Chicago's Geriatric Care Manager Center of Excellence – Since 1991 | Chicago's Geriatric Care Manager Center of Excellence

GOOD NEWS FOR CHRONIC CARE
Associate Care Manager Gregory is a Certified Senior Advisor (CSA), Certified Dementia Practitioner (CDP), and Medicare Counselor, whose work...
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August 6, 2018
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Long-Term Doesn’t Mean Put It Off Until Later
Gregory Peebles is a Certified Senior Advisor (CSA), Certified Dementia Practitioner (CDP), and trained Medicare Counselor, whose work focuses...
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June 24, 2018
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Medicare Doesn’t Cover WHAT?!
Gregory Peebles is a Certified Senior Advisor (CSA), Certified Dementia Practitioner (CDP) and trained Medicare Counselor, whose work focuses...
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June 18, 2018
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Understanding Medicare as Easy as A, B, D?
Associate Care Manager Gregory Peebles is a Certified Senior Advisor (CSA), Certified Dementia Practitioner (CDP), and trained Medicare Counselor,...
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June 11, 2018
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Do You Sea a Hero in Yourself?
Associate Care Manager Gregory is a Certified Senior Advisor (CSA) and Certified Dementia Practitioner (CDP) whose work focuses on...
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June 4, 2018
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What May Flowers Bring
April showers are supposed to bring May flowers, but what does May bring? It brings Mental Health Awareness Month…among...
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May 28, 2018
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Singing is a Breath of Fresh Air for Caregivers
Associate Care Manager Gregory is a Certified Senior Advisor (CSA) and Certified Dementia Practitioner (CDP) whose work focuses on...
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February 12, 2018
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Five Tips for Winter Because It’s Not Spring Yet
There is a lot of advice that goes around for older loved ones in our orbits when we see...
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January 16, 2018
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Is This Normal?
As we age, our bodies give us feedback we’re not used to. Activities that never required a second thought...
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October 23, 2017
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Insta-Gram: It’s a Date!
Associate Care Manager Gregory Peebles returns with a series on the Internet and aging. Gregory is both a Certified...
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September 23, 2017
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Ask any caregiver to an older loved one, and they most likely will admit that it is a stressful – but rewarding – job. But did you know that caregivers over age 65 are 63% more likely to die than people of the same age who are not caregivers? And for reasons that researchers do not fully understand caregiving is an even bigger mortality threat for women than it is for men. This rather alarming introduction is to underscore how serious it is to care for the caregiver. And there are some steps and some options that can take a lot of the crunch out of caregiving and allow all parties to focus on mutual care. If you are a caregiver to an older loved one with a chronic condition, here are some tips on how to take care of yourself along this journey: 1. Recognize your Depression – The estimate ranges from 40% to 70% of caregivers show signs of depression. It is not just “having a bad day.” Watch for your signs of irritability, heavy drinking and difficulty sleeping. Then, get professional counsel or talk with friends who “get it.” 2. Go Easy on Yourself – There are many aspects of your loved one’s condition that you simply cannot make better. But you can help to make your loved one more comfortable, and you can be there to listen. Just showing up is huge; give yourself credit for all of those efforts you make. 3. Take a Timeout – You must keep places on your calendar for “your time.” For some caregivers, that means a workout, for others just a long walk or a hot bath. To do these, you also need to enlist the help of other friends or family who can substitute for you or you can engage respite services from a local agency. 4. Make Your Health a Priority – Do not skip a doctor’s appointment, do not delay an annual physical or routine diagnostic procedure, and stay current with your medications. Be alert to other physical manifestations of your stress like pains, acid reflux or poor sleep. Get help for you so that you can help your care receiver. 