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

Mittens Before the Frost
I was asked today about the “mitten test.” It was one of our colleagues who had remembered something I...
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September 18, 2018
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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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A House is Not a Home (Part 3)
At CCM, home and safety are as important to us as to you, so it’s no surprise that it’s...
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June 18, 2017
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A House is Not a Home (Part 2)
At CCM, home and safety are as important to us as to you, so it’s no surprise that it’s...
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June 12, 2017
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A House is not a Home (Unless You’re There)
At CCM, home and safety are as important to us as to you, so it’s no surprise that it’s...
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June 5, 2017
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Respite Care – The Holiday Gift to Yourself
Be honest if you’re a caregiver and you can answer YES to more than one of these questions. Sit...
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November 23, 2015
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Caregivers and their Medicare?
Yes, you read it right. I am posting this one about what caregivers should know about their Medicare. But...
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September 12, 2013
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In the Caregiver's Words

Recent Client Praise

“A friend told me how valuable the information [that Charlotte gave her] was!”
Catharine J. Jones, Diplomate Analytical Psychoanalyst
The beginning of a new year is certainly a time for resolutions, but it also can be a time to take stock of the "big picture" if you are a caregiver to an older loved one. Your older loved one may be "doing well." But the following are brief descriptions with links to postings of their own on some of the dimensions you should track along with resources you may find helpful if you are family member or caregiver to an older adult.

8 Tips to Prevent Senior Home Fires. The question of how an older parent is doing physically is as much about their residence as it is about their personal health and well-being. Last year I devoted some time to talking about how to make an older adult's home safe from fires.

3 Tips to Avoid Scams Targeting Seniors. In the past I also have devoted some time to talking about the inevitable predators who may look to scam older adults and how to be financially vigilant on behalf of your loved one.

Making the Most of Medical Face Time. Caregivers are not expected to diagnose or prescribe unless they are a health care professional. But as caregivers, I have talked about ways to make productive use of medical face time to get answers to important questions about your loved one's health.

3 Elder Care Suggestions for Depression. And of course, health and well-being are not simply how well a person's body is functioning. It also is about their mental health. Rates of depression escalate as individuals age and they face losses and physical decline, and a caregiver should take note of how mom or dad may be doing psychologically.

Independent Living for Your Parents. While for some, being active is about physically getting out and about, being socially active can be every bit as important for aging parents or other loved ones. Caregivers may benefit from a two-part series I had posted last year about considerations in independent living.

Watch For Signs of Elder Abuse. Caregivers along with all the family members also need to be advocates on behalf of older adults who can be victims of physical, psychological or financial abuse. Here are some tips.

What is a Geriatric Care Manager? Finally, I had started this blog about two and a half years ago talking about what a geriatric care manager (GCM) is. Please check out that first post as it talks about GCMs as elder advocates and care coordinators, or as I like to describe the profession: "GCMs are the Option-Makers for the Decision-Makers."

