Cathy Cress

Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management

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New Years Resolutions To Help Aging Parents

December 30, 2021

New Year’s Resolutions List

Adult child worried about aging parents during holidays visit

 

 

 

Do you make New Year’s resolutions? Here are some RESOLUTIONS TO HELP AGING PARENTS.  It’s not “go on a diet,” because you ate some much holiday fare but what you should do after the holiday when you spotted red flags that made you worry about your aging mom or dad. Here is the entire list of New Year’s resolutions to help your aging parents you might make for January as an adult child worried about aging parents after the holiday visit.

Adult child worried about aging parents after holidays visit

 

 

 

 

RESOLUTIONS TO HELP AGING PARENTS

Adult Child Helping Senior aging mom with Finances

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

➢ Accompany the elderly person to the doctor, and talk to the doctor in person.

➢ Gather legal financial and insurance paperwork, and meet with professionals.
➢ Have all mail forwarded to yourself or another relative who will manage it
➢ Contact and meet with old and present friends.
➢ If your older family members are in a facility, make contact with staff that cares for them, and the ombudsman.
➢ Meet with your elderly relative’s support network.                   

➢ Meet with a geriatric care manager who can do all this for you
DO YOU THINK THIS RESOLUTION TO HELP AGING PARENTS IS TOO EXPENSIVE?

Care Manager helping an older person 

TEN REASONS YOU CAN AFFORD A GERIATRIC CARE MANAGER

The Top Ten Reasons Why You Can Afford A Geriatric Care Manager by Phyllis Brostoff

10. We can do in 2 hours what it would take you 2 weeks to do.

9. We know how to get around that “I’m saving for a rainy day” syndrome when your folks are drowning in their problems.

8. We’re much cheaper than the cost of plane fare if you have to fly into town when your parents say “everything is fine” but you know it isn’t.

7. We can give you the scoop on which nursing home is really right for your parents.

6. We can make your parents hear what you have said over and over again, but they refuse to listen to them, you are still a child.

5. We can tell you’re annoying siblings to shut up, but graciously.

4. We’ve helped hundreds of families a lot worse than yours.

3. Your dad can’t push our buttons.

2. Next time you want to hang up on your mother, you can tell her to call us.

1. We’re available 24/7, so you don’t have to be. Just find us here

If you are a care manager check out my latest  free webinar on clinical skills to solve aging family problems post-holidays 

Filed Under: Adult Child Alarm After Holidays, Adult Child Caregiver Pain, Adult Child Pain, Aging, Aging Life Care, Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, Aging Parent Pain, Alarm Bells For Long Distance Family, Alarm Bells from Holiday visit, 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, Families, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric social worker, Holidays, HolidaySeason and COVID, New Year Resolutions, New Years, nurse advocate, nurse care manager Tagged With: aging life care on holidays, aging Mom on holidays, aging parent crisis on holiday, care management holiday, danger signs for holiday visit, geriatric care management, Handbook of Geraitric Care Management, Holiday Meltdown in Aging Family, Holiday Ruined by Aging Parent, holidays with aging parents, New Years, New Years need sor care manager, New Years resolutions for adult children, parent care crisis, Psychosocial assessment, red flags for a family meeting, Undue Influence, visit to doctor with elderly parents

Does The Dysfunctional Aging Family Need Mediation Post The Holidays ?

December 9, 2021

 

 

Does an Aging Family Need Mediation Post Holidays?

Do you need mediation for the dysfunctional family after the holidays? If your clients  ‘holiday visit from their family was miserable and you are care manager to the aging parents, a family meeting between the adult sisters and brothers and a mediatory might be needed this January. This will help you decide if you need a mediator or you can be a facilitator at the family meeting. Care Managers can do facilitation but you need very advanced training to be a mediator.

a. Compatible. Does their family generally present as a unit and lock arms together in a crisis? Do you usually work as a team?

b. Fragmented: Is their family unable to work together as a unit? Do their family members and siblings contact friends and outside professionals with their problems, while failing to confide in each other? Do family members ask other family and other

siblings, friends, and outside professionals to keep conversations secret from certain relatives? Is there a cache of family secrets that some family members do not tell others or share? Do kin pit one another against each other when trouble arises? Instead of locking arms in a crisis, does their family point fingers and blame each other? Does a dysfunctional family need mediation? 

c. Is their family productive or non-productive?

        1. Productive: Are the family members able to respond to the suggestions of friends or professionals and take necessary action to create change in the family?

         2. Nonproductive: Are any family members unable to mobilize when help is really needed? Do any siblings or other kin feel powerless to act? Is “victim” a term you would use for some family members and or siblings? Do family members ignore the ideas of friends or professionals who are trying to transform the sibling/ family dynamics? You need to assess -does the dysfunctional family need mediation?

d. Is their family stable or fragile?

