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

Lessons Learned are Lessons to be Shared
The classic profile of an older person speaking to a younger person sometimes misses the point. Yes, grandkids love...
Read more
June 18, 2024
0
0
I Miss the Scams That Used to Be Easier to Spot
It was probably ten years ago that my husband’s mother was caught up in a telephone scam on her...
Read more
September 26, 2023
0
1
Lessons from Margaritaville
Jimmy Buffet has left a multi-faceted legacy…his distinctive musical style and lyrics, his upbeat and his laid back lifestyle...
Read more
September 12, 2023
0
0
The High Cost of Wellness
Once in a while “yesterday’s news” is also tomorrow’s news. Earlier this year you probably heard or read that...
Read more
August 15, 2023
0
0
It’s About You
This is personal! Yes, it’s about you! I’d be willing to wager, however, that most of you haven’t thought...
Read more
April 18, 2023
0
1
Follow Your Gut…You’ve Got No Choice
It was back in the sixties and seventies that so many folks embraced the mantra: “You are what you...
Read more
April 11, 2023
0
0
Another Side to the Story
It was just a year ago that Bruce Willis’ family disclosed that the actor would be retiring from acting...
Read more
February 27, 2023
0
0
How to Say ‘NO’ to Dementia
It was about two and a half months ago that we posted about the diagnostics telling Chris Hemsworth he...
Read more
February 14, 2023
0
0
A Defensive Game Plan for Dementia Outbursts
It’s not just about forgetting or being confused. If you have a loved one with dementia, it is also...
Read more
January 31, 2023
0
0
Saying “No” May be the Right Answer
Saying “yes” when someone asks you to do something can be like eating candy. It feels right or good...
Read more
November 15, 2022
0
0

In the Caregiver's Words

Recent Client Praise

Full Name:*
[text* your-name]
Phone Number:
[text your-phone-number]
Email:*
[email* your-email]
Your Question:
[text custom_fields.question]
Type the Characters Shown:*

[captchar captcha-220 class:contact-input]
[captchac captcha-220 class:contact-image size:m]

[submit class:ccm-send-btn1 "Get In Touch"]

Personally committed to you and your loved one's well being.

1 Chicago's Geriatric Care Manager Center of Excellence - Since 1991 "[your-subject]" Chicago's Geriatric Care Manager Center of Excellence - Since 1991 isouvit@gmail.com Name : [your-name] Email : [your-email] Phone Number : [your-phone-number] Question : [custom_fields.question] -- This email was sent via the contact form on the Creative Case Management website, http://www.CreativeCaseManagement.com. Reply-To: [your-email] 1 Chicago's Geriatric Care Manager Center of Excellence - Since 1991 "[your-subject]" Chicago's Geriatric Care Manager Center of Excellence - Since 1991 [your-email] Message Body: [your-message] -- This e-mail was sent from a contact form on Chicago's Geriatric Care Manager Center of Excellence - Since 1991 (http://creativecaremanagement.com) Reply-To: info@creativecaremanagement.com Thank you for your message. It has been sent. There was an error trying to send your message. Please try again later. One or more fields have an error. Please check and try again. There was an error trying to send your message. Please try again later. You must accept the terms and conditions before sending your message. The field is required. The field is too long. The field is too short. The date format is incorrect. The date is before the earliest one allowed. The date is after the latest one allowed. There was an unknown error uploading the file. You are not allowed to upload files of this type. The file is too big. There was an error uploading the file. The number format is invalid. The number is smaller than the minimum allowed. The number is larger than the maximum allowed. The answer to the quiz is incorrect. Your entered code is incorrect. The e-mail address entered is invalid. The URL is invalid. The telephone number is invalid.
Chicago Assisted Living Experts
Assisted living residences are housing facilities meant specifically for those with a need for daily supervision and/or assistance. Making a decision to move your elder loved one to assisted living is not easy and comes with so many questions. Is it the right choice? What type of paperwork is involved? Which assisted living facility is best, given our particular situation? Creative Care Management helps you find answers to all these and many other questions about your elder loved one’s care. Our elder care service specialists begin by conducting a thorough assessment of your loved one’s condition physically, mentally and socially. Then, considering every aspect of your needs from level of care necessary to budget concerns, we put together a geriatric care plan and then help find your loved one an appropriate community of the highest quality. We grade our facilities based on three factors below and only recommend the top assisted living care providers.