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.
Do you have pain in your back, particularly your lower back - that area around your belt line or slightly lower? If not, please consider yourself lucky, but also just wait. According to some experts, about four in five Americans will at some point in their lives experience low back pain...chronic low back pain. What may be surprising is that most of these cases have no specific cause that can be diagnosed. As a geriatric care management professional, I hear about this a lot. And if you are a caregiver to an older adult, you may hear this from your loved one as well, or you may be experiencing the pain yourself. So, as a consequence, doctors are seeing more and more of these patients, and without having a specific cause to address they may be tempted to treat the pain. While surgery may be an option for serious spinal conditions, most of this low back pain does not reach such a level of acuity to justify surgery. A lot of doctors have started giving injections into the site with anti-inflammatories, opioids, or in some cases vitamin B-12. Injections would be great if they worked, but there is not much evidence to suggest that the injections are any more than a short term fix for the pain. A research commentary, reported earlier this summer in the Journal of the American Medical Association, says that there is almost no evidence in the larger literature that injections have any positive effect over the long term. Other reports suggest that they likewise do not substantially reduce the likelihood of surgery later. There was one research study published in February that actually showed the opposite; patients with pinched nerves in their lower back receiving injections showed less pain relief than a control group who received no injections. The JAMA authors are now recommending against injections. What are the alternatives? Here are :
1. For those with above average weight, especially belly fat, weight loss can be very beneficial.
2. Strengthen the back muscles with more exercise. It could be as easy as taking longer walks, swimming or riding a bicycle.
3. In a journal called The Clinical Journal of Pain, doctors recommend yoga or Pilates as a somewhat more aggressive approach that has showed good results.
It does not have to be confusing. According to some physicians, we seem to have made a symptom into a diagnosis. That is to say that pain is the result of something being wrong, and we ought to treat the source of a problem. Yet, most doctors do not like to prescribe long walks or losing weight, because patients ask for a "quick fix" to their problems. We have come to view pills as a solution to our problems instead of changing our lifestyles. I have talked in other postings about helping older adults to have more active lifestyles, because it will be helpful for their sense of well-being. Being more active, it seems, also will be good for addressing low back pain. Do it in small measures at first, but be persistent and grow the number of minutes, laps, blocks or other measure of investment in an active life. If you as a caregiver are walking with your older loved one, you also may find that the social activity of conversation is a health boost. Make sure their shoes give them solid support. The pain may not totally go away, but chances are that there will be relief at least during the exercise. And the relief can continue to grow. Charlotte Bishop is a Geriatric Care Management professional 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 past two posts, I have discussed ways to ensure safe in home care. But we should also look to helping an older parent to be in the best shape possible to avoid even the unforeseen hazards. In this post, I offer nine tips to help “fall-proof” a mom or dad. It is a different way to think about being in the best condition one can be.
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. Visit our For The Caregiver page for more information and resources.
If you are a caregiver to an older loved one during these holidays, you may have been wrestling with the eternal question of what to give to a person who seems to have everything they want. And most of us have parents who are of an age that they have had the time to accumulate lots of gifts over the years. If we are talking about the gifts that get wrapped and shared at Hanukkah or may be placed under the Christmas tree, you may be right. Anyone with enough birthdays may have had the chance to accumulate a lot of stuff over those years. But psychologists have confirmed that the gifts that mean the most are not the stuff that can be packaged; they are the experiences of shared moments you can share with your older loved one. So, as you think about gifting for your older loved ones this holiday period, think about a shared cup of coffee, a shared moment of just being present, even a walk in the proverbial park. But it gets even more interesting. Psychologists also talk about the difference between experiencing the moments and remembering the moments. The most important part that creates the most lasting impression is the latter of these two. You can share a perfectly average cup of coffee with your loved one, but if the conversation ends on a high note or with a recollection of something in your collective past of particular brightness that you can share, you will have created a very happy memory of the coffee experience (the average coffee fades away). Little wonder that we have these expressions like "save the best for last" or "everyone loves a happy ending." And I guess this also gets in the way of one of the sayings that I always thought made the best sense. It is something about "Life is short. Have dessert first." So, if I am to take the experts seriously, I should plan to spend a meal time with my older loved one...and have dessert last...and maybe first as well. Now, you have a plan to make your time with your older loved one about the experiences of this holiday season. But you should also remember the one item that most caregivers give the least attention. You need also to remember to take good care of the caregiver! So, as you plan the experience, it can also be a perfect gift for you, the caregiver as well as for your care receiver. What could be better than a happy ending, if not a "win-win?" 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.
You have heard about how “brain teasers” or other “brain games” like crossword puzzles are helpful in keeping a brain healthy, and they are. Working an older person’s body – and for that matter the body of a person of any age – also improves cognitive function. I did say “any age.” Getting into better physical shape to also be in better mental shape works for caregivers and for their older care receivers. If you are a caregiver to an older loved one, you may want to encourage their physical – and mental – fitness by example. Researchers have studied individuals across the age spectrum to measure this association between physical fitness and mental fitness. What they consistently find is that even small changes in physical fitness can improve cognitive function at the same time the individuals improve their strength and muscular conditioning. The mental component where they see the difference is the executive function, the part of the brain responsible for focus, adaptive behavior and sorting short and long term memory. The area in the brain where much of this happens is the hippocampus, an area that sadly shrinks with age starting in later adulthood. As the hippocampus goes through this natural regression, the individual’s memory becomes increasingly impaired and they may also become at risk for dementia. Hippocampus atrophy is considered inevitable as a person ages, but research has demonstrated that aerobic exercise can regrow the hippocampus by adding the proteins that aid in the growth of new brain cells. Now, the scientists are not saying that if you go out for a brisk walk or jog today that you will be smarter tomorrow…at least not measurably so. What they have found, however, is that people who consistently embrace even a modest exercise program for as little as a year can make a measureable difference in their cognitive fitness. Can this reverse the effects of dementia? Unfortunately, in cases where amyloid beta plaque already has begun to form, there can be no reversal. But there is every indication that a consistent exercise program can slow the progression of a dementia, and this is all that is promised by any of the medications currently available from your physician. So, just as you would not wait until you are ill to begin exercising to get fit, you should not wait until there are significant signs of cognitive decline to start an exercise program. The other takeaway from this growing body of research is that the “fitness message” is for caregivers every bit as much as it is for the older loved ones for whom they care. It is never too early to take steps to care for the brain, and the more steps the better. 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.