Be Wonder Woman- A Geriatric Care Manager- After The Holidays

January 2, 2020

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Make a New Years resolution to be Wonder Woman

for long-distance families in 2020. If you are a geriatric care manager or Aging Life Care Manager, use this in your marketing copy.

Some of the things a geriatric care manager can do for you are:

1. Save you money by helping keep your parent out of the hospital and you off emergency long-distance flights.

2.Facilitate a family discussion of needs, resources, and division of labor among friends family

3. Recommend ways to proactively prepare and plan for a parent’s possible health care crisis.

4. Work on family cooperation to formulate a realistic parent-care plan.

5.Assess the strengths and weaknesses of all of the potential caregivers

6. Help adult siblings resolve conflicts about care decisions.

7. Help siblings act together in the best interest of the parent

8.Decrease the tension between hometown and long distance siblings

9. Help the long-distance care provider deal with guilt and frustration that may result from their inability to provide more of the day-to-day care.

10.Locate aging resources ( both no -cost through the older Americans Act) in your aging parent’s area quickly and without you having to do it

Offer long-distance caregivers a complimentary consultation.

Tell them it’s a preventative and prudent idea to have a geriatric care manager in the town where your older relative resides. If there is a crisis, it is cheaper to have them solve it. In an urgent situation, the GCM can go to the hospital or emergency room. Explain this is saner and more cost-effective than you getting on last-minute, expensive flights. They can still fly in but the ALCA or geriatric Care manager can immediately be there to deal with the crisis. You are good insurance.

Before any crisis, you do an initial assessment and visit your older relative periodically (once a month, once every two months).This is preventative. That way you are there for the long-distance care providers when they need you as have all the information to solve the problem. Tell them to Think of you as one of those blow-up beds. You can pump them up in a crisis—perhaps avoid that crisis, and the long-distance adult child can sleep more soundly and with more peace of mind in your own bed.

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Red Flags for Long Distance Siblings Inquiring About Services Before the Summer Visit.

July 9, 2019

Checklist Midlife Siblings Holiday Visit to Aging Parents

Do you have adult children inquiring about your services before the they make a summer visit to grandparents ? Here is a Check List of 10 red flags for danger to share with long distance midlife siblings for their mid- summer visit to aging parents? A midlife sibling summer or visit to elderly parents to can be bitter or sweet or it can be just plain scary. Ask them to call you when they return and you can set up a meeting with all the siblings to discuss care.

The frightening part often happens when you haven’t seen an aging Mom or Dad for a while. If midlife siblings live long distance, making an occasional visit can set off alarms, especially if they find aging Mom or Dad has gone downhill . Then a geriatric or aging life care manager is just the perfect answer. Let them figure this out with your geriatric care manager Sherlock Holmes guidance and clues to find your value.

Curb Appeal – Does your Dad’s home look more like an unmaintained rental? Is there disrepair, a weedy yard, uncleaned carpets or furniture?
Housekeeping – Are there dirty dishes, unwashed sheets, a mess where things used to be tidy? Does the house look like it needs a scrubbing, or at least someone to help with cleaning?
Medication – Can you find a stash of outdated medication in the bathroom, bedroom or anywhere? ➢ Driving – Is driving with your older Dad frightening? Ask him to drive you somewhere. How is his reaction time, or judgment? Can he drive at night? Does he have traffic tickets? Assess the car. Is it worse for wear, dented or are there telltale signs of accidents?
Trash- Are there bags of trash in the basement or out back? Look in closets.

Collections- Are there growing collections that appear to be out of control, of newspapers, magazines, old sports memorabilia, ashtrays – any accumulation that appears to be taking over space and looks excessive. This is a sign of hoarding
Shopping- Take him out shopping or out to a meal to celebrate the day. When he does shopping or pays for a meal, does he have problems with checks, credit cards, figuring tips, or calculating discounts? Does he forget his wallet or other important personal items he should have with him?
Change in Behavior- Is Dad quiet when he used to be loud? Is he paranoid, having mood swings, unsocial when he used to be the belle of the ball or life of the party?
Odors- Did you smell urine? Must? Mildew? Dirty clothes or dishes?
Refrigerator- Are there science experiments, aka moldy food in the refrigerator?
Unpaid Bills- are there piles of unpaid bills in drawers or in your loved one’s desk. Are their notices or gas or electric turn offs? Search their desk and perhaps, in you have access, look at their bill pay account.

