Geriatric Care Management Blog

One to two million Americans 65 years of age and older suffer from some form of physical, financial or mental abuse.  The figures are not precise, because so many cases of abuse go unreported, and abuse can take on many forms from physical injury, to financial exploitation to neglect.  The real tragedy is that most abuse comes from those who are caregivers to an older adult, those who are supposed to be helping – not hurting.

Be vigilant for elder abuse by knowing the most likely victims of abuse:

A large share of abused elders are what we term the “old – old;” they are over the age of eighty, and while they may not be frail, they cannot as readily defend themselves or even seek out help. Abused elders are more likely to be women than men. The victim is most often a person who depends on the abusive individual for basic needs; it is most typically not a stranger. The victim also may be suffering from a mental illness such as some form of dementia that gets in the way of their...

March is Brain Awareness Month. 

It gives us all a reminder to nourish our neurons and soothe our synapses, and this is even more important for older adults.  A person’s brain may have more years of use, but that does not mean there is not a lot within every person’s individual control that can help the brain function at its best at any age. Here are five suggestions for helping your brain or that of an elder in your orbit to be as brain healthy at 80 as at eighteen...okay 48:

What you eat:  A lot of really medical solid research in recent years has shown that “we are what we eat” at every age.  Older adults will benefit from a diet heavily populated with protein, antioxidants-folic acid is a concentrated source, omega-3 fatty acids-in fish, fruits and vegetables and vitamin B.  It is important to stay light on the carbs and trans fats as well. Active is more than sports: We all appreciate that a person who physically works out typically will have a healthier, robust physique.  The same...

If you take a straw poll of any gathering of older adults or their caregivers you are likely to find that what they fear most is not their death, but their loss of their mental faculties.  Yet, about one in every four persons who begins to manifest that cloudy thinking we all fear is some form of dementia may actually have a reversible condition.  And this condition may be brought on by allergy medications or some other prescriptions as well as some over the counter medications. Researchers from the Alzheimer’s Association have reviewed studies from large clinics around the country and report up to 25 percent of people who come to specialists fearing they have dementia really are suffering from bad medicine instead.  Most often the culprit is a family of drugs referred to anticholinergics, drugs that are common to a wide range of medications ranging from anti-depressants and pain killers to antihistamines.  And the cloud that they create in a person’s mind usually is the result of side effects of the medications....

Who becomes a caregiver by accident?  In geriatric care management I often am asked to intervene in a situation where an aging individual has been relying on the favors of friends and neighbors for a time, but they may have progressed to the point that more comprehensive caregiving may be needed.  A case in point is an 85 year old woman I know who has two loving children, but they live some distance from mom.  One is nearly 650 miles away and the other nearly 800 miles away. And both have work and family obligations in their own homes.  This is not the type of situation where the kids can be counted on to pick up some groceries on the way home from work or to help with minor repairs around the apartment on the weekend.  What happened in this particular woman’s case is that she had the good fortune of many friends or neighbors who would step up for that occasional errand or ride to the store but eventually they just could not be everything that the older individual needed.  They had become accidental caregivers....