Valentines Day Archives ⋆ Cathy Cress

Make Reminiscence a Valentines Gift for Aging Clients- 5 Ways

February 9, 2023

Make reminiscence Valentine’s gift for clients. A great Valentine’s for your client is you the care manager or a caregiver, using reminiscence to gather a client’s memories.

Reminiscence isn’t new. Before the printing press, storytellers and bards were how history was recorded-

You can watch The History Channel to get a history of the world. But History also exists in a family, and you can make your elder family members oral storytellers on Valentine’s Day.

Storytelling only works if the teller remembers the lines. Family history has to be captured when the older person still remembers. So holiday events are a perfect time to tap into that font before it flickers.

Here are some tips to use if you want to capture these family tales during Valentine’s visits with older clients—a perfect time to do this.

1. First, arrive with a real Valentine’s card Just a card that can evoke old memories

2. Reminiscence is Valentine’s gift when you use empathetic listening Make all the messages you give the older person— tone, how fast you speak, how they are sitting- say, “I want to listen to you.” This in itself is a gift to an older person as few people really listen to them as they age.

3. Reminiscence is Valentine’s gift when you ask questions that prompt the story but don’t make judgments. If there are going to record the family tale, on your I phone, record it in a way that doesn’t distract or stop the older person from talking.

4. Reminiscence is the perfect Valentine’s gift when viewing old family photos as memory prompts.

5. Start somewhere. If the elder isn’t going to tell stories on his or her own, start the story and see if they will follow along.” Did you go to Valentine’s parties as when you were a kid or celebrate the day in school by exchanging valentines?” Did you have a special valentine as a teenager or young adult?”

6. If the client has dementia you can still do this with reminiscence prompts like a valentine, chocolate, some flowers, old photos, or a simple valentine decoration you bring.

7. Or contact the family, if they will visit or call, and teach them how to do reminiscence and do this each holiday they may spend with the older loved one.

8. Use technology tools to help you with this legacy building for your older client like Life Bio- or

Quick Voice Recorder

to catch the memory on your phone.

Story Worth

8 Ways to Make Reminiscence a Valentine’s Gift for Aging Clients Tomorrow

February 13, 2020

Want a perfect Valentines’s gift for aging clients?

You already have it. A great Valentine’s for your older client is you the care manager, caregiver or family member- using reminiscence to gather an elders’ memories.

Reminiscence isn’t new. Before the printing press, storytellers and bards were how history was recorded-

Oral storytellers gave us the Odyssey and other oral tales. History exists in a family, and Ulysses or Penelope might be sitting in their home on Valentines’ Day- in the form of your aging clients.

But storytelling or reminiscence only works if the teller remembers the lines. Family history has to be captured when the older person still remembers. So holiday events are a perfect time to tap into that font before it flickers or dries up.

Capture Reminiscence

Here are some tips to use if you want to capture these family tales during Valentine’s visit with older clients—a perfect time to do this before age or dementia wipe their history.

Give Valentine’s gift each week of the year. Use StoryWorth. My daughter Kali Peterson Murphy, who is also in aging as a Program Officer, with the SCAN Foundation, purchased this as a Holiday gift for my husband and her Dad Pete. I love this as a user and a Geriatric care manager. Each week it prompts Pete to answer a question that my daughter chooses when she purchases StoryWorth. Pete can actually change the questions to be ones he wants to answer. Pete writes the answers and I record them on my iPhone and send them into Story Worth with photos that I have gathered of Pete’s life and stored on Google Photos.( this is an option) At the end of the year, her about to be 79-year-old Dad gets a book with all his stories.

It is a slam dunk for reminiscence. The adult child and or family receive the family history to be passed down, the older family members get to both tell her or his story and know that their family is interested in what they have to share from their past and in the end get a book about their lifeform it a fabulous gift.

Order it from Valentine’s Day tomorrow and you will have a year full of family history, an aging adult who knows you care about listening to them and an incredible gift of a reminiscence book for next Valentines’ Day and the rest of your life that you can pass down.

If you visit Reminiscence Tips

2. First, arrive with a real Valentine card and a small sensory gift like a little chocolate or some fresh red and white flowers. Just the card and the gift evoke memories

3. Use empathetic listening Make all the messages you give the older person— tone, how fast you speak, how they are sitting- say, “I want to listen to you.” This in itself is a gift to an older person as few people really listen to them as they age.

4. Ask questions that prompt the story but don’t make judgments. If there are going to record the family tale, as on your I phone, do it in a way that doesn’t distract or stop the older person from talking.

5. You might ask the client or the family for some family photos of the older person growing up, getting married, and use those as memory prompts.

6. Start somewhere. If the elder isn’t going to tell stories on his or her own, start the story and see if they will follow along.” Did you go to Valentine’s parties when you were a kid or celebrate the day in school by exchanging valentines .” Did you have a special valentine as a teenager or young adult?”

7. If the client has dementia you can still do this with reminiscence prompts like a valentine, chocolate, some flowers or a simple valentine decoration you bring.

8. Use technology tools to help you with this legacy-building for your older client like Life Bio- or

Quick Voice Recorder to catch the memory on your phone.

Follow Cathy Jo Cress’s posts in geriatric care management

Have You Sent A Valentine to Your Mom If She’s Your Financial Safety Net??

