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

How Fairy Tale Lives of Aging Rich and Famous Become Elder Abuse Nightmares

June 4, 2016

This week a New York Times article  , on 93-year-old billionaire media mogul, Sumner Redstone ,offered a lesson on how to avoid financial elder abuse .  Redstone may be his own worst enemy, according to the story, setting up a trust that invited ” sweetheart scams” and undue influence, by a cast of  accused younger lovers, his daughter and top aides. 

An elder law attorney interviewed in the piece, warns that this legal threat is growing all over the world as the populations ages. The rich and famous, like Redstone, Harper Lee , 104-year-old heiress Mrs. Astor , and the bizarre centenarian, Hugette Clark, who made her home in a famous New York Hospital for 20 years and then left her fortune to a nurse and the the hospital foundation – all became fodder scandal media. But each was alleged or proven elderly scams that opened up front page law suits involving uber rich entitled and confused elderly. This brings attention to a huge problem that professionals in aging and care managers see on an increasing basis.

 

 

Filed Under: Aging Tagged With: care manager, elder abuse, elder abuse by family members, geraitric care manager, Undue Influence

Long Distance Care Providers- Stop Scammers, Mail Fraud

March 10, 2014

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If you are a long distance care provider- stop scammers, mail fraud and help aging parents from falling into the hole of unpaid bills and turns offs. Go through your loved ones mail.

 

A relative should be sorting through you aging relatives mail. Why? Mail can pile up with older people with limited vision and forgetfulness. If your elderly relative will allow it, check their mail with them.  But if no one is doing this, see if they have been paying the bills on time .As you open each letter keep an eagle eye out for overdue notices or shut off warnings on house bills ,such as electric and water.

 

If your parent will allow you to review bank statements and be on a lookout for large withdraws or other evidence of undue influence. 

 

See if you run into scam offers including mail from charities that are not valid. Even if they are valid, they may be giving excessive amounts of money to these groups when they can’t afford it.

 

The elderly can really also be preyed upon by  scammers –pedaling mail contests, credit card offers, reverse mortgages and even home loan offer as we have seen in the last blistering sub prime scandal 

 

If your parents are failing mentally and you just found serious problems

 

like delinquent bills, or scams, try to get them to agree to have bill auto deducted by their bank on  “bill pay “ . This way the bills won’t be paid late or get ignored in the pile of papers on their desk. Contact each account you add to Bill Pay and explain what you are doing. Change the billing address to yourself or another relative who agrees to take this on.

 

Go to the bank with your parents to get this started.  Then add yourself to your relatives account.

 

 

 

If they have sent the scammers a check, you need to change the bank account number immediately. These scam artists can use the information printed on that check to do all sorts of financial damage.

 

Telephone Actions:

 

Request their phone numbers be entered as unpublished. Put their number on the National Do Not Call list listed at the bottom of this article.

 

If your parents have given scam artists their phone number, you need to go into red alert. Change their phone numbers, make those numbers unpublished, with no forwarding given. If it’s a cell phone, go in and delete the scammers numbers from the call received, calls missed, and calls dialed out.

 

 

 

 

Telemarketing fraud, including fraud  should be reported to the FTC at 1-877-382-4357 or by visiting this site , just click on “Consumer Complain?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Aging Tagged With: elderly unpaid bills, long distance care providers, mail fraud, scammers, Undue Influence

Financial Abuse as an IADL- Scams on Elderly

January 28, 2013

220px-Jo__Fleet_in.jpgPDF-Cover-of-11-10-12My-Geriatric-Care-Management-Agency.jpg

 

Scams on seniors are most often based on emotion, says Doug Shadel, who leads AARP Washington and wrote the AARP book “Outsmarting the Scam Artists.” Con men learn to get a “mark” excited, negatively or positively, then make the mark mad.

The elderly scams of diverse like “phantom riches” that promise to make a lot of money, “everyone is doing it” theme, “time is running out,” Con artists can be like people who use undue influence and use a make-believe kinship with the con: “Do this for me, your friend.” Older people are often lonely and are glad to have a new friend t talk to. They sometimes are confused and give out bank information or credit card numbers when cons approach them as friends.

We have been covering financial management as the Instrumental activity of daily living. Is the older person at risk for scams, undue influence, credit problems, or other financial difficulties because of functional limitations? Does the person show good judgment in regard to finances? Has the person changed lifelong habits in how he or she manages money? What are scams on the elderly?

The National Council on Aging has listed the top 10 scams against the elderly .There are more according to MSE money including Dialing for Dollars and Free lunch seminars.

Since “Ability to Handle Finances “is an IADL assessment, the GCM ot aging professional can help. By reducing their access to the older person, geriatric care managers can protect clients against con artists, door-to-door salesmen, mail and telemarketing schemes purporting to offer the opportunity to “get rich quick.” GCMs can set up systems to screen mail and telephone calls for the vulnerable older adult.  When the situation is extreme, this often means diverting mail to a trusted relative, professional or post office box and only introducing appropriate mail to the elder. GCM’s can engage older people in daily activities and enjoyable social engagements to combat the lonesomeness that often leads to elders seeking out the crooks that offer free lunches, companionship, and other enticements.

GCMs need to be knowledgeable about the symptoms of elder abuse so they can respond proactively and reduce the damage to these victims. Starting with an assessment, which identifies the red flags, a plan of care can be developed, as we do for any other need. Fiscal elder abuse can be avoided by treating the isolation and loneliness that older people often suffer. Unlike in the past, families often live long distance, are pre-occupied with their own work and family commitments and are not there to monitor their older relatives.  GCMs as their surrogates are well positioned to step in to protect older and dependent adults from those who prey on the vulnerability of this population.

Filed Under: Aging Tagged With: adult protective services, aging parent crisis, Benjamin Katz, caregiver burden, caregiver overload, checklist for aging parent problems, elderlaw attorney, Functional Assessment, geraitric assessment, geriatric care management, Geriatric care management operations manual, grandfather, grandmothers, IADL financial abuse, National Assocaition of Geraitric Care Managers, parent care crisis, red flags when visiting an aging parent, Undue Influence

New Years Resolutions To Help Aging Parents

December 26, 2012

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

Here are some suggestions that you might consider as New Years resolutions. It’s not “go on a diet,” but what you should do after the holiday with your parents, when you spotted red flags that made you worry about your aging mom or dad. Here is the entire list of resolutions you might make for a in a January visit to your parents, after the holiday gave you reason to worry about an aging family member:
➢ 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 them, and the ombudsman.
➢ Meet with your elderly relative’s support network.

➢ Meet with a geriatric care manager http://www.caremanager.org/ in the area.

Filed Under: Aging Tagged With: Cognitive Assessment, conservator, elder abuse fiscal assessment, elder financial abuse, forwarding aging parents mail, Functional Assessment, Geriatric Assessment, geriatric care management, Handbook of Geraitric Care Management, holidays with aging parents, National Assocaition of Geraitric Care Managers, ombudsman, parent care crisis, Psychosocial assessment, red flags for a family meeting, Undue Influence, visit to doctor with elderly parents

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