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

Treatments for Alzheimer’s Disease
September is Alzheimer’s Awareness Month, and this is the third of four posts we’ll offer on the subject. I...
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September 20, 2022
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When the IRS Calls…
How about a show of hands regarding the Internal Revue Service (IRS)… Have you ever filed a tax return...
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March 8, 2022
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The “Other” Health Concerns for Older Adults
It was just two weeks ago that I underscored the fact that “older adults have a greater fear of...
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February 1, 2022
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Password Protected?
I often offer advice on how to help your older loved one with challenging tasks or how to protect...
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October 26, 2021
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Your Older Loved One’s Greatest Health Risk?
As our loved ones grow older, we probably are more acutely protective of their health and well-being, especially if...
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September 14, 2021
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Your Flight to Nowhere is Boarding
You have probably put off a vacation or most any travel for more than a year with the threat...
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August 10, 2021
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Everything to Lose
Not a day goes by that the sun does not linger a bit longer, that the landscape gets a...
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April 20, 2021
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Scamming as a Superspreader
We have all seen the advertisements for the on-line services that will help you find your ancestry by taking...
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February 2, 2021
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Better than a Resolution
After nearly a year of a pandemic and its quarantine, we are all ready to get back to normal. ...
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January 12, 2021
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Too Good to Be True
With over 300 clinical trials on vaccines for COVID19, it perhaps is not a surprise that at least two...
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December 1, 2020
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In the Caregiver's Words

Recent Client Praise

Who thinks it’s a good idea to just blow off Valentine’s Day? I am guessing not many hands will go up for that idea…some might even say that their spouse will kill them if they don’t bring forth at least a sentimental thought. Never mind the flowers, candy or sparkler. Just forget about the day later this week. Well, that probably is what some of us do every day … with our hearts…we just forget about our hearts. And that is why heart attack and stroke are the top two causes of mortality in the United States. So, what do you do to remember of your hearts? Earlier this decade the American Heart Association came up with seven habits to embrace to help avoid heart attack and stroke. You don’t have to wait until February 14^th to start:
1. Exercise - there is a new exercise program recommended almost every week, it seems, but the simple fact is that getting your body moving regularly and vigorously supports a healthy heart…and the rest of the body with it.
2. Eat right - we all know what the good foods are and what the bad foods are; make a healthy diet your Valentine’s Day resolution.
3. Lower blood pressure - you will need a medical provider to give you your actual numbers (not to exceed 12/80), and if your numbers are high stick to the prescription you will be given and follow #1 and #2 along with losing weight and cutting your salt or sugar intake.
4. Lower your cholesterol - focus your diet on fruits and vegetables along with fish, nuts and soy; your doctor can tell you if a statin is indicated.
5. Manage your blood sugar - sugar is not your friend, so limit its visits to your body in order to keep down your weight and not beat up your pancreas…your heart will thank you.
6. Maintain a healthy weight - losing weight should be an outcome of the first 5 instead of a goal in itself, but keeping your weight down lightens the workload for your heart.
7. Don’t smoke - smokers have double the risk of a heart attack and triple the risk of a stroke over nonsmokers; it is not just your lungs that suffer if you smoke.
So this list is the short version of a lot of material I have covered in other posts. If you have questions, you can use key words to search the blog for a related post or you can go to the American Heart Association web site. Make February your heart-healthy month! 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.
I promised in my last posting to talk more specifically about what can be made safe for seniors who wish to age in place – room by room. I am going to start with the room in the home where most accidents happen, the bath. The bathroom for most elders represents the perfect storm of a confined space with potentially slippery surfaces. Nearly one-third of seniors over age 65 fall each year, and the majority of these falls happen in the bathroom. With basic planning and potentially some retrofitting, however, the bath can be made more safe and accommodating to an older person’s limited mobility and range of motion. Let’s start with surfaces.