If any of these clues turn up trouble, you should set up meeting vis phone or in person to talk your midlife siblings about the problems discovered and set up a family meeting via Skype, in person or a family conference call.

For More professionals can Read Care Manager’s Working With Nearly Normal Families- Working With Long Distance Care Providers in

Handbook of Geriatric Care Management 4^th edition

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

Call Wonder Woman- A Geriatric Care Manager- After The Holidays

January 2, 2017

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Make a New Years resolution to hire Wonder woman before your next visit to your long distance family member. Call an a geriatric care manager in their area. Do it before you your visit again. Make an appointment to go to their office and meet with them. Most GCM’s will see you to discuss their services at no charge. You can shop around and interview a few if you wish. Geriatric care managers can be located on the Aging Life Care Association web site Use your long distance family’s parent’s zip code.
It’s a preventative and prudent idea to have a geriatric care manager in the town where your older relative resides. If there is a crisis, it is cheaper to have them solve it. In an urgent situation , they can go to the hospital or emergency room,. This is more sane and cost effective than you getting on last-minute, expensive flights. You can still go but they can immediately be there to deal with the crisis. They are good insurance.

Before any crisis, you can have the GCM do an initial assessment and visit your older relative periodically (once a month, once every two months).This is preventative. That way they are there for you when you need them and have all the information to solve the problem. Think of them the way you do one of those blow-up beds. You can pump them up when you need them in a crisis—perhaps avoid that crisis, and you yourself can sleep more soundly and with more peace of mind in your own bed. Some of the things a geriatric care manager can do for you are:

1.Save you money by helping keep your parent out of the hospital and you off emergency long distance flights.

2.Facilitate a family discussion of needs, resources, and division of labor among friends family

3. Recommend ways to proactively prepare and plan for a parent’s possible health care crisis.

4.Work on family cooperation to formulate realistic parent-care plan.

5.Assess strengths and weaknesses of all of the potential caregivers

6. Help adult siblings resolve conflicts about care decisions.

7.Help siblings act together in the best interest of the parent

8.Decrease the tension between hometown and long distance siblings

9. Help the long-distance care provider deal with guilt and frustration that may result from their inability to provide more of the day-to-day care.

10.Locate aging resources ( both no -cost trough the older Americans Act) in your aging parents area quickly and without you having to do it

If you are a professional who wants to be Wonder Woman Check out this book.

Handbook of Geriatric Care Management, Fourth Edition

What Happens to The Holiday When The Aging High Priestess Can’t Make the Brisket?

December 12, 2016

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As we approach Hanukkah and Christmas holiday celebrations we can see where even the nearly normal family faces frustration and anger with a dependent older parent.

Families often visit their parents on the holiday and see them in action repeating a ritual they have overseen for years. But what happens when the high priestess cannot offer up the feast?

We will use the brisket and the Gingerbread house to illustrate this point. If an elderly Mom was always a devoted parent, in her role as the head of family rituals (as most mothers are), she probably always made the Crème de la crème of the Hanukkah ritual- the Brisket.

But what if in her aging decline can’t make that brisket anymore? Someone has to take over not just making the latkes or gingerbread house but be the new head of the family ritual, which is so much more than just a gingerbread house. It could be making a menu, dividing dishes to bring, all the parts of the family holiday that someone has to spearhead.

When Mom is dependent adult children can be resentful and even angry. Mom always took care of Christmas and us. Now one of us needs to take over this ritual and all rituals plus take care of her.This is called filial maturity. Most of us never reach it. The parent that nurtured the family now not only need nurturing herself but the family must reorganize and get a new chef for the brisket, baker of the gingerbread house and on a meta level – shift the roles that the parents filled to themselves. This can be gut wrenching. To the nearly normal family and make them angry, aggrieved. Why? It is a whole shift of balance in the family and change is difficult for all systems.

To find out more read Dr. Anne Rosenthal’s chapter on the Nearly Normal Aging Family in Handbook of Geriatric Care Management, 4^th edition

Be Wonder Woman- A Geriatric Care Manager- After The Holidays

Make a New Years resolution to be Wonder Woman

Some of the things a geriatric care manager can do for you are:

9. Help the long-distance care provider deal with guilt and frustration that may result from their inability to provide more of the day-to-day care.

Offer long-distance caregivers a complimentary consultation.

Learn care management marketing so you can:

Call Wonder Woman- A Geriatric Care Manager- After The Holidays

What Happens to The Holiday When The Aging High Priestess Can’t Make the Brisket?

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