Cathy Cress

Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management

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10 Reminiscence Therapy Tools, Technology, and Techniques for New Year

December 29, 2021

 

Use Reminiscence therapy to capture family tales of aging parents or clients in the New Year

Do you use reminiscence therapy? Do you know how to use a reminiscence tool? Have you lost an aging parent and wished you had asked them more questions to reminisce about their past, your family history, and your childhood? Have you dabbled in ancestry and realized -too late- that you should have just listened closely to the stories your parents told you then written them down before they died?

Start Now! Use reminiscence therapy to make this New Year the year you collect the stories in your own family plus assist your aging clients by using 10 reminiscence therapy tools, technology, and techniques.

1. Use empathetic listening. This means to make all the messages you are are giving the older person— tone, how fast you speak, how they are sitting-  all saying, “I want to listen to them.”

2. Use empathetic listening then ask questions that prompt the story but don’t make judgments. If there are going to record the family tale, do it in a way that doesn’t distract or stop the older person from talking.

3. Start somewhere with a question then use empathetic listening. If the elder isn’t going to tell stories on his or her own, start the story and see if they will follow along.”What was a New Years Resolution that you made and kept” ” Do you remember your favorite doll ” What was your first day of school like”

4 . Music is just next to memory in the brain. So you want to use music as a reminiscence tool. This can be done through Alive Inside. So use Alexa, Spotify, to play  40’s 50’s  60’s music or especially when they were teens. Why? Sexual awakening when we are teens and the background music of that time deepens memory when they were teens  –when they were teens  NO Surprise. Simple ways to spark reminiscence when you visit older family members -bring their teenage music on your phone.

5. Use more reminiscence tools. Look at old photos together. Photos trigger memory even with dementia. Choose ones from a period of time the person currently remembers, which could be the person as a young adult, teenager, or even a young child.
6. Play music from their teenage years. That is a powerful reminiscence tool. It is the background to the most emotional period of anyone’s life and deeply lined into memory.
7. Another reminiscence tool is food. Serve food that is a family tradition or specialty, particularly ones that have an element of memory attached from family celebrations. like Mom’s Briscut, Dad’s Sunday Supper lasagna, or “Aunt Helen’s Lemon Cake”.

8. Story Worth was started by Nick Baum, a tecky who was, and in a way, a long-distance care provider for his parents in Sweden. He was curious about their past and invented the app based on his own need to gather his family history through reminiscence therapy in book form. My husband is a teller of past tales as a California Highway patrolman, then Hippiedom, then as top marketing director for Pacific Cookie Company, the best cookies here is the west.

Our daughter Kali gave him Story Worth as a holiday gift 2 years ago. In the first 12 months of the COVID, he recorded 40 stories or memories from his past. They were all published by Story Worth Book, saving in print the precious reminiscence that would have been lost but now saved in a  book that we gave to our adult children for them and generations to come.

This is a gold star reminiscence tool that gives you a brilliant way to capture reminiscence and I  recommend it to adult children who want to enshrine personal memories in print that otherwise would be lost when they reach back for them..

9. Life Bio-  a reminiscence tool,online template of biography and autobiography questions that have been carefully crafted

 

10. Quick Voice Recorder  a reminiscence tool to catch the memory on your phone

Reminiscence in aging is a part of a whole new domain in aging called quality of life or attending to the older person’s need for joy through activities that stimulate the mind. Reminiscence does that- so find out more about how you can increase the quality of life of older people after the holidays and all year long by building a quality of life reminiscence program like Lifespan’s Well Being program in Santa Cruz, Ca.

Filed Under: Aging, Alive Inside, Black Aging Family, Black Entrepreneur, Black Entrepreneur RB, Black Entrepreneur RN, Black entrepreneurs, Black Geriatric Care Manager, Black geriatric care managers, Black RN, Black Travel Nurses, Blog, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, Legacy Tools, Reminiscence Therapy, Senior Legacy, Story Worth Tagged With: aging life care manager, Alive Inside, ancestry, assessing for quality of life, care manager, case manager, empathetic listening, Family stories, geriatric care manager, isolation and quality of life, Music and Memory, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, oral history and quality of life, quality of life Alive Inside, reminicence and elder, Reminicence and geriatric care manager, Reminicence Therapy, reminicsence technology, Reminiscence tool, story telling elders, StoryWorth

Virtual Quality Of Life Activities for Elders During the Coronavirus

March 21, 2020

Loneliness & Isolation a Plague Among Elders Especially When Isolated by Coronavirus

Geriatric care managers who work with isolated or depressed clients can use quality of life to bring back joy  especially during the coronavirus pandemic

Care Manager Nina Herndon, the national expert of elder quality of life, cites in her chapter on Quality of Life, in Handbook of Geriatric Care Management a quote from the aging visionary Bill Thomas MD  in his book,  “What Are Old People For”.