February 9, 2019

On Valentine’s Day it is not only grandchildren who should send valentines to Grandma but working mothers who should send heartfelt greetings to greeting. A recent study showed the majority of American households spend more than 10% of their household income on childcare — and a fifth of households more than a quarter of their income So if grandmothers offer free childcare, they are the financial safety net for young grandchildren.

They are often free caregivers for aging spouses, relieving the midlife daughters of that burden but inflicting mental and physical stress on themselves.

In fact AARP shows that approximately 43.5 million caregivers have provided unpaid care to an adult or child in 2013.In the same study, projected at $470 billion in 2013, the value of unpaid caregiving exceeded the value of paid home care and total Medicaid spending in the same year and nearly matched the value of the sales of the world’s largest company, Wal-Mart ($477 billion). [AARP Public Policy Institute. (2015). Valuing the Invaluable: 2015 Update.] Think of what is must be in 2019.

Grandmothers are not only that financial safety net but also an emotional safety net for spouses grandchildren. Younger siblings are happier and healthier when grandmother’s pitch in. Not only sibling get that boost from Grandma being there but Mom’s and Dads are less psychologically stressed if grandmother’s support their family taking over some of the multiple parental chores to raise young siblings.
And as Grandmother’s, AARP tells us what we know- it is sometimes the greatest joy of our lives and increases the quality of life of older people like nothing else can do
Even picking up after school, babysitting or helping in a garage sale make grandmothers a blessing. Making a missing baby book for the second third and fourth kid did who not get one, as parents were overwhelmed, is a huge support for parents and kids.

Grandmother’s help can be a key to making kids president. Both President Obama and President Clinton were raised in part by their grandmothers. Or take former Grandma in Chief, Michele Obama’s Mom, who watched over the Obama daughters as their parents raised healthy siblings while Mom and Dad and traveled the world.

So, working women with grandparent help send your Mom or Dad a card on Valentine’s Day and know we grandparents just adore those cards, handmade if possible, from those special Valentines who have our hearts- our grandchildren.

When they need your help as they age- remember what grandmother’s do for us. For now, send a valentine. Perhaps later look for a great aging life or geriatric care manager

Have You Sent A Valentine to Your Mom If She’s Your Financial Safety Net??

February 11, 2017

On Valentine’s Day it is not only grandchildren who should send valentines to Grandma but working mothers who should send heartfelt greetings to greeting. A recent study showed the majority of American households spend more than 10% of their household income on childcare — and a fifth of households more than a quarter of their income So if grandmothers offer childcare , they are the financial safety net for young grandchildren.

But grandmothers are not only that financial safety net but also an emotional safety net for siblings as kids. Younger siblings are happier and healthier when grandmother’s pitch in. Not only sibling get that boost from Grandma being there but Mom’s and Dads are less psychologically stressed if grandmother’s support their family taking over some of the multiple parental chores to raise young siblings.
And as Grandmother’s, AARP tells us what we know- it is sometimes the greatest joy of our lives and increases the quality of life of older people like nothing else can do
Even picking up after school, babysitting or helping in a garage sale make grandmothers a blessing. Making a missing baby book for the second third and fourth kid did who not get one, as parents were overwhelmed, is a huge support for parents and kids.

When they need your help as they age- remember what grandmother’s do for us. For now send a valentine.Perhaps later look for a great aging life or geriatric care manager

CARE MANAGERS’S- LOVE YOURSELF ON VALENTINES DAY WITH THE PERFECT GIFT

February 6, 2017

Happy Valentines Day!

Give Yourself a Great Valentines Gift.
If you are an aging life care manager or geriatric care manager, nurse care manager or in the eldercare field, give yourself a perfect Valentine gift and learn market care management through benefits, not features. Sign up for my free webinar

Learn to Sell Benefits not Features to Third Parties to Grow Your Care Management Bottom Line

Identifying the key benefits of your services help shape sales of your care management business. Generally, aging life care management businesses benefit the client by assisting in choosing arrangements, including best living choices, in what can be thought of as “frailty to the grave” care

Contracting for professional aging life care management services benefits the older person, his or her family and third parties like elderlaw attorneys, physicians, or conservators who work with the client to solve problems. Frailty is usually unplanned and often occurs when family members do not have the time to learn all they need to know about care and aging issues or are in denial.

It’s important for a third party or the family to understand that there are good options for care in your community, that some choices are better than others, that each person has individual needs, and that there are resources available to meet their needs.

You line up the sale with a family or 3rd party – a care manager is the best professional navigator to find those perfect resources to meet the client’s needs.

You then close with the benefits you bring to the family or third party that are better, more professional and richer than any other care management agency in your area.

You also want to explain to third parties how you benefit them. For an attorney, no more dysfunctional family issues, because you are an expert in the dysfunctional family intervention and will work with the family to help keep them stable while the attorney handles the legal problems they are trained to solve.

In this free webinar gift to yourself you will:

Learn

The problems you solve for 3rd parties so they will refer to you.

What is a benefit vs features and how to find benefits for each 3rd party you market to?

What specific problems you solve for wealth managers, elder law attorneys, and concierge physicians

What specific problems to solve for upscale Assisted Living, accountants, financial planners, MD’s

Step by Step how to set up meetings with 3rd parties to make the sale

•Sign -Up –

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Have You Sent A Valentine to Your Mom If She’s Your Financial Safety Net??

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