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

Can’t See Aging Mom Easter, Passover-7 Ways to Make Her Feel U Are There

April 12, 2022

Can’t see Aging Mom on Easter or Passover

Can’t See Your Mom on Easter or Passover – Long Distance?

Can’t See your Mom on Passover or Easter as you are a long-distance care provider, what’s the best way to keep in touch with the long-distance elder if you can’t visit on coming  Passover or Easter.

Easy Low-Touch Non-Tech Ideas

photo of father and boy coloring Easter egg together as Can’t see Aging Mom on Easter or Passover

Use low touch—the old-fashioned communication elders grew up – the Post Office and telephone. If you can’t see Mom or Easter or Passover, send a card with a photo of your kids dying easter eggs. Older people came from a generation where cards and mail were really meaningful. It is easy and really touches elders who love opening the little personal mail they get, especially from family. These heritage links are a great way to support a far away elder. Non-tech, they cause no stress on their part. Even we boomers who walk haltingly through the tech world of 40 characters forget that connecting with a stamp or a call is so familiar to an older person. Plus you give that feeling of warmth they always got when they  “ opened” “ or “ answered” saw a real photo -something real (not virtual); Try having the whole family send a card even kids. A flooded mailbox on Easter or Passover fills their heart.

Let Mom or Dad Smell The Affection. Send Passover Easter in a box

Can’t see Mom or Dad on Passover or Easter but Dad or Mom, are not religious, mail holiday care packages —bake or buy cookies or small loaves of bread. Bake it with your children and send samples along with actual photos of everyone baking in the kitchen or buying treats.  Even if they crumble a bit, elders will smell the affection.

Easy Option -Holiday in a Box

Can’t see Mom on Passover or Easter, send a “ holiday in a box. Easter and Passover are coming up. Send a basket of kids’ drawings, candy, nuts, home-baked or purchased Easter Bread or cookies or Matzah that reflects the holiday celebration plus a gift certificate for an Easter brunch or dinner with a friend.  Give Mom joy in a simple package. For an extra special surprise, arrange an invitation to a Passover or Easter dinner with a friend or through your parents’ synagogue or church

Passover in a Box

For those adult children who are time-deprived, and can’t see Mom over the holidays, order Passover in a box on Amazon if you have little time and want to send something special. The same goes with Easter in a box with delicious Easter cookies.

A Little Help From Aging Parents Friends

Can’t see Aging Mom on Easter or Passover

Skip that holiday in a box, if you can’t see Mom on Passover or Easter you can create a circle of care . Get the app  Lots of Helping Hands through neighbors, friends, people in your elder’s place of worship, or a group they belong to. Then you can ask if they can arrange to include your older relative or friend in the Easter brunch, egg hunt or Passover meal. You will then have an entire support team your elder with a whole circle of support in the future and not feel so alone.

 

Make Aging Tech for Holiday Gift

Send Passover Easter in a box

Send a high-tech gift, if you can’t see Mom or Dad over Easter or Passover. Send a high-tech device that your loved one can really use and figure out. I just ordered the Esky Wireless Locator because I keep misplacing my glasses.

How Care Managers Help Get to Long Distance CarProviders

Care Managers can do lots of things for a family member who is long-distance and can’t see Mom on Easter or Passover. Julie Menack in her chapter “Long Distance Care Providers” in my book Care Managers Working With the Aging Family lists tasks long-distance care providers can do to make their own lives and their long-distance loved ones saner, sounder, and happier

Find a Care Manager Through Aging Life

Marketing Phrases for Concierge Care Clients

 

If you want to investigate an Aging Life geriatric care manager in your parent’s own town find a professional who can help you do all this so you can remain a son or daughter and a less stressed caregiver.

Do You Know The Best Phrases To Attract VIP Care Management Clients?

Filed Under: Aging Parent Pain, ALCA business, ALCA Concierge, Easter, Easter gifts Mom, Edder Lonliness, Elder Lanliness, Grandchild gifts for grandma, Holiday Rituals in Aging Family, Holiday Rush Technology, Holiday season, isolation, Loneliness, Long Distance Care, Long Distance Care technology, Long distance caregiver, long distance caregiver burnout, Long distance family impostion, Long Distance Gift Easter, Long distance gift Passover, Long Distance Safety Travel COVID, Long Distance travel Holidays, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Passover, Passover Gift Tagged With: aging family, aging life care manager, aging life or geriatric care manager, case manager, Easter, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, Gifts for Easter 0r Passover, Holidays Crisis in aging family, holidays with aging parents, long distance caregiver, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Passover, Reminiscence on the Holidays

What Do Long Distance Care Families Need for Parent’s Sheltering in Place 4 COVID ?

August 15, 2020

 

 Long-Distance Care Providers need a safety net for themselves.