Thomas says this is the plague of so many elders, who suffer loneliness, isolation, helplessness, and boredom because their environment is empty of companionship, intimacy, self-direction, and meaningful activity. Care Managers can fill this void with quality of life now virtually during the coronavirus.

Virtual Humminbird Quality of Life Program

In response to the Coronavirus Nina’s Herndon’s GCM Sage Eldercare has developed a packaged Humminbird Program that already thrived into one that can be used virtually.

Hummingbird Virtual and Phone Programming

The Hummingbird Project is implementing virtual and remote activity sessions to mitigate the negative impact of social isolation on older adults, especially for those with a behavioral expression of unmet needs who are struggling.

They are eager to use our creativity to help support your client and/or loved ones and enhance the quality of life during this difficult time! As such, we are offering reduced rate options and easy to initiate services for remote activity sessions.

Sessions can be conducted in a number of unique and creative ways: 

  • Virtual Video Conferencing: Using Zoom, Facetime, etc. we can offer popular activities such as guided virtual museum tours, intellectual stimulation, live musical concerts, art lessons, and more. Let’s bring Hummingbird magic into the home of isolated seniors across the nation! 

  • Phone Programming: We are pleased to provide the same quality of life activities usually presented in person. This might include legacy projects, oral history projects, lifelong learning, gratitude, spiritual devotion, verbal brain games, storytelling, and much more. 

  • Mail Order Activity Kits: Kit activities come with detailed instructions and engaging materials, so your client or loved one can feel confident as they begin exploring new experiences at the time and pace that works for them. 

  • Social Isolation Activity Plans: We recommend the creation of a social isolation activity plan for each person, which will include a schedule of activities, ideas, and ways to stay connected based on the individual’s life story and interests. We can create and send you this, and you or a family member can then implement it as needed. 

  • Joyful Moments: Quality of life activities like those you’ll find in Joyful Moments therapeutic activity cards help reconnect older adults to what brings them purpose, joy, and meaning in life. You’ll find step-by-step instructions and suggested adaptations for activities that cover all seven domains of quality of life: Physical, Spiritual, Intellectual, Creative, Vocational, Emotional and Environmental. Available online for $24.95 + shipping. Includes a 30-minute complimentary consultation and free tips and tricks handout on how to get started! Click here to order today!

  • They look forward to being of service during this time of crisis when compassion, therapeutic support, engagement, and joy are needed more than ever! To initiate services, please contact Tiffany Paige Ramirez at tpaigeramirez@sageeldercare.com or 916-990-7944.
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Get More information about how to set up a Quality of Life Program check out My Geriatric Care Management Operations Manual that includes step by step  procedures on how to set up a Quality of Life Program 

   

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Filed Under: aging life business, Aging Life Care, Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, Blog, Coronavirus emergency plan, coronavirus quality of life virtual program, Dr. Bill Thomas, elder care manager, Emotional Quality of Life, geriatric social worker, Intellectual Quality of Life, Long Term Care Coverage, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Quality of Life, Quality of Life for elders, Quality of Life Virtual Program, Quality of Life Virtually, Senior Loneliness Tagged With: aging life care manager, aging parent crisis, care manager, case manager, coronavirus, coronavirus and seniors, Coronavirus virtual quality of Life, geraitric care manager, geriatric care manager, Handbook of Geriatric Care Management third edition, Humminbird Program, increasing quality of life, Intellectual quality of life, isolation and quality of life, Nina Herndon, nurse advocate, nurse care manager

10 Intellectual Quality Of Life Activities for Elders

January 10, 2020

Loneliness & Isolation a Plague Among Elders 

Geriatric care managers who work with isolated or depressed clients who can use quality of life to bring back joy.

Care Manager Nina Herndon, the national expert of elder quality of life, cites in her chapter on Quality of Life, in Handbook of Geriatric Care Management a quote from the aging visionary Bill Thomas MD  in his book,  “What Are Old People For”  .Thomas says this is the plague of so many elders, who suffer loneliness, isolation, helplessness, and boredom because their environment is empty of companionship, intimacy, self-direction, and meaningful activity. Care Managers can fill this void with quality of life. One way to do this is:

Intellectual Quality of Life activities that engage older person  mentally

  • Hobbies
  • Learning
  • Brain aerobics
  • any form of creativity

Here are 10 other  ideas for seniors who live at home, or in Assisted Living

For seniors who are independent.