         1.. Stable – When family members have disagreements, do they find a way to solve their problems? Does the family have long-standing relationships and respect the differences in each other?

         2. Fragile: Is there a history of emotional cut-offs or distancing on the part of one or more family members? Is there a pattern of generational divorce, remarriage? Do you need mediation for the dysfunctional family after the holidays?

Each family is different but if this family scores 2 out of three you should investigate bringing in a mediator ed6855aa32d877d7fc1ef9ee757e0f17-98.jpg

Sign Up for My Free January Webinar  

11 Vital Clinical Tools For Desperate Families Post-Holidays

             Thursday, Jan 6, 2022, 02:00 PM Pacific Time (the US and Canada)

 

 

  Give frantic adult children hope when they desperately call after the holiday  

 Join me Post-holiday and learn how to come to clinically rescue concierge dysfunctional families who found coal in their stocking.      

Learn how to!

  • Understand the Dysfunctional Aging Family System you must enter to get care for elders
  • Master 11Vital Clinical Tools you to solve client problems
  • Take Six Clinical Steps Professional Must Take to Work with These Difficult Families
  • Get care for aging family members when the dysfunctional family members resist

 SIGN UP NOW 

 

 

Find out more in the YouTube for My YouTube, Channel  Geriatric Care 1

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Find out more in the YouTube for My YouTube, Channel  Geriatric Care 1

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: aging family crisis, Aging Life Care, Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, Blog, case manager, Dysfunctional aging family, Dysfunctional Family & Holidays, elder care manager, elder mediator, Geriatric Care Management Business, geriatric care manager, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric social worker, mediation, nurse advocate, nurse care manager Tagged With: aging dysfunctional family, aging family, aging life care manager, aging parent care, aging parent crisis, care manager, case manager, dysfunctional family holidays, dysfunctional family roles, elder mediation, elder mediator, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, mediation, mediator, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Psychosocial assessment

Genogram -Tools to Relieve a Family Caregiver-

September 9, 2019

 What should be in your caregiver assessment toolbox?

A tool that you can  tools  use to solve the caregiver and care receiver’s problems you found in your care plan is a genogram.

A geriatric care managers assessment of the family caregiver is critical. Caregivers can and do fall apart. If you already did your caregiver assessment- great.  But the extended family of the care receiver   (client) should be assessed to find their strengths, weaknesses, dangers and real ability to help render caregiving services. This is where a genogram comes in.

A genogram allow you to see family patterns on a single page

Using a tool called a genogram can really show you the view of a family on a chart.Patterns in a family, especially the aging family that geriatric care managers and ALCA members serve, can be seen in a genogram showing you, for example,  the generational cut off that happens over and over or alcoholism, or spousal abuse. You can see the weakness of family ties and where the care managers needed to focus to help the family get care for an older person.

A genogram allow you to see family support

A good genogram can be helpful in assessing the care receiver’s family support network and each relative’s relationship to the older client. Your genogram when paired with a psychosocial assessment, can help you assess whether the older client is living with a helpful spouse or partner, living with a difficult spouse, has relationship with an ex spouse, has cooperative and supportive children or grandchildren, has fighting or alienated children or grandchildren, has warring or alienated stepchildren or adoptive, has several children but only one child who “does it all,”.

In other words you pull up a traffic light, it  is green, yellow or dangerous red.  The genogram also can help tell the GCM whether you have ex spouses or partners who want to participate as caregivers and what their emotional relationship is the care receiver. In other words is there green-lighted support or red saying stop here-when the family caregiver desperately needs your GPS to find that that new road.

Filed Under: Aging, Aging Family, aging family crisis, aging life business, Aging Life Care, Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, caregiver, caregiver assessment, Caregiver Burn Out, case manager, Cut Off, Families, Geriatric Assessment, Geriatric Care Management Business, geriatric social worker, nurse advocate, nurse care manager Tagged With: aging family, aging life care manager, aging parent, aging parent care, aging parent crisis, care manager, caregiver assessment, caregiver burden, family caregiver, family caregiver caregiver burnout, family caregiver stress, family caregivers, family patterns, genogram, Geriatric Assessment, geriatric care management, geriatric care manager, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Psychosocial assessment, PTSD Family Caregivers

How to Assess the Caregiver and Avoid Hospital Readmission

September 6, 2019

 

Assessing the Family Caregiver is a new but crucial concept for geriatric care managers and professionals in aging.As geriatric care managers and aging professional, we are health and social services oriented. For almost 3 decades we have assessed the care receiver for problems with function, social connection, and psychological issues. If we suspect depression we have completed that screen. If our client plans to move, has cultural needs and preferences, exhibits signs of dementia, need ways to improve quality of life or a spiritual connection, we have assessed the care receiver for those problems.

