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

COVID’s Other Deadly Toll
During this pandemic, over 13,000 more Alzheimer’s and other dementia patients have died than expected from these cognitive disorders,...
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September 22, 2020
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Just the Facts – About COVID Today
For a pandemic and quarantine that has lasted about 18 weeks, it is safe to say that most of...
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July 14, 2020
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Negative Thinking Causes What?
What could be worse than a COVID pandemic? How about the uptick in depression and anxiety that mental health...
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July 7, 2020
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Dementia: We’re Not Post-COVID Yet
If you have a family member or loved one with dementia, this pandemic and its restrictions have been exponentially...
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May 26, 2020
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Distance Caregiving Through a Wall
I’ve written numerous times about distance caregiving, and one of the observations I have offered is that distance is...
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May 19, 2020
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Caregiving During COVID: Four Tips for Reengagement
You may recall that I have recommended limiting your news consumption, because it really does add to our stressed...
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May 12, 2020
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In the Caregiver's Words

Recent Client Praise

At CCM, home and safety are as important to us as to you, so it’s no surprise that it’s a frequent topic in our discussions. I have asked Gregory Peebles to talk about home safety from the vantage point of his experience. Gregory is both a Certified Senior Advisor (CSA) and Certified Dementia Practitioner (CDP) whose work focuses on helping older adults and those who are less independent by providing resources and support to help them live their best life. An Associate Care Manager, Gregory has been a part of our team for over a decade. – Charlotte Home. Not only is there no place like it, conveniently located wherever you hang your hat, but it also fits--like an old, comfortable shoe. One of the things that makes “home” high on our list of favorite places is that home is where things work the way we expect them to work. Reach for it, and whatever it is will be their at your fingertips. We don’t have to think! (or so we (don’t) think…). We just do. But comfort can be a slippery slope, and it can get us into all kinds of unplanned trouble. As our older loved ones age, inconveniences in the home can turn into safety hazards. As we watch our parents age, we begin to feel deeply our own mortality and—if we’re not careful—to slip into a pattern of denial, the manifestation of which is the attempt to keep life as it exists in our memories perhaps longer than is advised, all to maintain comfort and status quo. Ironically, this attempt to maintain status quo may end up as a major catalyst to change in our lives unless we bring some consciousness to our scenario. So we need to look around, and I mean Really Look – not with the eyes we had when we were children in the house, or the eyes we had while we were rearing children, because those eyes both literally and figuratively no longer exist. What do we see? Here’s what I see most when I’m asked for advice: Stairs
- Steep stairs are not only difficult to manage for less-abled bodies, but they are a huge fall risk.
- Depending on where the family is in its journey, hand rails may be enough, but a stair lift may be necessary.
Cords
- The serpent of the salon, these may be “hiding in plain sight” ready to cause a fall.
- Make sure all floor surfaces are clear in trafficked areas, and, if carpeted, no holes worn through.
Mats
- Scatter rugs become “shatter rugs” if not well-secured to the floor.
- Use adhesives to secure in place, or get rid of any unnecessary rugs.
Washroom
- Water, rugs, and ceramic or steel surfaces all in one place make this the most accident-prone room in the house.
- Make sure it’s well-lit and that the shower has grip bars for balance, or even a chair for stability.
Kitchen
- Timers for appliances are a godsend in this room; auto-off coffee makers and the like will relieve fire anxiety.
- When cabinets are too high to reach, or too low, they may stretch an older adult’s limits. Make sure everything important is in easy reach.
If you’re all set from this list, but still unsure, call us! We’ll be glad to come out and give a look to ease your mind, or to begin the next conversation. In the next blog post, we’ll give you CCM’s best practices for when a change of address for a loved one may be imminent. 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.
But in this particular case, it is not about the firmness of a mattress; it is about how much time you spend on your mattress. We all probably knew that too little sleep is a bad thing. Never mind that it makes us feel pretty awful and act pretty grouchy when we do not get enough sleep. It also reduces our cognitive function if we get too little sleep. But researchers now report that the other extreme is not healthy for cognitive function either. People who sleep overly long also show statistically significant decline in cognitive ability later in life. So, it is the zone in the middle of too little and too much that appears to be the sweet spot for normal brain activity. The zone that is “just right.” Dutch researchers have found that people who have sleep disturbance in their middle years are more likely to show signs of the amyloid deposits that are the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s Disease later in life. They liken this process to a kind of fast forward of the amyloid in the brain. They tracked nearly 3,000 people, most of whom were in their mid-forties, from 1995 forward. They established a baseline of overall cognitive function as well as their self-reported sleep patterns. They then contacted them about every five years to repeatedly assess their cognitive patterns. By about 2007 they charted cognitive capabilities by sleep duration and found that it traced something of a U-shaped curve with the people at the lowest and highest sleep duration patterns showing the greatest compromise to their cognitive abilities. The people on the low sleep duration side probably need the most help, because staying asleep is more difficult that setting an alarm to waken earlier. Experts suggest the following for better sleep hygiene:
- Don’t take your cell phone to bed with you. The light is stimulating and texting and reading with the artificial light of the phone are far from ideal for winding down.
- Television in the bedroom also has the same effect on winding down. It is best to shut down any electronic stimulation at least 30 minutes before settling down to sleep.
- Avoid certain sleep agents like diphenhydramine (Benadryl) that may be associated with an increased risk for dementia or Alzheimer’s later in life. Doctors recommend melatonin as an alternative.
- Think about bed-time back in the middle of the day by stopping your caffeine intake by 1pm or maybe 2pm in the afternoon. The effects of the caffeine linger into your evening and will agitate your sleep patterns.
I add one more – make a list of what you’ll do tomorrow well before lights out. You don’t want your brain working out tomorrow while you’re trying to shut down today. 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.
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. You can actually listen to our give and take by going to the archives of this program at AgingInfoRadio