  1. For seniors who wish to travel again but need support to arrange a trip-Work with a senior travel agency to have the elder plan a trip that the elder would love to take but never did. Arrange for senior to take a class on planning travel and to  plan the trip Help them go online
  2. Games checkers dominos, puzzles, simple card games with a deck of cards with whales on them if they like the sea or more complicated games like bridge.
  3. Help the client join a local  book club with the kind of literature he likes to read (non-fiction- fiction – romance? )
  4. Help the client join a book club at the local library.
  5. Help the client join a Lifelong Learning  Osher group near you with intellectual activities if they enjoy book groups, Current Events, Cosmology, Shakespeare – whatever they love to learn or learn again.
  6. Introduce elders to your local community college or local college or theater company musicals and get tickets plus arrange transportation.
  7. . Identify what music they like and arrange to take them to local concerts, arrange to watch and listen on television or TV, if they have an I Phone Make a playlist of their favorite music, get them Alexa to just tell Alexa what music they want to hear, or join a choir if they used to do that and arrange transportation
  8. Attend a senior computer class or arrange for a 1-1 services with someone who can easily work with seniors and computers.
  9. Suggest joining in a games group at their local senior center or joining local games meet up- an example where I live https://www.meetup.com/Santa-Cruz-Board-and-Parlor-Games/
  10. Order Joyful Moments,  Geriatric Care Manager, Nina Herndon’s Quality of Life activity kit book, to get more ideas                         
Get More information about how to set up a Quality of Life Program check out My Geriatric Care Management Operations Manual that includes step by step  procedures on how to set up a Quality of Life Program 

   

 

 

Filed Under: aging life business, Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, Blog, Dr. Bill Thomas, Intellectual Quality of Life, Quality of Life, Quality of Life for elders Tagged With: aging life care manager, care manager, case manager, geriatric care manager, increasing quality of life, Intellectual quality of life, isolation and quality of life, Nina Herdon, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Quality of Life and Asssited Living

5 IDEAS FOR QUALITY OF LIFE ACTIVITIES OVER THE HOLIDAY TO HELP LONELY SENIORS

December 16, 2019

Loneliness in seniors is at an epidemic level in the US.

We live in an age where we can communicate with family across the country and around the globe with a few clicks of a mouse or taps on a smartphone screen. However, despite advances in communications technology and the increasing connectedness it brings, seniors are not always connected to their community and end up isolated and lonely.

Shrinking Social Circles Key

One of the biggest issues for seniors is that their social circles begin to shrink as we get older. Friends, significant others, and family members move or pass away. Even those who still live close by may be inaccessible due to limited mobility, triggered many times once a senior can no longer drive safely. Age-related changes in one’s physical condition, such as hearing loss and low vision, can make it so difficult to communicate that it doesn’t seem worth the effort anymore- the result loneliness and isolation. According to an AARP study, 19% of older adults in the United States suffer from loneliness; 8% of older adults often feel lonely, and 11% feel lonely at least some of the time.

In the UK, only 17% of older people are in contact with family, friends, and neighbors less than once a week, and 11% in

contact less than once a month.

Holidays are Miserable for The Lonely

The worst times are the holiday where Joy to the world sings to the tragic ears of elders who find themselves alone only surrounded by memories. How can we reach out to spread joy

Increase Quality Of Life Through a GCM Program

Lifespan, a 35-year-old care management program in Santa Cruz, California, has begun a quality of life program called “Well Being”. to address loneliness and isolation. Their service is designed to bring joy back to elderly clients, many of whom are isolated or living alone.

Based on the brilliant work of GCM Nina Herdon’s research and own quality of Life program, the Hummingbird Program, Lifespan serves lonely elders at any stage of their lives- from mentally clear to levels of dementia. Lifespan employs personal assistants trained in quality of life activities, to engage elders in intellectual, physical, emotional and spiritual quality of life activities after the care manager does a quality of life assessment and creates a quality of life action plan outlining what activities would bring back joy and activities they love and can do again with the personal assistant help.

5. IDEAS FOR QUALITY OF LIFE ACTIVITIES OVER THE HOLIDAY TO HELP LONLEY SENIORS

  1. Holiday reminiscence: Capture family tales during holidays like Christmas, Hanukkah. Use empathetic listening if you can. Make all the messages you are giving the older person—tone, how fast you speak, how they are sitting—say that you want to listen to the client.
  2. Ask questions that prompt the story, but don’t make judgments. If they are going to record the memory, do it in a way that doesn’t distract or stop the client from talking. Record on Quick Voice Recorder on your phone.  for their family Start somewhere in the story. If the elder isn’t going to tell stories on his or her own, start the story and see if they will follow along. “You wore a yarmulke  to the synagogue on the Chanukah and you would go with your mom and Dad?”

“Did your Mom do Christmas Hannakka baking on the holiday?” ” What was your favorite holiday treat”

3. If in a facility the quality of life assistant can ask if the older person likes to celebrate the holiday. IF so ask the facility if you can bring some decorations or ritual holiday symbols like a small Christmas tree, holiday food or a menorah or accompany the older person to a holiday dinner for community members.