There may already be a rug near the shower or bath area, but make certain it has a sticky, non-slip back to minimize falls when an elder enters or leaves the tub. If your older loved one uses a floor mat in the tub area when showering, make sure that the suction cups still offer good sticking poser. You may consider adhesive decals that stick to the porcelain tub surface with soft gripping rubber top surfaces. In the shower area itself, consider having a bath bench or chair with non-slip feet if your elder has difficulty standing for protracted periods or is at all unsteady on their feet. If your elder loved one is challenged by lifting their feet over the tub edge to step in for a shower, it may be time to refit their bath with a stall shower with a low or minimal curb in place of a tub/shower combination.

Having a non-slip, moisture-absorbent surface near the tub is a safety assist, but any other loose rugs should be replaced or eliminated. Look for uneven floor surfaces or thresholds and consider eliminating them, beveling surfaces or highlighting them with paint or tape. Loose cords from radios or hair dryers should be removed from walkways, and other floor level clutter like magazine racks should also be eliminated.

Just as in hallways, consider installing grip bars at strategic points in and around the tub or shower as well as either side of the commode. For seniors with difficulty getting up from chairs, consider also a raised seat for the commode as well as grip bars that flank the sides of the seat like arms on a chair. There even are hydraulic assistive devices that can be installed on the toilet seat with a lift that can help ease the senior into a seated position and then boost them slowly back up as they rise from sitting.

Lighting is as important in the bath area as it is in the rest of the house. If the present circuits allow, it may be as easy as upgrading to a higher wattage bulb in all the fixtures. In old houses, however, it may be safer to refit with new fixtures that can offer more lighting. And also as with other parts of the house, have a night light that automatically goes on when ambient lighting fades.

Finally, make sure that everything that your elder may need with any frequency while in the bathroom is within easy reach. Remove actual glassware or ceramics from the bath and replace with plastic, especially cups that have gripping texture on the outside. And while you are outfitting the bath, keep in mind bright colors and pleasant decoration. Just because your bath is now safe does not require that it look institutional. Next week, I will talk about what’s cooking in the kitchen.