Some of the questions we discussed in that 25-minute conversation included:
- What should I look for in a geriatric care manager?
- Is there a central directory to help find a geriatric care manager?
- How would you sum up what a geriatric care manager does that people cannot already do for themselves?
- When is home no longer the best place for an aging family member/loved one?
- What elder resources are available to help an older adult in their home?
- What can be done to make home “secure” for an older adult?
- What services can be brought home to maximize independence?
- How do I guard against an accident at my parent’s home?
- What are the best alternatives to home?
- What is the difference between independent living and a nursing home?
- What is a Continuum of Care Facility?
- What questions should a family member ask to get the right facility for a loved one?
If you would like to hear the answers I shared on the air, please check out the conversation I had with the host Sue Zawacki at Radio Talk with Charlotte Bishop

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
When you were young, you may have dreamed of being like Superman or Wonder Woman. They both had remarkable powers that made them more than just better than the average person or even the best among the average humans. They had powers that came from something very special about their makeup, in the former case, well, “super powers.” Scientists at Northwestern University’s School of Medicine are using similar language now to refer to a rather small subset of people who live to be not just over 90 years of age, but some to be old enough to celebrate their 120^thbirthday. They are “Super-Agers.” Are you a super-ager? Well that depends. The physicians involved in the research are looking at a lot of factors that may help make a superager like psychosocial factors, education, family history, genes, physical health and the brain. And they are looking at people over 80years of age who have the memories of those 30 years younger as well as a control group of “average” people. For instance, they have found that super-agers have a thicker cerebral cortex, the important outer layer of the brain responsible for memory, attention, language and thinking. It was thicker than the normal agers, about the same size as members of the younger, middle-aged control group. There were other exceptional facets of the super-agers’ brains such as that part of the brain that controls social behavior. The scientists also have taken blood samples to further assess the DNA of the superager. So, if it is all based on the genes we receive, or as some say the parents we have chosen and that these people may be less numerous than only one of every hundred within the overall population, what’s the point? Well, one of the researchers points out that you don’t have to be the one who has the right genes to live longer. If they find that the superager’s’ genes turn off a certain protein or turn on a certain metabolic process that contributes to longevity, then you don’t have to have better genes to live longer. You just have to have some help to adjust the proteins, the metabolic processes or whatever it is that works the magic. So, there may be good news for us all. If you have an older loved one in your orbit who shows signs of being a superager, encourage them to reach out to NU’s medical school…today. 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.
When I talk to people about advocacy and geriatric care management, they get that part of what we do in our professional role is look out for older adults and guard against abuse of a variety of sorts. One of those kinds of abuse is financial abuse in the form of scams that target older adults. Scammers target older adults in part because, as a group, older adults can be more vulnerable, but older adults also are the ones who will have accumulated some amount of money over their lives - their nest eggs. But did you know that more than 90% of reported financial scams targeting seniors are perpetrated by their own family members? If you are a caregiver to an older adult or just a concerned person in the orbit of a senior, here are some of the common scams going around.
1. Meet you at the Funeral - Believe it or not, some scammers will go to a complete stranger's funeral claiming to the family or widow that money is owed for some prior contract or other obligation. But that is not all. Beware of the "add-ons" that some funeral homes may try to railroad at this vulnerable time in a family's loss. It is a really good reason that we all should make our own funeral arrangements before the time comes.
