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

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...
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September 26, 2023
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Medicare’s Surprising Cost Savings
Medicare has been one of those political footballs where both sides of the aisle have had an entrenched position...
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September 5, 2023
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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...
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August 15, 2023
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How Old You Really Are
One of my staff worked with a senior community in upstate New York near Elmira a number of years...
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August 8, 2023
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Three Words Are the Cure
Some have called it an epidemic. And it’s particularly virulent within the senior population. The epidemic leads to even...
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July 16, 2023
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Not Just Dark Chocolate…
If you’re like me, you may have had moments when you’ve looked at the latest clinical information on the...
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July 10, 2023
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Update on Dementia – part 2
I had left you last week with what may have seemed to be an optimistic note regarding the latest...
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June 26, 2023
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Update on Dementia – part 1
You may have heard the noise about a new drug for treating Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. It would...
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June 6, 2023
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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...
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April 18, 2023
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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...
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April 11, 2023
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In the Caregiver's Words

Recent Client Praise

I started in my last post talking about older loved ones and “aging in place.” That first post was about the aging part and Activities of Daily Living. In this installment, I have a tip on how to assess the “place” part of aging in place. I call it the “mitten test.” If you live in the upper portions of the U.S., your winter mittens may just about be ready for the storage closet. But your mittens have another useful purpose that can help you make home an easier place for your older loved ones. You can use them to identify spots in your loved one’s home that can be adapted to fit their changing capabilities. As our bodies age, certain of our nerve pathways begin to fail, and the human anatomy uncannily reroutes many of the circuits as they stop firing. But with age, more and more of those pathways may slow or fail for a variety of reasons, and it just makes it harder for older adults to do the simple manual tasks they used to do without even a thought. Turning a door knob, turning on a lamp or taking the lid off a jar become challenging, maybe even impossible. It is hard for those of you who may be in the prime of your lives to really get this, no matter how empathetic, so I recommend an easy exercise to help you experience what this erosion of manual dexterity and fine motor skills feels like. In doing so, you can also help identify challenging hardware or activities that can be more easily managed with a bit of creative help. With a pair of mittens, walk through each of the rooms in your elder loved one’s home and go through the normal activities of the person who lives in those rooms. As you enter a room, it is may be more challenging to flip a light switch or twist the switch on a lamp with your hands in mittens. These can be remedied by retrofitting wall switches with the larger rectangular switches that one merely presses on and off. Likewise, the lamp twist switches that are challenging with mittens can be replaced with wider winged grips. And even before you enter a room, the door knob may be your undoing if the knob is too small or too slippery. Handles may be an appropriate replacement. The mittens are effective barriers to everything from opening the ketchup bottle to a twisting the lid on a jar of apple sauce or beverage bottle and more. And if a key itself is hard for an older loved one to grip when opening a door, hardware stores have over-sized sheaths to make gripping easier. With your mittens still on, try tying your shoe laces or buttoning a shirt or blouse. It may be time to get creative with Velcro-equipped shoes or other substitute hardware for buttons. And go through the motions of other self-grooming activities to determine what challenges are manageable and which are just out of reach. The number of what are called “assistive devices” will amaze you as you look to television remote controls, computer access and more. Check out the Department of Health and Human Services Assistive Technology site. 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’ve written numerous times about distance caregiving, and one of the observations I have offered is that distance is not always measured in miles. But in the present COVID distancing, every caregiver to an older loved one finds themselves with the equivalent of a wall placed squarely between them and their loved one. And we should not really want it any other way, because we all have exposures to potential COVID carriers that we certainly would not want to share with our loved ones. But what can you do for your loved one and for you? Here are some suggestions on caring for your older loved one and you for your consideration:
- Make copies of photos taken when you were with your older loved one and send them by mail so that they can rekindle the memories just as you will;
- Send a copy of a book that will bring back memories, maybe a travel book or a childhood book that was a favorite - or musical recordings;
- Find a local food delivery services that will bring your loved one’s favorite food to their door;
- Schedule a specific coffee time to “get together” with your loved one on ZOOM or Facetime;
- If they still live in their own home, find housekeeping or other services to give them a break or just some social stimulation;
- If you are concerned about their sticking to their medication schedule, there are apps for that, many of them free;
- If they live in a sequestered community environment, call staff at different times of day and times of the week to get confirmation on how your loved one is doing;
- And this is not last in order of importance, schedule some “me-time,” because social distancing is hard on the caregiver every bit as much as it is on the care receiver.
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.
There are a lot of tests and exams we all know that are important to catching a condition early on or in some cases even before it appears. We know at what age and how frequently to have a colorectal exam, we know to go to our dentist twice a year, our personal physician once a year and a whole host of other regularly-scheduled tests to maintain our health and well being. And then there are the more subtle indictors… subtle because they progress quite slowly and it may be difficult to discern at what point we really do need to have our vision tested, our hearing assessed or our balance scrutinized by a health care professional.
But how many of us notice when our host’s kitchen doesn’t smell wonderful when we arrive for a dinner party, or when the roses are worth stopping to smell or when it is time to take out the trash…I really mean past the time to get the garbage out of the kitchen? And how many of us give a thought to how important our olfactory sense is for not just enjoying what is in the air all around us, but also a very good leading indicator of our living or dying? In an analysis of more than 20,000 patients in a number of studies - this is called a “meta-analysis” - scientists have found that “olfactory impairment,” or loss of smell, statistically predicts risk of dying. There was a lot of news early on in our COVID-19 pandemic about the loss of smell among those infected by the virus. But that was not predicting mortality; it was a side effect of the infection. The scientists who conducted this meta-analysis across a number of clinical studies found that not only is loss of smell linked to a number of chronic diseases, it’s also a general leading indicator of death, especially among older adults. It is enough of a worry that these scientists have now given this condition a name, “olfactory impairment” (OI). (Of course, they give it a label…) As many as half of individuals age 65 to 80 years have OI, and it is linked to a number of nutritional, neurodegenerative, cardiovascular and immune disorders. This is not to say that loss of smell causes these other life-threatening disorders, but the link is statistically clear. It’s not just about being able to stop and smell the roses; it’s about catching a potentially life-threatening medical condition in the early stages when it can be more productively addressed. If you or an older loved one seem unable to discern an odor that others around can smell, the OI may be nothing to sniff at. Want to read more from the scientists who have been investigating this condition, click here. Charlotte Bishop is a Caregiver Coach, an Aging Life Care Advisor, 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. She also is the co-author of How Do I Know You? A Caregiver’s Lifesaver for Dealing with Dementia.
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:
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
In my last posting, I talked about how a caregiver can facilitate an older adult’s decision around when it is time to surrender driving their own car. As I said in that blog, it is important as a caregiver to help facilitate the older adult’s decision about something like driving a car versus retiring a car rather than make the decision for them. It is no less true of decisions on living at home versus moving to a senior residential community.

