Cathy Cress

Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management

Areas to Cover in Whole Family Approach -Religious and Cultural Issues

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Religious and Cultural Issues – Expectations based on religious and/or cultural practices, rituals, and differing belief systems between family members all need to be considered in the “ Whole Family Approach “

Are the expectations of the adult children and the parents consistent? Oftentimes, conflicts will emerge due to differing life experiences. As intermarriage becomes more common, the attitudes within the family towards religious and cultural differences have created new challenges, particularly among the different generations.

In our You Tube series on whole family  tools cultural issues are key because this Danish born aging mother brings a cultural tradition of the “ “dutiful daughter” with her. This is a long tradition in her homeland where a daughter is chosen to care for the mother until she dies.

This conflicts with the American “here and now” because her 2013 daughter is an attorney with two teenage daughters who cannot exclusively care for her aging mother.

The geriatric care manager http://www.caremanager.org/ is able to assess these cultural differences using the Whole Family approach and find a solution that meet mother and daughter’s needs and get the care the aging mother needs at the same time

 

Six Areas to Cover in a Whole Family Assessment

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Using the whole family approach with an aging family means doing a psychosocial assessment. In this approach you are generally focusing on two or more people in the family- your elderly client and their primary caretaker (whether doing hands on care or managing the caregiving). What are the  areas you must probe in this psychosocial assessment of a whole family ?

•Past trauma– family history

 

•Sandwich Generation issues

 

•Religious and cultural issues

 

•End of life issues

 

•Quality of Life issues –

 

•Relationship to money

 

 

Dread Memorial Day with Midlife Sibings?

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Are you dreading the Memorial Day family barbeque?  . Will your estranged brother be manning the barbeque while you drink too much beer?

Are you a midlife sibling at war with sister or brother? Worse than that, do you feel like you and all your siblings are in not only a dysfunctional family but also an aging dysfunctional family?

What’s an aging dysfunctional family? Well they are very much like a war zone. Clans remain at war with each other, like the 1980’s Serbian conflict or the Iraq war pitting the Sunni’s against the Shia.These tribal battles have gone on for centuries and have the same bloody roots of the dysfunctional family -repeated from one generation to the next.

The hallmarks of the dysfunctional aging family, are after decades as a motley clan there is still not enough love in the family. The now midlife children have to fight for what little nurturance their older parents can bring to the ancient rickety nest they built.

Nurturing is often missing in the dysfunctional aging family because the aging parents themselves probably got little nurturing themselves as kids and on and on back down the family line. Parental neglect and abuse are frequent in the history of the aging dysfunctional family.

The now older parents can suffer from serious mental health problems such as schizophrenia or are bi-polar. Health and addiction problems like alcoholism are frequent.  Family interaction and communication, -parental treatment of siblings, brother and sister treatment of each other stepparent interaction and interface of everyone in the family has wrought deep tissue damage that never healed.

These aging dysfunctional families generally negotiated all of life’s developmental phases with great difficulty. The role in the family, especially the parental one, was murky with a poor, abusive or mentally unfit leader of the family. The rules in the family were unfair ambiguous or full of double binds. There is deep-seated ambivalence. Finally the last life transition in the aging family, the care of the declining parent, implodes the family, which had little balance to begin with. They are asked to care for parents who did not care for them, thus reeking havoc on an already disorganized aging family.

So good luck at the Memorial Day family gathering and perhaps consider hiring a geriatric care manager if you sibling war is affecting not only rituals like family gatherings but also the care of your aging parents. The GCM can help you end the constant hangovers and /or acid reflux.

 

Boredom is Older People- How Do You Get Rid of It?

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Fighting boredom is important for seniors. Interest, joy, engagement and enthusiasm- enhance everyone’s quality of life. But many older people are bored, joyless, and disconnected. Often seniors spend hours and hours alone, are not surrounded by family plus their chronic care needs prevent them from getting out easily. How does a geriatric care manager or aging professional enhance an older person’s joy and connection?

What can help you return that joy and wipe out boredom?

It’s discovering what an elder loved to do in the past and now -can do again – with your help. Examples are bringing nature back into their life, even with chronic illness, arranging ways that they might access spiritual comfort, playing bridge even when they have a hard time ambulating, telling their stories- life history- or- just imagine- (if that gives them joy) going out and eating a Big Mac once a week.

Help fill an older person’s life with greater joy and engagement by getting them active and banishing boredom through  – a quality of life assessment. It will allow you to find the joy and create a care plan to infuse it back in an older person’s life.

Long Distance Care Provider Help on Mother’s Day

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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.

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