2. Boomers don't Age - With the boomers starting to fill the ranks of the over 65 cohort, there is a host of anti-aging products to assist those who feel 70 is the new 50. Help your senior to see through the false claims as well as the fake products posing as the brand names like Botox. And remember that if it is not fake in the case of Botox, that it Botox made from a deadly toxin; be certain of the recipe.
3. Fake Drugs - With pharmaceutical prices still a large part of any senior's budget, the lure of non-U.S. pharmacies is still there. Be sure that the distributors actually offer the real deal. FDA has been reporting an average of 20 major investigations of fake manufacturers every year.
4. Just Bill Medicare - Anyone over age 65 will qualify for Medicare to pay part of their medical costs. Some providers working the system, however, can purport to offer services and then bill Medicare. Since they can use your elder's personal information for a direct billing, the older patient will never be the wiser.
The list, of course, goes on. The reason why some of these frauds may happen is that they take advantage of a senior who is not as tech savvy on the web as younger web surfers may be. And at any age, we all can be victims of the deal that sounds too good to pass up. So, if you are a caregiver, lend an eye and an ear to that older adult in your orbit. Your vigilance will benefit them, and it also will give you the benefit of advance learning for when you are there one day. 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@cr eativecaremanagement.com.
I started in my last posting with a Q and A with John Wank, President of the Illinois Guardianship Association. He continues this second with his answers to our questions in this the second in a three-part series.

You are General Counsel and Director of Program with the Illinois Guardianship and Advocacy Commission.

What does the Commission do?

As the largest public guardian in the United States, the Office of State Guardian (OSG) handles personal or financial decisions for more than 5,000 disabled adults. Nearly all OSG wards are indigent persons, with costs of care paid by public entitlements. Nearly all OSG front-line staff are Registered Certified Guardians (RCG) under the program administered by the Center for Guardianship Certification.

Legal Advocacy Service (LAS), is the statewide public agency that provides court-appointed legal counsel and representation to vulnerable children and adults with mental illness or developmental disabilities in judicial proceedings involving their commitment to, retention in, enforced treatment in, and release from mental health care facilities.

The Human Rights Authority (HRA) ensures rights protections for persons with disabilities by conducting investigations of alleged rights violations committed against persons with disabilities by agencies that serve them.

How are our laws different?

Illinois has two kinds of public guardians. In addition to the Office of State Guardian, every Illinois county has a county-based public guardian's office. The county guardians serve in cases where the ward has more than $25,000 in assets. The Office of the Cook County Public Guardian is especially notable in advocating for its wards. See their website: Public Guardianship.

What challenges would out of state children of an older parent in Illinois for whom they seek a guardian face?

Guardianship is instituted by the filing of a petition in which the petitioner requests the appointment of a named party as guardian. Section 11a-8. If the suggested guardian is an out of state child, the court may wish to know how the child would execute an active and suitable program of guardianship, as described in Section 11a-5(a). Consequently, conducting a guardianship petition and then, serving as guardian, on a long-distance basis, may be complicated. Securing local assistance could be a desirable alternative.

What is the benefit of a private guardian vs. a professional guardian?

There are no particular benefits. Most guardianship involves family, with one family member caring for another, often with fees waived. In these cases, a family membership may be desirable, particularly where there is a long-established caring relationship and no suggestion of financial or emotional misconduct on the part of the family member. In cases where the family is unavailable or unwilling to serve, public guardians are available. Private, for-profit guardianship also exists in Illinois. In both public guardianship cases and for-profit guardianship cases, fees are generally paid from the estates of the ward, if there are any.

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 Charlotte Bishop