Responsiveness

Quality of service

Facility and staff qualifications

Contact us today and learn for yourself what makes Creative Care Management, the top-rated Chicago geriatric care management company. We will work together to improve the life of your loved one by finding them the expert care they deserve.
Life in Assisted Living
Assisted living communities are staffed with professional caregivers and healthcare providers, that monitor and assist residents with their personal health needs including assistance with medication management and daily routine as needed. An active, social life is encouraged among residents, and planned activities are often provided by staff members, but residents are not fully independent like those living in a retirement community, nor are they under the 24 hour supervision that nursing homes provide.
Get a FREE Consultation with a Certified Care Manager
CALL: 855-455-5118 x512 or just fill out the form.

Full Name:*

Phone Number:

Email:*

Your Question:

Type the Characters Shown:*

To use CAPTCHA, you need Really Simple CAPTCHA plugin installed.

Personally committed to you and your loved one's well being.

Recent Client Praise

Caregivers tend to be very dedicated to caring for others, typically an older parent or disabled member of the family, but they often do not do so well in caring for themselves. It is not that caregivers do not need at least a bit of help themselves, but it can be a very conflicted issue for a caregiver to ask for help. It may stir up guilt about not caring for mom or dad or inadequacy at not being able to do it all. And it is not that caregivers are alone. They have other siblings, they have friends or neighbors, and they also have respite care available to help. Respite care is not just one type of service, it is a whole continuum of in home care services as well as out-of-home services available in most communities. For at home care, respite care can provide a needed break for the caregiver who needs to also work a day job, run their own personal or household errands or simply have some time to recharge. Family, friends or other volunteers can be crucial in giving this time to the caregiver as well as providing stimulation, conversation or some fresh energy to care for the receiver of care. Personal care or skilled care providers also can assist with the "heavy lifting" like activities of daily living (ADLs) such as bathing, dressing, toileting and more. Area residential care facilities can provide an even wider range of support where caregivers can drop mom or dad for short breaks, overnight care, or short intervals to cover vacation time. For more comprehensive needs of those who need help with ADLs, there are facilities in most communities for adult day care that may be a full 9 to 5 or 7 to 7 to help with caregivers who also have work responsibilities. If you are looking to recruit an individual who will be coming to assist in senior care for mom or dad in the home, be sure to ask for references. Also be clear about services you expect, make certain of compensation (and no prepayments), and even consider a background check so that everyone has peace of mind. If you are going though an agency, go through the same process as well as ask about bonding and other assurances you and your loved one will be secure. If you will be looking to a facility with its own personnel, you should ask about:

their hiring criteria,

skill levels, certifications, training of personnel,

how hands on caregivers are supervised,

how emergencies are handled and who the providers are,

any other services (e.g., meals, transportation, entertainment, etc.), and

payment terms.