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
Associate Care Manager Gregory is a Certified Senior Advisor (CSA) and Certified Dementia Practitioner (CDP) whose work focuses on helping aging adults and folks with limited independence by providing resources and support to help them discover and lead their best life. Gregory has been a part of CCM, Inc. for over a decade. – Charlotte Lots of people play simple games on their phones while waiting. On this blog, we’ve often mentioned that any game play encouraging cognitive and spatial orchestration is great for the player’s cognitive future. But what if there were a fun game whose results also helped doctors learn more about dementia? That would be especially helpful, keeping our own brains sharp while we contribute to research. That sounds like double duty! Well, set sail at full mast, because that game exists. At first glance, “Sea Hero Quest” [iOS/Andriod link] is a fun mobile game like any other. It is special, however, because it exists to provide researchers with more data on 3D spatial cognition, often a first casualty to a dementia diagnosis. In the game, the child of a parent suffering from dementia sets out on an odyssey to recover their parent’s lost memories. On the path to discovery, there are navigation, orientation, and chasing adventures. The ways that the players advance levels is precisely the kind of valuable information hoped for; and the more people that play the game, the more information to help. Alzheimer’s Research UK is a major player in supporting the data obtained from gameplay, and it is hoped that the information gathered will make inroads towards early detection and consequent treatment. In addition to the regular mobile version, there is also a Virtual Reality (VR) release which combines the game with scene immersion. It tracks head movement and provides even more data to researches about how players obtain information about their environment. So, if you’re a mobile game player of any sort, consider the introductory video below, download, and start gaming! You just might have a great time helping your future self.
Physical exercise, mental gymnastics or medication: which one has the most beneficial impact on improving or delaying the onset of what medical professionals call “mild cognitive impairment?” First, to clarify, mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a middle ground between the normal decline of our brain function and the dementias that I have talked about in previous posts. You might even refer to it as “pre-dementia,” except that MCI does not always or inevitably lead to dementia. The rate of cognitive decline increases with age with just fewer than seven percent of adults age 60 to 64 showing signs of mild cognitive impairment. By age 80 – 84 the rate of MCI exceeds 25%. And MCI progresses to dementia in about 15% of patients 65 or older. It is true that the FDA has approved a few medications for their ability to slow the progression of cognitive decline, and you have seen some of them advertised on television. And there are “brain games” available for people who want to keep their faculties sharp…even doing crossword puzzles or just reading have been shown to be of some help in slowing the inevitable mental decline associated with birthdays. Yet, neither of these can measurably improve cognitive function. The American Academy of Neurology has released new guidelines that encourage regular, physical exercise as a way to not just improve overall health, but to also improve memory and slow decline of cognitive processing. They see little value in pharmacologic treatments, and they admit that cognitive training can improve a patient’s score on cognitive measures. Engaging in physical exercise like walking or biking or swimming as little as twice a week actually can improve cognitive function. The new guidelines, as endorsed by the Alzheimer’s Association, are based on research over a six month period that demonstrated that physical exercise just twice a week can significantly improve memory. There are no long term studies yet, but researchers are extending their work, to date, to see if they can actually hold on to that improvement longer. It looks as if we can add one more condition to the list of ailments that can be reversed by diet or exercise. (Do a search in the toolbar for “exercise” and see all the good that can come from working up a little sweat.) 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.
If you think being a caregiver to an older loved one is hard--with all the trips to help them do laundry, the meals prepared, the trips to the grocery store, the calls received all hours of the day or night--try doing all of that across town or across the country One of every seven of the more than 44 million caregivers in America is a “distance caregiver.” That’s about six to seven million caregivers. And one in four lives 20 minutes or more away from the loved one in need. “Distance” does not have to be miles and miles away, because the local family member who has a job or has a spouse or has kids…or maybe would like to have a life can be just as challenged as the son or daughter time zones away. Distance caregiving carries its own set of unique stressors tied to the challenges of absence and logistics. But there are ways to make it work and to make it less stressful. There are interpersonal tools that can make the caregiving more effective and easier for the distance caregiver:
- Cultivate legal, financial and health resources close to your loved one
- Plan and coordinate visits from other friends or family members to your loved one
- Empower your care receiver to “own the choices” surrounding their support
- Communicate, communicate, communicate.
Leverage the technology of the 21^st century:
- Schedule a daily, regular time for talking with your care receiver
- Use an app for face-to-face communication
- Install smart devices that allow you to monitor home temperature and locks
- Give your care receiver a wearable monitor for vitals and emergency calls
- Place home cameras for security and to track medication adherence.
Not all tech is easy at first, so give yourself and your loved one a learning curve to become more proficient. Inform local members of their care team about any monitoring that will inform their tasks. In my next installment I’ll offer some tips on how to take a proactive role on the health care team while also keeping your care receiver empowered. If you are one of the 44 million or know someone who is, please stay tuned… 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.
A recent report from the Congressional Budget Office created a bit of a stir among geriatric care managers, because it predicted that the dollars spent on nursing homes and longer term care will amount to 3.3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by the year 2050. It is true that in the most recent year for which there is data, Americans spent $192 billion on these living environments, or about 1.3 percent of GDP. This past May, the National Association of Professional Geriatric Care Managers asked its members if we had an opinion on older adults moving into nursing homes in such numbers. However, there are alternatives:
1. The best thing older adults can do is make a plan. We all make vacation plans and maybe even retirement plans; we need to make plans around aging in place while still preserving quality of life.
2. Next in line is taking stock of home. It is easy to not see that the home in which parents raised a family just doesn't work as well for older adults who may have some mobility issues - hint: an elder care manager can help.
3. With an objective picture of the home layout, set about making home a safer and easier place to live than it is now. Grip bars in a bath room, extra lighting in the halls and ramps instead of stairs can be a start.
4. And it is important to remember who actually is going to live in the home. Well-intentioned children of older parents may want to come in and do a "home-makeover," but it is really important to help mom or dad lead the team.
5. And just as it takes a village to raise a child, there are resources and people in your older parents' community who can provide support. If you don't know what services or agencies can be brought in, again ask a professional. (We also have some listed on our "Support Tools" page of this web site.)
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 ccbishop@creativecasemanagement.com.