4. On the traditional holidays celebrated by a client who observes a religion, such as Judaism, Christianity, or Islam, make sure that the decorations of that holiday are in their home, assisted living room, etc. Ritual music is played, a ritual meal is prepared, and ritual prayers are said.grandma_holding_rosary_shutterstock_40017103-255x255.jpg

 

5. Smell different scents like pine of a  Christmas tree smell of gingerbread or cocoa. Our sense of smell is embedded in our brain next to memory. So some activities that might work with elders with dementia are making holiday scent cards, bringing scent, bringing holiday scents and tastes of ritual foods having them help prepare food.

Filed Under: aging life business, Aging Life Care, Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, Aging therapist, Blog, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, Holidays, Quality of Life, Quality of Life for elders, quality of life in senior centers, Quality of Life with Dementia, Reminiscence Therapy Tagged With: aging family, aging life care manager, geriatric care manager, holidays rituals, Increasing Senior Quality of Life, isolation and quality of life, loneliness and quality of life, Nina Herdon, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Quality Of Life on Holidays

How Do You Create Emotional Quality of Life in Homebound Seniors?

August 14, 2019

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Homebound seniors are miserably isolated and lonely with a devastating emotional quality of life.

 AARP has estimated the there are 19.6 million in the US. This can be deadly to their quality of life. There are many answers  new approaches throughout the US. One is called Virtual Senior Centers. These game-changing idea magically allow older people, who cannot get out, to use technology or the phone to enhance their emotional and physical quality of life. This is a brilliant idea
Senior Center Without Walls, another approach has been around since 2004. Each week, homebound seniors can access ,over 70 groups by phone or online, all from the comfort of home. Nancy Lynn Jarvis a mystery writer living in Santa Cruz reads each of her mysteries, as they are published live on the telephone to an entire group of homebound seniors in the San Francisco Bay area. Isolated seniors can access a wide breadth of fun and games the isolated seniors can find- just by joining

The Virtual Senior Center really opens up the world for homebound senior enhancing their emotional and intellectual quality of life. It also elevates the quality of life of the caregiver because it gives them a respite and the comfort that their loved one is experiencing a program that offers joy- the joy that comes from joining a community, making new friends and learning new things you choose to be part of, an amazing benefit for homebound seniors.

We’re Still Here an art exhibit is presently in Santa Cruz California and will travel to other museums in the state, addresses the plight of lonely and isolated seniors . Art and community organizing about the lives of lonely seniors are the thrust of this exhibit , for the  the 70,000 visitors  expected to attend this year in its run from April to September. They can to pick cards that offer one lonely senior a visit, a ride a chances to interact with a visitor. This exhibit will travel counties throughout California through other art museums, spreading the message that lonely isolated seniors need help- all through art. The exhibit was spearheaded by Nina Simon  who is now world famous museum director and author who builds and teaches  community driven museums.

Quality Of Life in Geriatric Care Agencies

Sage Eldercare Solutions a geriatric care management agency is Millbrae , California, developed a brilliant program , called  Hummingbird designed by Nina Herndon a geriatric care manager with a passion for quality of life for seniors.The innovative idea  engages clients through one-on-one activity sessions, carefully planned outings, and individualized Therapeutic Activity Kits that can be used by family members, care providers, and other care team members at any time to engage clients in a range of meaningful and stimulating activities. Sessions might include memory or sensory games, memoir writing, armchair travel, gardening, creating art or crafts, or special outings to a place connected with a client’s past or special interests.

Lifespan a 35 year old  geriatric care agency in Santa Cruz, California recently opened their Well- Being program , another quality of life program that which encourages activities to enhance emotional, physical, intellectual and spiritual quality of life for seniors living in the community. Through a Well-Being Assessment of functional, psychosocial and general quality of life, a professional Lifespan Care Manager will identify areas that may promote the older person’s sense of well-being

If you are a geriatric care manager and  think of adding a quality of life program that can enhance not just quality of care but the joy you give isolated seniors in your community, check out the quality of life  Concierge Companion service included in my Geriatric Care Operations Manual

 

Filed Under: Aging, Aging Life Care, Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, care manager, case manager, Dementia and Spirituality, Emotional Quality of Life, Families, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Quality of Life, Quality of Life for elders, Reminiscence Therapy Tagged With: aging life care manager, aging parent, aging technology, ALCA, assessing for quality of life, care plan, elders emotional quality of life, Formal Supports of an older person, Functional Assessment, geraitric assessment, geriatric care management, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, increasing quality of life, isolation and quality of life, National Assocaition of Geraitric Care Managers, New Old Age, nurse care manager, parent care, psychosocial assessment- social connections, quality of life and geriatric care management, quality of life and technology, quality of life assessment, senior centers, virtual senior centers

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