And you may ask to spend an afternoon or a day at the facility to observe how well they deliver on their promises. Don't be afraid to ask questions of caregivers in order to really assess if the people in place are engaged in the service they provide. People who like what they do will do a better job than those who just have a job. 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 in metropolitan Chicago. Please email your questions to ccbishop@creativecasemanagement.com. Read more about Our Story and Charlotte's mission.
If you’re like me, you have been following too much news on the pandemic, but hopefully you also have been following the good news of the new vaccines being released. Yet, national polls show that more than 40% of Americans claim they will not take a vaccine when it becomes available, evidently a carryover of years of false science from anti-vaxxers and maybe a present mistrust of government. So, how effective can a vaccine be if only about 60% of Americans will accept the cure? Well, scientists say that until we can vaccinate 70% to 90% of the population (and this can be combined with those who have had COVID-19 and recovered), we won’t have herd immunity. Let me start with my title of this week’s post and remind everyone that the vaccine only works if you take it. Second, let me give you the breakdown on how these rather unique vaccines will work. But first, please allow me to take an historical detour to the first scientifically-proven vaccine and Dr. Edward Jenner, considered by many to be the father of modern immunology. This is also where the drawing here originates. Edward Jenner lived in the late 18^th century when smallpox was a viral killer. There had long been rumors in Jenner’s time that milk maids contracted something called cowpox from their occupation, but that they were subsequently immune to the feared smallpox. Long story short, Dr. Jenner proved that to be the case, and cowpox vaccination as a prophylaxis against smallpox ultimately became the standard of care. Flash forward to here and now, and we have some new vaccines that make use of the messenger RNA which facilitates the replication of COVID-19, but is not the virus itself. Scientists can wrap each piece of mRNA into a nano particle of lipid (natural fat) and inject it into a patient. The lipid melts away, and the patient’s immune system sniffs out some alien messengers (the mRNA) which triggers the body’s alarm system to its immune system. Immune system rallies and attacks all cells with that mRNA code and sends more of its responding troops to their ready position throughout the body. If anything tied to COVID-19 sets foot in the human territory the responding cells are ready and in force. Boom. Immunity. This should be one of those films we used to get in school about why we are supposed to wash our hands during flu season. Or some of you can recall polio vaccines and how polio has been nearly eradicated through the ongoing work of Rotary International and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s efforts. Rotary has this disease down to only Afghanistan and Pakistan, and sadly efforts have been sidetracked by the current viral plague called COVID-19. Yet, the volunteers with Rotary and allied organizations have been so relentless that we have very nearly eradicated polio in the world. You have to believe in something during this unprecedented time; choose to believe in the science. 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. She also is the co-author of How Do I Know You? A Caregiver’s Lifesaver for Dealing with Dementia.

As a geriatric care manager, I often find clients who are on the right medications, but they are overwhelmed by the numbers and schedules of their meds. Older adults consume an average of four or five prescription medications a day along with two more over the counter (OTC) drugs.

While adults over the age of 65 represent only about 13% of the U.S. population, they consume about 30% of the prescriptions written in America today. I wrote about this last November, and talked about the potential for drug-drug interactions and the unique challenges to the health of an older person’s slower metabolism and lower hydration. I also discussed how one of the important tasks for a caregiver is to ask for a pharmacist or geriatric care manager to do a “medication audit” to be assured that the older patient is not at risk for adverse drug events or interactions.

What I did not devote much space to in that earlier blog is how multiple medications very simply present a real challenge to an older patient to keep all those prescription dosing regimens straight. This often results in noncompliance – or failure to take prescribed medicines – of one sort or another. Health professionals tell me that the reasons for noncompliance usually come down to:

Forgetting – Elderly patients can lose track of all their prescriptions and schedules; it may be cognitive dysfunction or just being overwhelmed.

Labeling – Labels may be clear to doctors, but older patients on numerous meds may not track dosing times a day or with or without food and more.

Cost – Rather than admit that they choose between food and medications, some older patients may consciously avoid some doses or split pills.

For patients who forget doses, there are pill organizers that can be set up for a week – or even a month – at a time. The caregiver can step in to organize the medications along with clear instructions on when they are to be taken. There is a whole host of pill organizers, some with alarms. Google “pill organizer” and see.

