senior home care services

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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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 (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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In the Caregiver's Words

Recent Client Praise

It is sadly ironic that it was former president Ronald Reagan who designated November as National Alzheimer’s Awareness Month in 1983. Reagan’s efforts and his own personal experience with Alzheimer’s disease did much to bring this mysterious and stealthy condition to the nation’s attention. But it did nothing compared to the attention that the nearly 6 million Americans today who have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and the 16+ million caregivers who support them lend. The number with diagnosed Alzheimer’s is expected to double in the next ten years, and experts are concerned that there may not be enough family caregivers to meet the needs. Everybody knows someone whose family knows Alzheimer’s. The number of assisted living centers as well as new types of facilities is increasing, but there also has been a revolution in the on-line resources available to families confronted with the challenges Alzheimer’s brings. Here are four that I recommend to meet needs from early stage diagnosis through to the rest of the trajectory families will face:
1. The Alzheimer’s Association offers a searchable “library” called the Green-Field Virtual Library. It offers searchable content and e-books on a range of topics from the range or neurological conditions of which Alzheimer’s is one to caregiving patient health.
2. The Alzheimer’s Association also hosts a number of independent sites with their own searchable, relevant content: Caregiving Fundamentals, Clinical Trials, Alzheimer’s Research and Alzheimer’s Stages.
3. The Alzheimer’s Association recognizes that the burning question for every caregiving family centers on finding a cure. We are not there yet, but for those of you who follow my blog, you know that a lot is being done to advance the effort toward an Alzheimer’s Cure.
4. On a more local and global front a group based originally at Northwestern University has created a digital platform for caregivers called June Care. June Care is a digital care platform that empowers families to support their relatives diagnosed with Alzheimer's. The June Care team has built an online therapeutics program made to manage and change behaviors around caregiving. June Care is partnered with the Alzheimer's Prevention Registry and is actively enrolling caregivers in Illinois — Ideal participants are full-time family caregivers who care for persons with dementia and are looking for support. Because these are pilot studies, there is no cost to participants.
So, while there is not yet a cure, there is both hope and help. Please feel free to search our Blog as well as the other resources we work to make available to families who have been thrust into the caregiver role to a loved one with any form of dementia. Also, please let me know your questions at info@creativecaremanagement.com. 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.
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Count slowly from one to sixty-seven…one thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three… By the time you reach 67, one more person in the United States will have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease. In fact, one in three Americans will die with Alzheimer’s Disease. I have talked in the past about new diagnostic breakthroughs and some pharmacological and nutritional and other ways to modestly stave off the progression of this disease, but the fact is that there is no cure for Alzheimer’s. Alzheimer’s remains the only disease in the top ten causes of death in the United States that cannot be prevented, cured or slowed. But from the perspective of geriatric care management, it is not just the patient with the disease that requires help; it is their families and other caregivers in their orbits. To that end, I would like to share a brief overview of some of the resources available to support all the individuals who need help when this disease strikes:
1. Alzheimer’s Disease Alzheimer’s and Dementia Caregiver Center (http://www.alz.org/care/alzheimers-dementia-support-help.asp ) is an arm of the Association that has done the most to help patients with the disease as well. The Center provides training and other resources to caregivers as well las a 24-hour telephone hotline.
2. Family Caregiver Alliance(https://www.caregiver.org/national-center-caregiving) offers families resources at the local, state and national level. Not all locales may be covered, but their information and other resources at the national level can be a real asset to families.
3. Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregiving (http://www.rosalynncarter.org) offers training and education going beyond basic pamphlets. They do peer-reviewed literature searches across a host of related topics as well as sponsorship of researcher into interventions that work.
4. Eldercare Locator (http://www.eldercare.gov/eldercare.NET/Public/index.aspx ) is funded by the U.S. government and provides a unique matrix resource approach to resources nation-wide. From their web site one can search a range of service types by zip code to find specific services in your own locale.
And, of course, the Aging Life Care Association (https://www.aginglifecare.org) helps visitors to their web site with a Care Finder down to the specific zip code level. If you reflect back on other public health challenges where cures ultimately have been found, they all started with building from the grass roots a support system that not only supported the patients and their families, but also the march to a cure. It takes a village. Charlotte Bishop is an Aging Life Care Professional and 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.
November is National Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness Month, so I am going to give a lot of attention throughout this month to what we know as well as what we don’t know about dementia generally and Alzheimer’s disease specifically. More Americans fear an Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis than fear dying, and that should be no surprise, given that a new Alzheimer’s diagnosis is given every 67 seconds in the United States. But we should all be cautious in accepting any Alzheimer’s diagnosis for a loved one at face value. Research has shown that 24 percent of diagnoses actually are misdiagnoses. Given that there are about 100 different manifestations of dementia, perhaps we should be surprised that the rate of misdiagnosis is so low? And it is important also to bear in mind that the health care provider making the diagnosis may or may not be well-qualified to make the call either for lack of experience or for lack of proper tools with which to diagnose. Our team became involved with the mother of one of our people, because she was showing signs of cognitive decline. He recalls that on one of his visits her common introductions to friends of hers had become “You don’t have a name…this is my son.” He and his sister started making calls to her primary care physician’s office to get a sense of what was going on. In his mother’s file the diagnosis was “organic dementia.” The doctor had further prescribed an FDA-approved medication called Namenda for his mother for that “organic dementia.” First, Namenda is indicated for Alzheimer’s disease (not “organic dementia”) and is to be used in combination with another drug for Alzheimer’s called Aricept. Now with his mother’s doctor on the line, our staff member questioned why the prescription for a condition for which his mother had not be diagnosed and that was to be used only with a medication she had not yet been prescribed? And at $350 out of pocket per month? The doctor mumbled something about whether the son wanted his mother to have an autopsy to diagnose the condition…or was it the money. Stunned at how behind the times the doctor was, the son simply said it was the cost and the doctor withdrew the prescription. Let me get back to the autopsy. A decade and a half ago scientists could not definitively diagnose Alzheimer’s until after the individual had died and an autopsy of the brain could be performed. Now, we have neurologists who can confidently diagnose the condition with MRIs, PET scans and blood tests along with cognitive tests in real time and an historical look at a patient’s records. In these neuro-psych exams, the specialist is able to not only identify the condition, but more importantly what can be done. As it turns out with our team member’s mom, she had vascular dementia, the end result of numerous “mini-strokes” over time that deprived more and more parts of her brain of blood flow. As his mother’s condition deteriorated she was required to move from independent living to assisted care and finally to a memory unit. I have noted before in other posts that there are no cures for Alzheimer’s; well, there was no cure for vascular dementia that had progressed as far as it had for our team member’s mom either. But she lived to be more than ninety years of age and had a quality life. In the end, her quality of life was greatly assisted by those around her who knew the source of her dementia and how best to care for her. And that is as happy an ending as one can hope. For the rest of this month I am going to be talking a bit more about how dementia often gets confused with delirium or depression, as well as Alzheimer’s disease and also address your questions. Please just email me your questions or concerns at info@creativecaremanagement.com . 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.
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In the first of this two-part series, I talked about conversations involving changes in life where you as the child of an older parent may be required to step up to help your parent or see that proper help is available. This second part is devoted to conversations about preparations for end of life, life's final transitions. As with Part 1, these conversations also are a lot about making sure that one's wishes are fulfilled, in this case those of your older parent. As with the other conversations of Part 1, you may find that it is even easier to talk with your older parent about end of life issues if you have attended to your own documents as well.