Let me help you with some of what I have learned in talking with hundreds of older adults who have wrestled with this decision.

Let me start by saying that yes, it is in part a decision based on financial means. Even selling one’s home and the financial windfall that sale can represent may not provide enough funds for a couple or individual to move into a senior residential community – especially some of those that feature resort-like amenities in the Sun Belt or elsewhere.

Research among individuals who are “age-qualified” to reside in a senior residential facility offers some amazingly consistent findings. First, only about one in twenty to one in ten individuals with enough income and assets actually want to live in a community of seniors. What attracts these few to senior communities is fairly consistent.

Older adults most often are looking to give up the heavier duties of living in their own homes. They value having someone else mow the lawn, shovel the walk and otherwise maintain the grounds. They also like the idea of handing over the responsibilities for heavy cleaning and even regular upkeep. And the security of having a place in which they feel protected from strangers while still enjoying the freedom of coming and going is also key.

Where the community is located is not quite as important as knowing that they will have easy access to shopping and entertainment. One of the draws of some of these communities is the religious sponsorship that means the individual will be among others of similar spiritual orientation. And they want to know that they will continue to be as active as they wish.

So during the holidays if the conversation with elders in your midst begins to turn to some of the responsibilities of home ownership that weigh upon them, they may be ready to discuss alternatives. It starts with what they may not want to do….not what they cannot do any longer.

In an upcoming blog, I will be talking with Eric Parker on a more medically-driven decision - how to select a nursing facility.

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.

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I have talked in the past about making home safer for seniors as well as geriatric care management services for those considering a move to residential communities. But the financial and practical fact of the matter is that owning the family home may prove to be less affordable as well as less livable for adults in retirement. Never mind that classic picture of older adults whose kids have graduated college. They have burned the paper of a paid-off mortgage and can now live for free! Well, a lot of seniors were hit by the Great Recession just like other homeowners, and the house is not really free and clear. For virtually everyone, the cost of the house still includes real estate taxes which continue to rise even though housing values have declined in most markets. And the costs to maintain a house tend to come in big chucks like the cost to replace roofing or a new furnace or a hot water heater and more. Some older adults never got to the point where they could buy their own home in the first place. A study issued by the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University found that older adults make up about 13 percent of the rental market in the U.S. That is precisely the share of the U.S. population that is 65 years of age or older, and the percentage is expected to grow with the baby boomers adding to the number of renters. Finances and age are just a part of the decision to rent or buy; also important are health and lifestyle. Regarding health issues, if you are a caregiver to an older adult you may find that they can maintain their independence longer in a rental property that in a conventional home. Rental properties typically can offer a residence all on a single floor for any older adult with difficulty getting around. More current housing also will offer elevators to make getting from the ground floor to their apartment unit easier. And don't overlook the convenience of having a landlord taking care of the heating and cooling systems, the laundry machines and the roof. They also will maintain the lawns and walks. Regarding lifestyle issues, older parents may wish to have the added security of being able to be away from home for extended trips without the worry about safety of their homes. The added safeguard of two front locking doors and nearby neighbors can make it easier to take a vacation or a trip to visit the kids and grandkids in another part of the country. And don't forget that lifestyle also can include the freedom that may come from not having the added weekend duties of a lawn and grounds. That extra time back in the week can be a real bonus for an older adult who really does have something better to do. Charlotte Bishop is a Geriatric Care Manager and founder of Creative Case Management, certified professionals who are geriatric advocates, resources, counselors and friends who provide geriatric care management services to older adults and their families in metropolitan Chicago. Please email your questions to ccbishop@creativecasemanagement.com.