There is a lot of variance in labeling of pills. In a recent survey of 464 adults aged 55 to 74 years old published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, the patients averaged dosing six times a day for the average of 7 drugs they were taking. While most drugs could be dosed four times a day at most, patients did not understand their labels sufficiently to consolidate their doses. There is regulatory movement on rules to standardize and simply prescriptions with universal medication schedules. You can help an elder by organizing their meds; the fewer times a patient takes medicine (not necessarily the fewer pills), the better their compliance.

Cost is an issue many elders may not bring up out of embarrassment. Caregivers, however, can work on behalf of their elder to ask for generic equivalents to branded medications. Where only branded medications are indicated, question the physicians’ office about manufacturers’ patient assistance programs, especially for patients without prescription drug coverage. Check the manufacturer’s web site for programs to help defray the full retail cost. You may also find much better prices on-line or through mail order houses when the prescription is filled for 90-day doses instead of 30 days.

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.

Copyright ©2011

Full Name:*
[text* fullname 75/ id:Full_Name]
Phone Number:
[text phones 75/ id:Phone_Number]
Email:*
[email* emailc 75/ id:Email]
Your Question:
[text question 75/ id:question]
Type the Characters Shown:*

[captchar captcha-220 class:contact-input]
[captchac captcha-220 class:contact-image size:m]

[submit class:ccm-send-btn1 "Get In Touch"]

Personally committed to you and your loved one's well being.

New contact form submission received from CreativeCareManagement.com [fullname] <[emailc]> From: [fullname] <[emailc]> Phone: [phones] Message Body: [question] -- This email was sent via the contact form on the Creative Case Management website, http://www.CreativeCaseManagement.com. info@creativecasemanagement.com, ccm.eachost8@ecommercearchitects.com, <[emailc]> Your message was sent successfully. Thanks. Failed to send your message. Please try later or contact the administrator by another method. Validation errors occurred. Please confirm the fields and submit it again. Failed to send your message. Please try later or contact the administrator by another method. Please accept the terms to proceed. Email address seems invalid. Please fill the required field. Failed to upload file. This file type is not allowed. This file is too large. Failed to upload file. Error occurred. Your entered code is incorrect. Your answer is not correct. Date format seems invalid. This date is too early. This date is too late. Number format seems invalid. This number is too small. This number is too large. URL seems invalid. Telephone number seems invalid. on_sent_ok: "location.replace('/thank-you-for-contacting-us-wp1/');"
If you’re like me, you may have had moments when you’ve looked at the latest clinical information on the health benefits of dark chocolate, and your first response is, “But I don’t like dark chocolate.” What’s a milk chocolate lover to do when dark chocolate gets all the good press, and it seems the only benefit you get from milk chocolate is that it tastes…well…really great! Good news, milk chocolate lovers, new research is pointing to overall health benefits for milk chocolate that include it’s ability to fend off dementia and more. Disclaimer here, when we extend the benefits to milk chocolate, it’s about “minimally-processed milk and powdered varieties” of chocolate. So, read the labels, but be prepared for five health benefits:

As with dark chocolate, our milk chocolate intake is part of an overall healthy diet that can reduce the risk of heart disease. Research has shown that adults who even eat a bit less than an ounce of chocolate daily are less likely than those eating no chocolate to develop heart disease. Researchers haven’t pinpointed what the mechanism of action is, but the outcome is real.

The antioxidants in chocolate help to defend your blood vessels against plaque buildup by reducing low density lipids – the bad cholesterol. Dark chocolate has an advantage with its greater concentration of stearic and oleic acids, but the less-processed milk chocolate also confers an advantage.

Especially if you have high blood pressure or a family history of hypertension, chocolate helps blood vessels to dilate without damaging the vessels, because of the flavonoids all chocolates possess. Improved blood flow means lower blood pressure.

Research from Harvard Medical School has found that this blood flow improvement is important to the areas of the brain associated with higher cognition. In other words, chocolate improves mental acuity and memory, but …the good news…you need to consume chocolate daily to optimize the effects.

