Cathy Cress

Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management

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Have You Done Disaster Planning for Aging Clients?

November 8, 2019

Do You Have a Disaster Plan?

The devastating fires up and down California this month should tell you that you need a family meeting to prepare any aging family members in any place you live, ( especially long-distance ). We are facing global warming and normal catastrophic weather events- tornados, hurricanes, polar vortex and floods like the last year’s floods in the midwest. You need a disaster plan because older people are more vulnerable than any age group.

What would be the agenda of that disaster family meeting?

1) Create a disaster plan for the older person. This map out what each sibling and family member needs to do

2) Create a disaster team. This would be all adult siblings all over the country, family nearby, caregivers and neighbors.

Share your disaster plan with everyone.

Include someone on the team who can carry heavy objects like wheelchairs

Name a substitute caregiver if the regular one can’t get there

3) Make an evacuation plan . Where is the nearest shelter, what supplies

Do you have on hand? Get list from your local Red Cross 

How many people do you need to make the move to safety? Look closely at picture on right. These SNF residents are in water up to their waists.

4) Put all of the above in writing. E-mail copies to everyone on the family disaster team including all adult siblings or create a closed facebook group hand share there.

5) Get everyone’s agreement especially midlife siblings and the older person.

For more information, the University of Florida,  Home of Disaster filled hurricanes has a great set of directions.

6) Call a geriatric care manager     to manage the plan if you live long distance

Professionals check out the  Preparing for Emergencies-chapter in  Handbook of Geriatric Care Management  fourth edition , by Liz Barlowe on Disaster planning

A GCM member Jim Boyd lost everything- his practice, home, last year in the Paradise Fire.

Professionals Check out my book Care Managers Working With the Aging Family, with it’s chapter on Family Meetings and the Aging Family by Dr. Rita Ghatak of Stanford

Filed Under: Aging, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, Blog, care manager, Care Plan, caregiver, case manager, elder care manager, Elderly Disaster Plan, Emergency Plan, Families, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, Long Distance Care, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Siblings Tagged With: aging family, aging life care manager, aging parent care, aging parent crisis, care manager, case manager, checklist for aging parent problems, geriatric care manager, Hurricane Harvey, long distance care provider, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, siblings

With Dorian’s Carnage- Do You Need a Midlife Family Meeting for Aging Parent Disaster Plan ?

September 3, 2019

What is MidLife Sibling Hurricane Nightmare

The catastrophic disaster of Hurricane Dorian unleashed on the Bahama’s and heading to Florida should conjure up a midlife sibling nightmare. It brings back the goblins of Katrina -the most gruesome weather cataclysm where 39 elderly residents died, trapped or abandoned in retirement centers and 1400 elder overall died in Katrina’s watery wrath.We just plunged into possible horror again. On Dorian’s heels we may have more hurricanes with hurricane season upon us, and global warming making them , like catagory 5 Dorian, monsters  storms. This should terrify adult children enough to take emergency action to protect their parents.

Midlife Sibling Need Emergency Disaster Plan for Aging Relatives

This recent confluence of hurricane deaths and hurricanes looming right now, should be a deafening roar in the ear of midlife siblings that they need to convene a midlife sibling disaster plan family meeting to protect any aging family members-, no matter where your elderly parents live or what level of care. You need that disaster plan because older people are more likely to die in catastrophes than any other population. As I pointed out in my last blog, just because they are often in a facility in a facility or alone and too frail to escape .Katrina and Irma tell us perhaps they are more in peril. 

 

So before another hurricane, tornado, earthquake, flood, or any disaster hits, you need to have a  midlife sibling family meeting to come up with a disaster plan for aging family members

What would be the agenda of that midlife sibling disaster family meeting?

If your loved ones are in a FACILITY- do not trust the facility to handle the situation. Look at what just happened in Irma.

1)Get a copy of the facilities disaster and evacuation plan.Compare it to state regulations. If it does not include calling the family before the disaster, consider moving your loved one or make sure that is changed.

2)Appoint a sibling to be in charge of reading the disaster evacuation plan and be the contact person.

3)Call your state facility licensing body and find out the state regulations to see if they match the facilities- CCRC, Assisted Living or Nursing Home

4) Have a telephonic family meeting before the disaster if possible

5) Make sure the state requires backup generators for heat and air conditioning- a flaw in Florida’s regulations in Irma

If the loved one is LIVING AT HOME alone or with an adult child.