Adult Children who live at a distance from older family members need someone to cover the tasks to help their loved ones when needed.  During COVID -19 when all elders should shelter in place because they are the most vulnerable to the novel, deadly virus long-distance care providers really need help.

COVID -19 means it is best for people over 65 to have little contact with others. But not all the supplies can be ordered online. In fact with the Post office delivery slowing down, everyone who lives long distance, may wait a long time for delivery of needed items for COVID safety, especially if they live in a rural area,. These family caregivers may need someone to actually shop and pick meds at the last minute when needed food or meds do not arrive by mail. Having another person to accompany the elder on walks with a mask and safe distancing or a drive breaks up the tedium that can arise from the loneliness and isolation of sheltering in place.

 

Safety Net for Double Disasters

If there is an emergency on top of the pandemic- Long-distance care providers need someone to respond as they live far away. During this summer with double disasters like wildfires now in Colorado, hurricanes blowing up the east coast they need an emergency plan on top of the COVID threat. A surrogate must be ready to help the older loved one right away and get them out of harm’s way fast and check if it is even safe to go to a shelter.  What they need is an emergency safety net.

Call a Care Manager

If family at a distance does not have a friend or neighbor who can do this, they should consider the perfect emergency and daily safety net in a geriatric care manager. The Aging Life Care Association has an online search tool to find a professional by ZIP code. It also includes a list of questions to ask when you look to hire someone.

GCM can Provide & Supervise Caregivers’s For Covid Related Tasks

If the family caregivers chooses, the care manager will arrange for well screened aide, practicing covid saftey,  to do all the shopping, take the elder out in the neighborhood for a walk or a car ride, prepare

meals, engage in social connections, and do all the cleaning and disinfecting need daily with  the coronavirus threat . The GCM will visit aging parents on a regular basis to check on the health status of the elder in general and in relationship to Covid-19 exposure plus confer with their care providers along with texts calling and email them for supervision. Most of all they will regularly confer with with the family caregiver to get keep them up to date.

Find Help Now

The Long Distance care provider can have care providers from the care management agency care do all of these tasks, depending upon other back-up and care level of your older loved one. A care manager themselves, will directly monitor your loved one’s health, respond in emergencies like hospital admission, accompany them to a doctor and manage the care management care providers when you are not there and directly report to you. To find care managers go to the Aging Life Care Association 

Successfully Market Your GCM COVID 19 Service

 

If you are a geriatric care manager or Aging Professional learn to market and sign up new clients for your Aging COVID-19 coaching services for, both long distance and local- adult

children, based on science step and sound public health policies, using telehealth. Help family care providers faced with a pandemic, support an aging loved one through a COVID Hospitalization, and recovering at home.

 

Be able to sell care management COVID services that fill the gap  created by the federal government, state, county, cities and CDC ‘s mixed messaging  

created, leaving family caregivers confused frustrated, with no clear path to safety from the raging pandemic,

 

Gain new customers and help aging families stay safe from COVID using care management’s most potent tool – navigation- through the potholed path they have right

 

now.

 

You will learn

  • How to create an e-newsletter with the right copy, to get out the word about your COVID 19 services

 

  • How to use social media to alert aging family caregivers to the clear path your GCM agency provides to safety from the accelerating virus in the US

 

  • Be able to set up a Zoom webinar to teach local aging agencies and caregivers about your COVID coaching services and other local resources to assist caregivers in the community

 

  • Get local media coverage of your COVID -19 Coaching Services with radio and TV coverage plus pick local newspapers where adds may pay off to sell your COVID Products

 

  • How to generate word of mouth customers for your COVID -19 service using your continuum of care in your community

Sign Up

Filed Under: Aging, aging family crisis, aging life care manager, Blog, coronavirus, Coronavirus emergency plan, Coronavirus safety elders, CORONAVIRUS Stay at Home Plan, Covid 19, COVID-19 & Care Management, COVID-19 &Shelter in Place Plan, Covid-19 and GCM SERVICES, GCM COVID 19 Crisis, GCM Disaster Plan, GCM emergency procedures, Geriatric Care Manager, Geriatric Care Managers value, geriatric social worker, Loneliness, Long Distance Care & COVID-19, Long distance caregiver, Long Term Care Coverage, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Pandemic Tagged With: covid -19 geriatric care manager, covid & hurricanes, covid & wildfires, covid disaster emergency plan, covid safety net, COVID-19 prevention, COVID-19&LONG DISTANCE CARE, hiring geriatric care manager, long distance caregiver, long distance families, long-distance surrogate

Long Distance Care Provider-Go to Elder’s Next Dr’s Visit

March 5, 2014

Chris--pop-87-.JPG

 

 

If you are a long distance care provider – be a patient advocate- take your relative to his or her physician and go in the examining room with them.