Scientists at the University of Copenhagen found that people consuming chocolate, particularly dark chocolate, had reduced cravings for non-healthy salty or sweet or fatty foods. Who would have thought that chocolate helps promote a healthy diet overall.

Five benefits (and yes, dark chocolate does have an edge over milk chocolate) are a pretty good return on your dietary investment. And you can’t overindulge and expect positive results, but a bit of chocolate-induced happiness has more benefits than just a happy palate. Charlotte Bishop is an Aging Life Care Advisor, Geriatric Care Manager and founder of, certified professionals who are geriatric advocates, resources, counselors and friends to older adults and their families in metropolitan Chicago. She also is the co-author of How Do I Know You? A Caregiver’s Lifesaver for Dealing with Dementia.

Full Name:*
[text* fullname 75/ id:Full_Name]
Phone Number:
[text phones 75/ id:Phone_Number]
Email:*
[email* emailc 75/ id:Email]
Your Question:
[text question 75/ id:question]
Type the Characters Shown:*

[captchar captcha-220 class:contact-input]
[captchac captcha-220 class:contact-image size:m]

[submit class:ccm-send-btn1 "Get In Touch"]

Personally committed to you and your loved one's well being.

1 New contact form submission received from CreativeCareManagement.com - Caregiver Counsel on Taking the Old Out of Aging [fullname] <[emailc]> info@creativecasemanagement.com, lynda@llvirtual.com From: [fullname] <[emailc]> Phone: [phones] Message Body: [question] -- This email was sent via the contact form on the Creative Case Management website, http://www.CreativeCaseManagement.com. Your message was sent successfully. Thanks. Failed to send your message. Please try later or contact the administrator by another method. Validation errors occurred. Please confirm the fields and submit it again. Failed to send your message. Please try later or contact the administrator by another method. Please accept the terms to proceed. Please fill the required field. The field is too long. The field is too short. Date format seems invalid. This date is too early. This date is too late. Failed to upload file. This file type is not allowed. This file is too large. Failed to upload file. Error occurred. Number format seems invalid. This number is too small. This number is too large. Your answer is not correct. Your entered code is incorrect. Email address seems invalid. URL seems invalid. Telephone number seems invalid.

See all Testimonials »
Proudly serving the greater Chicago Metropolitan area SINCE 1991! Learn More >>
One of the most common health issues that seniors deal with is depression. According to the National Institutes of Mental Health, the prevalence of depression among the elderly is 1 to 5 percent overall. Yet, it is not a “normal” part of aging; the incidence of depression increases to 11.5% of the hospitalized elderly and 13.5% of older individuals receiving home care. As a caregiver, I get calls from caregivers and clients who are dealing with not just sadness, but real depression. While some of these older adults will respond to anti-depressants, it is perhaps even more important to address what may really be just situational depression. As a geriatric care manager, I am not a diagnostician and I cannot prescribe medications, but I can prescribe some changes in activities that can help the situational sadness that a lot of seniors may experience.

Seniors – along with the rest of us - have bad days and good days, and some of the bad day part can begin to accumulate like mud on our shoes. All of us can get caught up in the bad days and what has happened that was bad, and we subsequently miss also seeing the good that typically is part of every day. There is a new movement in psychology that some people are calling “gratitude journaling” or “three good things,” and it can work as well for elders as it does for the rest of us. It goes like this. Have your elder keep a journal. Every night before going to bed, they should be instructed to write down at least three good things that happened that day. It may have been as easy as someone said something special when they said goodbye, or it was nice walking the dog, or anything that was just uplifting…a thank you or a courtesy. You might try this yourself first, and see how you feel after a week of writing down the “three good things.” It makes it easier to convince someone else to try something if you already have seen it work, but even if it leaves you neutral, it can still work for the elder in your care.