5. Make a Plan – Engage the services of professionals who can help you explore your options. When home is no longer an adequate setting for caring for your loved one, get help to investigate the options that can be brought into home or where the new home is going to be. Remember, hope is not a plan and that there are professionals like care managers who know things you need to know. It is entirely possible to give until it hurts. But that does not really help your care receiver or you as the caregiver. Put yourself in your loved one’s place, and consider what you would expect of a caregiver. And at the end of each day, recognize that you have done all that you can, and that is more than enough. Charlotte Bishop is a Geriatric Care Manager and founder of Creative Care Management, certified professionals who are geriatric advocates, resources, counselors and friends to older adults and their families in metropolitan Chicago. Please email your questions to info@creativecaremanagement.com.
To anyone with a loved one who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease we geriatric care managers work to give them options in the midst of losing their loved one a day at a time as the condition worsens. We get a profound sense of their feeling of loss, because the person they are seeing looks the same on the outside, but there is the continuing erosion on the inside. But what about the patient, the one who has the awful diagnosis? What do they feel? Clinicians tell us that in addition to the confusion, they will feel indifference, lack of interest, lack of enthusiasm, lack of concern, disinterestedness, unresponsiveness, impassivity, dispassion, lethargy, languor, ennui. And that detachment, that apathy, hastens the progression of the neurodegeneration of AD and leads to a lack of self-care and motivation. So, apathy may be a side effect of AD, but it also speeds up the neurodegeneration of the disease. "We have to look more closely at apathy, which is easy to miss because the apathetic patient is not the squeaky wheel," Prasad R. Padala, MD, associate professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of Arkansas, and associate director for clinical programs, Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center, Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System, Little Rock, told Medscape Medical News. Not only that, but there is hope for a treatment that can actually address the apathy and therefore the disease’s progression. It’s called methylphenidate (brand name Ritalin) and has been used for attention deficit disorder. It directly addresses and reduces the apathy, and in research it has been shown to improve cognition in older, community-dwelling male veterans with mild AD, some new research shows. Those in the study also showed improved functional status and fewer signs of depression versus those who were given placebo, or sugar pill. Researchers in the past have tried to treat AD patients’ depression in an effort to motivate patients, but they have had limited success. And there had been some other studies of methylphenidate, but the trials lasted only half or month or month and a half. The new study cited by Dr. Padala was a three month study and utilized a number of cognitive tests to assess changes during that time. Patients who received the agent showed improvement at both the two month and three month mark versus those receiving placebo. "Ritalin [methylphenidate] is used in children with attention- deficit/hyperactivity disorder, so we know it improves attention, but this really caught us by surprise, because it was much more than just attention," said Dr Padala. Scientists are looking to see if the results also can be found when methylphenidate is used with other dementias as well as if it works equally well among women and men. (The research here was just among men.). In this post and throughout the National Alzheimer’s Awareness month we will be offering a $10 discount off the retail price of our caregiver book on Alzheimer’s Disease: “How Do I Know You: A Caregiver’s Lifesaver for Dealing with Dementia.” If you would like $10 off the Amazon price, please follow this link and enter the discount code: ZH3VK3U6. Charlotte Bishop is an Aging Life Care Advisor, Geriatric Care Manager and founder of Creative Care Management, certified professionals who are geriatric advocates, resources, counselors and friends to older adults and their families in metropolitan Chicago.
It isn’t always a surprise or a “bolt out of the blue”. It can be a gradual awareness that “things aren’t quite right” or “something is off” with your older loved one. Trust your instincts. Follow the “little voice” that tells you to act. You may not see the unexpected coming, but you can prepare for the unexpected. You can be ready for the life altering events as your loved ones age and their needs and capabilities change.