 

Before your trip to your elderly relative:

 

ØCall to make an appointment with your elderly relative’s physician on a date during your visit.

 

ØIn the call

 

ØAsk to talk to his her RN, and get a good understanding of the doctor’s practice, so you can ask the best questions.  Is she an internist, general practionioner, or geriatrician?

 

ØIf you have concerns, like increased confusion, a fall that you think important to discuss, tell the RN and send them to the office, via fax or e-mail, prior to the appointment.  Ask if she/he can show to the doctor.

 

ØGive yourself your important job title–. You are a main caregiver and have a vital interest in this visit. If you are the power of attorney for health care make sure the RN knows that. Ask about a HIPAA Release of Information Form, and make sure one is on file at the doctor’s office so that you can talk about private information about the older person with the doctor.

 

Before the doctor’s visit

 

ØTalk to the older person and ask what they’d like to discuss to with the doctor.

 

ØMake list of all the questions you or your elderly relative wants to ask and symptoms that worry you both. Physicians like short precise information. Remember that physician’s appointments are brief – like 10 minutes make the questions concise and short. Take these with you and either can I pad, I phone or pen and paper.

 

During the doctors visit

 

Be a patient advocate. Go in to the examining room to see the doctor with your elderly relative. Be friendly and communicate and with a smile. This simple sign can get you a long way. Cover your questions and concerns quickly and concisely. Listen to her/his answers and order and jot them down. If the doctor does not it bring up, ask if there are any medication changes and record these as well. Note any additional tests the doctor orders to be sure your parent follows up.

 

After the doctor’s visit

 

ØGo to the pharmacy and pick up any new medication

 

    Ask the pharmacist  They know more than the physician about drugs  about all new and old meds: purpose, directions, dose, potential problems. You can do this at any large pharmacy. Just ask to talk to a pharmacist.

 

ØIf you have hired a geriatric care manager  they will do this for you and report back the results after the visit.

 

Filed Under: Aging Tagged With: Elder Doctor appointment, elder patient advocate, geriatric care manager, long distance caregiver

GCM Tools for the Aging Family

May 22, 2013

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

 

Geriatric Care Managers (GCM’s) solve the problems of older people and aging families with tools of geriatric assessment and care plans. They unravel the changing needs of older clients and their family and private and family caregivers by regularly monitoring and assessing their needs.

GCMs have what I call a “ Whole Family” approach. With the “Whole Family” tool, the GCM serves the older client but also organizes the aging family and midlife siblings to work as a team to support the older person. Now that the family is no longer Ozzie and Harriet and  has morphed into the extended family ( Modern Family)- this is vital. Stepsibling adult children can cut off other siblings or step parents and fracture the potential  to field a family team This takes viewing the family system  with an assessment labeled a family genogram, which can measure who is relating to whom and who is cut off from whom.  GCM’s then help reorganize the aging family to support them to share the care for the older person.

This support to the family by the GCM is especially given to the designated family caregiver, as they provide direct care to the older client and may make decisions about care. GCM’s also may also oftem provide support  a long distance care provider .Giving direct hands on care  or long distance care can spiral into caregiver stress and burnout. A GCM will use a caregiver assessment tool to measure caregiver strain, which often spins an aging family into chaos.

 

 

Filed Under: Aging Tagged With: aging family, aging parent, aging parent care, aging parent crisis, assessing the caregiver, Care Managers Working with the Aging Family, care monitoring, care plan, care plan interventions, care planning, caregiver burden, caregiver burnout, caregiver overwhelm, caregiver stress, caregiving family members, case manager, geraitric assessment, geraitric care manager, geriatric care management, informal caregiver, informal supports of an older person, LCSW, long distance care provider, long distance caregiver, Marriage and Family Therapist, My Geriatric Care Management Operations Manual, National Association of Geriatric Care Managers, National Association of Geriatric Care Managers Conference, whole family approach in aging

New York Times -Robots in Future of Aging ?

May 20, 2013

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

 

 

Robot and Frank was one my favorite 2012 aging films. Frank, a master burglar is presented a robot by his overwrought, burnt out adult son. Frank has early dementia. He hates the robot but trains him to increase his quality of life, which is returning to his career- grand theft. This New York Times article has a different story about robots – but a similar vein. They meet a need. There are less adult children and caregivers to care for the elderly and more and more older adults – and thus – the niche market for robots .

Filed Under: Aging Tagged With: ADLs, aging adults living together, aging family, Aging In Place, aging parent, aging parent care, aging parent crisis, aging technology, assessing for quality of life, caregiver stress, Frank Langella, geriatric care managers, long distance caregiver, Marriage and Family Therapist, National Association of Geriatric Care Managers, New York Times, parent care, Quality of Life, rejected care plan, Robot and Frank, robots, robots and aging, technology for caregivers, telehealth

  • 1
  • 2
  • 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