The experts on this “happiness psychology” tell us that it also can be as simple as exercising regularly, or it may be the experience of gratitude from someone. Because the sources of happiness probably are different for everyone, the experts suggest trying a number of different things to see what clicks. One expert suggests that as much as 40% of our personal happiness is under our personal control. Another 50% is genetic, and only about 10%, they suggest, is about our life circumstances. It is not about good looks or loads of money, and there are a lot of philosophical sayings about that.

A lot of good science speaks to the fact that if we do something, it begins to reform our attitudes. So encourage the elder in your care to write down the three good things each day. It may not only be soothing, but it may excite them to get up tomorrow to see what good is in store. So, it becomes not about what has happened that has been good; it is about setting the stage for what will be even better tomorrow.

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
A small percentage of us may be coping with symptoms of COVID-19 or we know someone who is, but all of us are coping with “sheltering in place.” While we all at some points in our live may have wanted “some time to ourselves,” this is not what we had in mind. It is a bit ironic that a professional who spent nearly a year without gravity has some very concrete tips for the very weighty notion of surviving isolation. Retired Astronaut Scott Kelly spent nearly a year in the International Space Station, and his experience in a job that you truly cannot just walk away from offers some great advice.
1. Schedule Yourself - Mr. Kelly talks about how his day was entirely time-blocked by his employer, NASA. You may not have a boss telling you what to do, but you need to keep regular bedtime and waking hours, have meals on schedule and set aside time for leisure and time for work and working out.
2. Keep Pace – You are not going to clean your entire home top to bottom the first day in isolation. You are not going to become a top flight runner the very first week, and you are not going to catch up on all those movies you have wanted to see. Build a calendar that includes explicit work and reward times.
3. Get Out – You will be surprised that even on some of our cold days the birds feel and singing Spring. What has amazed me is what I call COVID Cordiality; 95% of the people I see who are walking their dogs or just themselves make eye contact and greet you…maybe even ask about your well-being and you reciprocate.
4. Hobby Time – Do something just for you. Maybe it is reading a designated number of minutes each day or learning a new language or starting seedlings in your well-lit kitchen window. This is “you time,” and you will find something that is special to you to fill it.
5. Journal It – Astronauts are required to keep track of all manner of things so that their environment continues to sustain them. You may start a daily diary of thoughts and experiences that are part of your story. And given that this is a truly momentous event unfolding, you will be writing history.
6. Connect Time – My husband and I had “dinner” with friends earlier this last week, and we had Happy Hour Sunday afternoon with all of our adult children and their partners who wished to attend…and they all said they would like to do it again next Sunday-go figure. All thanks to ZOOM-the picture here is a screen shot.
7. Experts Count – People who understand this disease are worth hearing. They will tell us how long to wait before surfaces can be touched after someone else has been there. They will tell us what the arc of this epidemic is shaping up to be, and we should and should not do to get through this.
8. Self Care – The bottom line for all that we do with families caring for an older loved one also apply to our current pandemic. Take good care of yourself if you are a caregiver to someone. It is the only way that your care receiver will be safe and the only way that you will be safe.
Take care of yourselves...be kind to yourselves. We will all look back on this someday soon, and I believe we will be impressed with how much real humanity emerged in a time of potential crisis. 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. She also is the co-author of How Do I Know You? A Caregiver’s Lifesaver for Dealing with Dementia.
It ended with almost uncontrollable laughing. That’s how one of our team describes his conversation with his mother about making her funeral plans one day not long ago. Yes, you heard that right…they talked about her memorial service and had a great laugh together. My take on that is that once the incredible stress around a topic that no one wants to talk about is addressed, the relief is almost giddy. We laughed too when he relayed the part about Googling funeral hymns and singing along with his mom the ones she particularly liked. Trust me; this is not a unique story, and it is only one of the “difficult conversations” families can have. According to AARP, 70 percent of Americans say they feel that it is important to have an end of life conversation with their family members, but only 30 percent have had that conversation. The younger generation in the family may not hear the conversations that older adults have among themselves about death and dying, and parents may not want to “burden” their adult children with talk of end of life. But that will not change the fact that death is a universal event for all of us. If you are that adult child who would like to help your parent with the conversation, there are some ways to “break the ice” in order to have a productive conversation. First, you don’t have to start with end of life questions; you can start with some of the more mundane issues about health or medical issues. Every professional painter will tell you that there is a whole lot of prep work before they even put the brush to the paint. Start with mentioning perhaps a friend whose parent had a medical episode, and the adult children were not even aware that their parent had a problem with their (fill in the blank…heart, lungs, etc.). So those same children could not even supply their parent’s physician’s name or the medications they were taking or any of the other details that the paramedics or emergency room personnel had asked. Or you may even point out that your significant other has all the details on your medical health “just in case.” Would your parent also wish to have you in the know about their health…just in case? And there may be certain circumstances…
- Mom, if your medical professional makes any kind of new diagnosis, do you want to know every detail, treatment options, prognosis, or just the big picture stuff?
- Dad, if the doctors have treatment options for a condition, do you want to know all the details, or just what your doctor recommends?
And there are some issues that can be clearly laid out in documents for the medical record. Called POLST in Illinois (Practitioner Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment), it is considered a legal document that becomes part of a patient’s permanent record which states what kind of measures they wish to have applied in emergency situations. It is more than a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) order; it covers the extent to which medical professionals should work to sustain them in an emergency. The Illinois site for this legal document also has suggestions for how to have the conversation. Obviously, the conversation can get into details like the one I started this post with, but it may not be the first conversation. We as Geriatric Care Managers also get the call to help families cover these kinds of issues, and we have made this into a form called the Life Span Care Plan(SM). 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. She also is the co-author of How Do I Know You? A Caregiver’s Lifesaver for Dealing with Dementia.
As you gathered with loved ones over the holidays, you may have realized it’s time to start discussing how to pass on personal possessions—our “stuff.” From photo albums and china to jewelry and tools, it all needs to find a new home at some point in our lives.