Last Will and Testament. In the past I have interviewed an elder law attorney about the legal issues surrounding wills and advanced health directives. I am going to break these out a bit. It may surprise you to know that the majority of Americans do not have a written will, and you may be one of them. It may very well be that your older parent is entirely justified in believing that his or her needs will be attended following their demise, and that everything will be divided up equitably among the survivors. But the court system will still intervene in the form of probate to settle these issues legally, and that can only serve to diminish what is there for the heirs. Plus, if one wishes to share mementos or memorabilia with special meaning with an heir, this will carry even more import if the benefactor has written a note about the history of that object. As with some of these other difficult discussions, they may be easier if you make it personal by drafting with your attorney your own will.

Advance Healthcare Directives. And then there is the other will - a living will, which is part of anyone's advanced healthcare directives. The last thing an older parent would probably want in the event of a health crisis is to have a disagreement among family members about what mom or dad "would have wanted." Here again, it can be very helpful to have a family attorney guide you through what documents are needed to preserve end of life choices as an older adults wishes. Once the paperwork is done, it is important also that these documents are part of a parent's medical record and their personal physicians are aware of the document(s) and have a copy in the chart. Also, if a parent is living in a facility, a copy should be on file there. Finally, a copy should be on file at the hospital your parent would use if needed. One last time, by taking care of your own personal documentation you have a great way to introduce the subject to a parent in a very nonthreatening way. Remind them also that you will be quite distressed in such an event and that their decisions and choices in a calmer moment ahead of time would provide better choices.

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.

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senior home care services

Mittens Before the Frost

A House is Not a Home (Part 3)

A House is not a Home (Unless You’re There)

Free White Paper: How to Manage Time and Stress While Caring for the Elderly

Our passion rests in helping families, friends and caregivers achieve a better quality of life for both themselves and their loved ones. Our most popular white paper to date gives the tools you need to maximize wellness.

Inside "Caring for the Caregiver"

Get the Support You Need Now! Call 847-869-5118 x511

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