager, informal caregiver, Marriage and Family Therapist, My Geriatric Care Management Operations Manual, stress and burden

Caregiver Assessment- When The Caregiver Loses Sense of Self

September 22, 2019

One Homeostatic SystemChiCheng_hmpgHdr.jpg

When you assess an older client with a family caregiver, you really have two clients. The needs of the family caregiver are different than the needs of the care receiver and the geriatric care manager or aging professional must differentiate those needs to make sure the care receiver’s functional and psychosocial needs are met. The care receiver and the family caregiver are one homeostatic system encompassing the whole aging family. To keep that family healthy and whole, in the middle of swirling care crisis, the care manager must first recognize that there are multiple clients including the person who gives or supervises care. In a health care insult, family members who give care are often referred to by the inanimate wooden term “ resources”. They have also been referred to as “ informants “.

 

Stripping Caregivers Personhood

This stripping of personhood denudes them of their status as individuals and melts them into the caregivers, thus breeds professional ignorance, like the crowd who watched the emperor with no clothes. We are blind to caregiver’s humanity and thus their own needs.

Seld-Esteem Vanishes With Caregiving

Many family caregivers lose their self-esteem because they fail at so many other parts of their lives when their whole life seems to be taken up by caregiving. They do not get vacations as the care-receiver does not take a break from illness and aging. Often there are few others to give them respite. Caregivers, often they just do not know where to find help or even ask for it. If family caregivers have children and husbands, they are often squeezed between their needs, the needs of the care receiver – thus have no room for their own needs. They are breathless and slogging forward.

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

Filed Under: Aging, caregiver, caregiver assessment, Caregiver Burn Out, caregiver burnout, caregiver mental health, CAREGIVER RESOUCES, case manager, elder care manager, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, nurse advocate, nurse care manager Tagged With: aging parent, aging parent care, assessing the caregiver, caregiver assessment, caregiver burden, caregiver burnout, caregiver overload, caregiver overwhelm, caregiver stress, geraitric care manager, Geriatric Assessment, Geriatric care management operations manual, geriatric care manager, informal caregiver, long distance care provider, National Assocaition of Geraitric Care Managers

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • …
  • 15
  • Next Page »

Contact

Use the form on the
Contact page to email Cathy.

Email

Latest trending news

Connect with Cathy

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

  • Home
  • GCM Manual New 5th Edition
  • Books »
  • Services »
  • About
  • Recommendations
  • Blog »
  • Contact

Copyright © 2012–2023 CressGCMConsult & Cathy Cress - Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management | Developed by wpcustomify

Powered byHow to get udemy courses for free