Whether you’re the “giver” of the items or a potential “receiver,” Melissa Warden, owner of Room-by-Room Downsizing, recommends using these six proven strategies from “Who Gets Grandma's Yellow Pie Plate?™”
1. Recognize the sensitivity of issue. There are a variety of reasons why people don’t plan ahead for passing on personal belongings; many think it’s simply an economic and legal issue. However, decades of family dynamics and memories can complicate the issue.
2. Determine a goal. For example, protecting family relationships is a goal that’s high on the list for many families. Or maybe your goal is to preserve privacy. You’ll use your goal to help you make decisions through the process.
3. Decide what's “fair” in your family. When divvying up personal property, fairness issues emerge in both the outcomes (who gets what) and the process (what methods are used to distribute items). Sort out what fair means to your family by talking about the topic now.
4. Understand belongings have different meanings to different people. Avoid assumptions as to who wants want, especially based on gender and birth order. Again, givers and receivers are encouraged to talk with loved ones, share stories, and pass on family traditions.
5. Consider distribution options and consequences. There are more options available the sooner you start having conversations about the topic. If no plans are in place or wishes known, state laws will apply.
6. Agree to manage conflicts if they arise. They’re your things. Conflict is more likely when adult children and others are left to work things out on their own. They’re still your kids, regardless of their ages. If you think there will be conflict without your presence, then do all the allocation in advance or assign a third party to arbitrate later.
There is no magic formula for passing down personal possessions, but employing these six strategies can help your family have a more positive experience.

Melissa is a Certified Senior Advisor and a member of the National Association of Senior Move Managers. She’s a facilitator of the “Who Gets Grandma’s Yellow Pie Plate?” workshop, which she can host for your family over Zoom. For a free 15-minute phone consultation to learn more, contact her at 847-809-1369 or through her website.

And check out the free resources on Who Gets Grandma's Yellow Pie Plate? | UMN Extension.