Geriatric Care Management Blog

About 50% to 70% of Americans will die without a will.  So, you can imagine that the percentage without a “living will” or other type of “advance directive” is even larger.  I attended a program last month in which a local lawyer specializing in elder law, Eric Parker, shared a lot of useful information about the types of advance directives and answered some common questions people have about them. With the holidays coming and everyone getting together, I get a lot of questions as a geriatric care manager about how to help an older adult or someone else with special needs.  The holidays may be a good time to have some discussions about what an older loved one really wants.  In very plain terms, this conversation – while potentially awkward – will help assure that others do not make the critical health care decisions for an older adult.  And, of course, these are discussions we do not have to be “old” to begin to have. ...

Making decisions on behalf of a loved one is not always easy.  Yet the challenge can be eased with information.  The most common questions I get as a geriatric care manager revolve around: 1. What should a caregiver do to address their loved one’s need? 2. How does a caregiver make choices among alternatives to help their loved one?

To help with both of these decisions there are a good many free resources available to everyone.  Your older family member or someone else with special needs may be in Chicago and you may live in Nashville, but you can get good information from all your own nearby healthcare providers, legal advisers, financial consultants, or other experts.  These individuals should be able to direct you to their own national member organizations or associates they personally know in another city.  Local hospital discharge planners can be very helpful, because it is their job to get at least medical help for individuals who are preparing to return to their homes after a hospital stay.  Just remember that their job ends at the hospital door for discharged patients, so they do have limitations.  ...

Independence is as much about the caregiver as it is the older adult or special needs individual who receives the care.   The principal goal of a Geriatric Care Manager is to optimize independence for seniors or others with special needs as safely as possible, for as long as possible and with the maximum quality of life for the whole family.  In an earlier blog on making home a secure and safe place, I briefly discussed some ways to make home safer.  And there is a host of other services available to help keep the house in order, food on the table and mom or dad living well.  You can look to both light and heavy housekeeping, sidewalk and grounds services or meals delivered.  If more personal care is needed, home health or companion care are available.  Yet there is another important need to consider - your own needs as a caregiver.  Being a caregiver to an older adult or someone with special needs can be a significant...

I talked aobut Alzheimer's disease in my last posting.  Maria Shriver, the First Lady of California has experienced Alzheimer’s close up with her father, and she worked closely with the Alzheimer’s Foundation to produce an important report.  With the release of “The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Takes on Alzheimer’s,” there has been a lot of buzz about Alzheimer’s. 

Earlier this month I had a chance to talk about some of the questions I most often get asked as a geriatric care manager.  In Chicago, there is a radio talk show on Chicago senior care and other topics that are relevant to elders.  It is called – appropriately – AgingInfoRadio, and the program airs every Thursday.