All our assessments have left out the major fact – care is an exchange. To receive care, the patient/client usually needs a family caregiver to give or supervise it. That family caregiver is the glue that holds it all together and his or her inner bond begins to break with the strain of caring.

Other countries have seen what the US has yet to grasp. In the United Kingdom, a seminal law passed in 1995 called the Recognition and Services Act , which provided British caregivers a statutory right to request an assessment at the same time that a frail elder or adult with disabilities is assessed.

So developing a caregiver assessment is critical, especially in this era of penalties to hospitals for readmission. The caregiver is the key to keeping an older person in the community and not back in the hospital. If they are not trained, have physical problems that inhibit caring, find some tasks, like changing adult diapers uncomfortable, have no car to pick up meds or drive to the doctor’s follow up an appointment, you have a problem and probably a readmission.

Learn how to do a caregiver assessment along with a care receiver assessment .This will help you keep your aging client both out of the hospital and potentially out of inappropriate placement in a skilled nursing facility. Plus you will learn just not how to assess caregiver burnout but be able to create a care plan that will help your family caregiver have a better quality of life while they giver better care to their loved one. Read the chapter ” Assessing the Caregiver ” in my book Care Manager’s Working With the Aging Family, Jones and Bartlett. The price has just been cut in half to make it more affordable for the practitioner.

Filed Under: Aging, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, Blog, care manager, caregiver, caregiver assessment, case manager, elder care manager, Families, GCM Start -Up, Geriatric Care Management Business, geriatric care manager, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric social worker, home care, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Private Duty Home Care, Quality of Life Tagged With: aging parent, aging parent care, caregiver assessment, caregiver burnout, caregiver family meeting, caregiver overload, caregiver overload with sisters, caregiving family members, caring for a yourself as a parent, case manager, elder care crisis, geraitric assessment, geriatric care management, geriatric care managers, geritaric care manager, National Association of Geriatric Care Managers, parent care, Psychosocial assessment, red flags for a family meeting, stress and burden

How to Assess the Caregiver and Avoid Hospital Readmission

October 1, 2017

 

Assessing the Family Caregiver is a relatively new but crucial concept for geriatric care managers and professionals in aging.As geriatric care managers and aging professional, we are health and social services oriented. For almost 3 decades we have assessed the care receiver for problems with function, social connection, and psychological issues. If we suspect depression we have completed that screen. If our client plans to move, has cultural needs and preferences, exhibits signs of dementia, need ways to improve quality of life or a spiritual connection, we have assessed the care receiver for those problems.

All our assessments have left out the major fact – care is an exchange. To receive care, the patient/client usually needs a family caregiver to give or supervise it. That family caregiver is the glue that holds it all together and his or her inner bond begins to break with the strain of caring.

Other countries have seen what the US has yet to grasp. In the United Kingdom, a seminal law passed in 1995 called the Recognition and Services Act , which provided British caregivers a statutory right to request an assessment at the same time that a frail elder or adult with disabilities is assessed.

So developing a caregiver assessment is critical, especially in this era of penalties to hospitals for readmission. The caregiver is the key to keeping an older person in the community and not back in the hospital. If they are not trained, have physical problems that inhibit caring, find some tasks, like changing adult diapers uncomfortable, have no car to pick up meds or drive to the doctor’s follow-up an appointment, you have a problem and probably a readmission.

Learn how to do a caregiver assessment along with a care receiver assessment.This will help you keep your aging client both out of the hospital and potentially out of inappropriate placement in a skilled nursing facility. Plus you will learn just not how to assess caregiver burnout but be able to create a care plan that will help your family caregiver have a better quality of life while they giver better care to their loved one. Read the chapter ” Assessing the Caregiver ” in my book Care Manager’s Working With the Aging Family, Jones and Bartlett. The price has just been cut in half to make it more affordable for the practitioner.

 

Filed Under: Aging, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, Blog, care manager, caregiver, caregiver assessment, case manager, elder care manager, Families, GCM Start -Up, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, home care, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Private Duty Home Care, Quality of Life Tagged With: aging parent, aging parent care, caregiver assessment, caregiver burnout, caregiver family meeting, caregiver overload, caregiver overload with sisters, caregiving family members, caring for a yourself as a parent, case manager, elder care crisis, geraitric assessment, geriatric care management, geriatric care managers, geritaric care manager, National Association of Geriatric Care Managers, parent care, Psychosocial assessment, red flags for a family meeting, stress and burden

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