A Geriatric Care Manager is educated and certified to deal with these life changes. With or without the help of a GCM, you can help identify a problem in the making and develop a strategy and plan to address it. Crises can and will occur. By taking the steps establish a dialogue with your loved one you will lay the groundwork for the more difficult conversations and decisions that will follow in the future.

My experience with elders and my years as a parent, a daughter, and a daughter-in-law, have helped me to understand that the ways you communicate with your loved one will influence how easy it will be to address life’s challenges. It is essential to be patient, loving and receptive to the range of emotions that may be present. Aging and its related changes can be scary and threatening to everyone. Do your best to listen and identify and prioritize your elder’s major (and minor) concerns. If there is resistance from your loved one or a difference of opinion among family members a Geriatric Care Manager is trained to offer an objective perspective and serve as a resource, counselor and mediator.

I had a client who very recently had a stroke that doctors call a transient ischemic attack (TIA). When I arrived on the scene the look a terror on her face told me that she was entirely dependent on me to make good decisions when she couldn’t even form the words to respond. The listening part I already had done in the meetings before a decision was needed, and the empathy part kicked in. I reassured her that I knew whom we were to notify about the stroke and that her pet at home would be attended. It was therefore our collective job to work with the health care providers to get through this first part of the stroke. No one had expected a stroke, but my client and her caregivers were prepared for the unexpected. And she did recover fully.

The role of “caring family member” has a lot of responsibility. Yet this can be managed with the right planning. You can provide a listening ear and a loving heart as you walk alongside your loved one in their journey. Remember that there are services available to assist you and your loved one.

Charlotte Bishop is a Geriatric Care Manager and founder of Creative Case Management, certified professionals who are geriatric advocates, resources, counselors and friends to older adults and their families throughout metropolitan Chicago. Please email your questions to Charlotte Bishop.,geriatric care manager Chicago,geriatric care Chicago
In my Tuesday posting, I spoke to some of the issues of caregivers about helping their older, single loved ones to find meaningful quality of life. In part, that may translate into helping a loved one to find social and age peers within their communities as their lives and perhaps even the meaning of quality of life may have changed. It also can extend to their desires for maximal independence, developing or preserving meaningful friendships, or even finding personal connections or intimacy. Intimacy? Yes, and you may have thought that your first talk with your parents about sex when you were an adolescent was awkward. Hold on.

As a geriatric care manager, part of the job description is about helping older clients with the challenges of aging, and part of it is about helping caregivers to appreciate their loved one's changing predicament and embrace those changes as well. "Mature intimacy" is one of those dimensions that call for equal portions of each.

If you have an older loved one who is single and wants to have a meaningful relationship, you likely need some guidelines:
1. The first thing you need to do is set aside the old "tapes" that may be in your head, your old beliefs about what intimacy is for you or was for your older loved one. Things are different now.
2. Now, turn that around and appreciate that your older loved one's early experiences will not guide their quest for a meaningful relationship now. The world has changed and age also has intervened. As a caregiver, you can gently help them to feel more comfortable with life's changes.
3. Appreciate that you may be asked about life and intimacy, and if you are not comfortable talking about it with your older loved one, encourage a conversation with the family doctor or a counselor or even sex workshops in some communities.
4. If you do break the silence remember that intimacy is more than intercourse. Just touch - as in holding hands - is something that older adults may long for. Try to set aside arbitrary expectations about what sex is that are based on what sex was. Encourage your older loved one to relax and enjoy the company.
5. Recognize your limits as a caregiver. A lot of parents had their children read books about intimacy before having "the talk." There are books available for mature sexual encounters as well (e.g. "Older, Wiser, Sexually Smarter: 30 Sex Ed Lessons for Adults Only).
6. Safe sex is critical in a time when STIs are potentially everywhere. There is a web site called SaferSex4Seniors. They also are on YouTube.
7. There are professionals who can help your older loved one. Check out the web site for the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists.
Now, that was not so bad was it?

Charlotte Bishop is a Geriatric Care Manager and founder of Creative Care Management, certified professionals who are geriatric advocates, resources, counselors and friends to older adults and their families in metropolitan Chicago. Please email your questions to info@creativecaremanagement.com.
In the meantime, we invite you to download the below featured FREE white paper - offering both personal and professional advice for those who care for the elderly or people with special needs. Make sure to come back and visit us for more great FREE resources.

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