1) Create a disaster plan for the older person. This would map out what each sibling and family member needs to do

2) Create a disaster team. This would include every adult siblings all over the country, family nearby, caregivers and neighbors.

4) Include someone on the team who can carry heavy objects like wheelchairs.

5) Name a substitute caregiver if the regular one can’t get there.

6) Make an evacuation plan for your aging family member’s house. Where is the nearest Red Cross shelter 

7) What disaster supplies do you do you have on hand? Get list from your local Red Cross 

8)Find out how many people do you need to make the move to safety or a shelter?

9) Put all of the above in writing.

10) Share a copy your disaster plan with everyone. E-mail copies to everyone on the family disaster team including all adult siblings, neighbors and friends.

11) Get everyone’s agreement especially midlife siblings and the older person. Be a unified disaster team.

12 ) Call a geriatric care manager to manage the plan or help you create it with your elderly parents, if you live long distance. They can do the heavy lifting, can help moderate a family meeting- can research state laws, be there in a disaster immediately, create and implement a disaster plan for your parent, that you approve and can be part of.

 

Professionals check out the chapter “ Preparing for Emergencies” in my Handbook of Geriatric Care Management  fourth edition,

Professionals Check out my book Care Managers Working With the Aging Family, Jones and Bartlett, with its chapter on Family Meetings and the Aging Family by Rita Ghatak, director of Stanford’s Aging Program. 

Filed Under: Aging, Aging Family, aging family crisis, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, care manager, caregiver, case manager, elder care manager, Elderly Disaster Plan, Emergency Plan, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric social worker, Jose, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Nursing Home disaster plan, Siblings Tagged With: aging family, aging life care manager, aging parent care, aging parent crisis, care manager, case manager, disaster plan, disaster supplies, E Book on Family Meetings, Hurricane Dorian', Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Irma, Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans opens flood gates, older adults in a dsiaster, Red Cross, sibling, sibling disaster family meeting, sibling family meeting

Watching Harvey’s Devistation-Do You Have a 2017 Emergency Plan for Your Elder Care Agency ?

August 31, 2017

Do you have procedures for an emergency at your Aging Life, Geriatric Care Management or private duty home care agency?

 

 The ability of an agency to function despite an emergency is critical. The 2017 hurricane season has brought us the horror of Harvey with a category 4 storm that has wreaked never before seen flooding. So far crews in Texas have found the bodies of 31 victims of Harvey’s wrath and warned on Wednesday that the number of dead would almost certainly soar as water levels across much of the Houston area start to recede.

In the US.Katrina’s devastation in New Orleans led to new Federal Rules that forced a wide range of health care providers to create emergency plans which created better emergency plans in nursing homes. This brought plans and safety drills but plans had never included the almost biblical flooding that is happening in Houston right now.Ben Taub hospital even with an emergency plan was so flooded it had a difficult time getting patients out, although, in the end, every patient was moved to safety

So in light of Harvey- Does your agency have an emergency plan?

Informal procedures work in a start up care management business but what if the solo practitioner is ill and out?

 

 If illness, accident, some other unforeseen event overtakes an owner or man­ager, no emergency procedures can be suicide in an emergency, not to mention liabil­ity to your elderly clients.

 

Katrina left New Orleans GCM’s, desperately scrambling to care for their clients in hotels as the floodwater rose. They were and left to re-build their business again, which took years.

 

 Every geriatric care professional needs a formal, written backup plan that dictates action, should a disaster or emergency arise.

 

It ‘s necessary to assess your company’s risk of temporary or permanent service disrup­tion if a disaster or emergency is experienced. This may seem an overwhelming task at first, but when you break it down into pieces, it becomes workable.

 

Learn about preparing for emergencies how you can prepare you, your clients and staff for disasters and absences of key personnel. Preparing for these ever growing emergencies, work wide is now in  Liz Barlowe’s chapter Preparing for Emergencies in the Handbook of Geriatric Care Management.

 

 

Get the new Handbook of Geriatric Care Management 4th edition now out on Kindle

 

 

Filed Under: Aging, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, Blog, care management start-up, caregiver, case manager, elder care manager, Emergency Plan, Families, GCM Start -Up, Geriatric Care Management Business, geriatric care manager, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric social worker, nurse advocate, nurse care manager Tagged With: Aging Life GCM Emergency Plan, aging life or geriatric care manager, care manager, case manager, eldercare manager, geriatric social worker, Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Katrina, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, nurse entrepreneur, nursing home evacuation

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