Geriatric Care Management Blog

It’s about community.  I was just reminded of a very important aspect of senior residential options that can get overlooked in conversations between caregivers and the elders with whom they discuss their residential options.  As a geriatric care manager, I often am asked to facilitate the discussion that a family will have with mom or dad or other loved one as they consider moving out of what can be their lifelong home. 

Let’s start with the stuff we always address.  Surveys among older adults usually tell us there are three important touchstones for seniors making these decisions:

Safety – Older adults can become a bit fearful about going out at night or live in fear of break-ins and more.  Senior residential options offer a very safe alternative, often with security personnel and gated grounds.

Helping Hands – Seniors have had a lifetime of cleaning up the house, mowing the lawn, and more.  Senior residential communities can give them the independence...

Caregiving in this century is not just handholding; it combines the latest technologies with caring to allow virtually anyone to be virtually anywhere they are needed.  As a geriatric care manager I often am in the role of the “person who knows resources” that caregivers and their loved ones can rely upon. 

A new study produced by a partnership between the National Alliance for Caregiving and United Healthcare offers results of a nation-wide online survey of caregivers who are leveraging their caregiving with web-based and mobile technologies.  The survey was based on the responses of 1000 Caregivers at least 18 years of age, who provided at least five hours of unpaid care to an adult relative or friend and had already used some form of technology to assist them in their caregiving.  To see the full report, please go to The e-Connected Family Caregiver: Bringing Caregiving into the 12st Century.   ...

February is American Heart Month.  Despite the fact that we hear a lot of news about cancer, cardiovascular disease is the number one killer in America today, accounting for just a bit over one-third of all deaths in the most recent reporting year.  To raise awareness and encourage better “heart health” each year since 1963 the American Heart Association along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes for Health and some other government agencies compile the latest statistics on heart disease and stroke. Cardiovascular disease is important to me as a geriatric care manager (GCM), because it disproportionately targets older adults.  In 2007 – the most current year for which we have data – 251.2 of every 100,000 Americans died of cardiovascular...

Dr. Oliver Sacks explains neuroplasticity in his editorial, “This Year, Change Your Mind,” in the New Year’s Day editorial page of the New York Times.  As a geriatric care manager, I have encountered clients whose injuries have induced deficits of some sort from which recovery plans are designed and executed.  Physical injuries such as lost limbs, vision, hearing or others have fairly clear rehabilitation trajectories, and the injured individual can learn and work through them to recover as much of a productive life as possible. Neurological injuries like those Dr. Sacks offers as examples require remolding an organ that we do not see from injuries that also may be invisible.  As Dr. Sacks explains, neuroplasticity offers the means by which the brain can remold itself to overcome a deficit.  For a geriatric care manager, the deficits do not have to be as dramatic as a spinal cord injury, the onset of blindness or even a stroke.  We see every day the consequences of older adults’ inactivity and the cumulative deficits that can grow out of the under stimulated life.  The brain does lose some of its pathways through natural attrition, and it is critical for a vibrant life for the aging individual to keep working in order to maintain the pathways they already have as well as to create new ones as some of those may become unavailable.  A colleague likens it to commuting in the brain.  There may be detours and rerouting, but an active individual will always find a route home.

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As a geriatric care manager, I have the chance to work with all manner of caregivers and the elders or others with special needs for whom they care.  Sometimes a caregiver becomes significantly more than the person who may help a loved one with shopping, cleaning or other personal needs.  There are occasions when that individual becomes sufficiently frail or mentally compromised that they need the support and control of a guardian.

I recently spoke with an attorney, Gordon Gault, who specializes in trusts, wills and probate among other legal areas.  We talked about what a guardianship means and when it is appropriate as well as how it comes about.  Gordon first explained that a guardian is substantially different from just a caregiver in that a guardian must be appointed by a circuit court judge.  That appointed guardian is then able to act on behalf of the individual who is either under the age of 18 or is deemed disabled in some other way. ...

It is the season where we hear about “making a list…and checking it twice.”  My kids think I get a little too carried away making lists, but having the right list at the right time can save the day when the unexpected occurs.  Life has a habit of throwing the unexpected at us, but even then we can be prepared.  As a geriatric care manager, I regularly coach families of an older loved one or someone with special needs in list-making, especially if that loved one lives alone.   You may recall in an earlier blog, I started with a list of activities of daily living to use as a way to inventory the functional capacity of a loved one.  Once we see the deficits it becomes easier to develop an action plan. But think ahead to the phone call you may one day receive that your loved one has fallen or had a stroke or some other debilitating incident.  The first responders or a neighbor may know enough to call you, but now you have to be the voice for the incapacitated loved one.  Do you know their meds and daily doses?  Do you know where they keep their medications?  Do you know who their primary care physician is or if they have a cardiologist, neurologist, or other health care provider who should be called?...