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

Senior Scams Spike During the Holidays
We are fortunate to have a new contribution from a good friend and colleague, Julie Northcutt of Caregiverlist.com. Julie...
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December 14, 2011
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Four Ways a Caregiver’s Nose Can Help
I have written in past blogs about some of the inevitable decline of physical capabilities associated with aging, and...
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October 14, 2011
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Three Ways to Advocate for Elders
Everyone who is a caregiver to an elder or other person with special needs has to be an advocate...
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September 15, 2011
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Prescription Drug Risks for Elders-part 2
In the first of my present series of postings on recent Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warnings, I had...
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July 9, 2011
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Prescription Risks for Elders-part 1
Within the past two weeks the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a number of warnings that concern...
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July 6, 2011
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Preventing Unnecessary Hospital Readmissions
According to research reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, approximately one in five Medicare beneficiaries discharged from...
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June 24, 2011
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Summer Visits for a Senior Care Check-up
In this posting, I have invited Julie Northcutt, President of Caregiverlist.com, a company that uses new technology to deliver...
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June 3, 2011
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Tech Support for Caregivers
Caregiving in this century is not just handholding; it combines the latest technologies with caring to allow virtually anyone to...
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February 22, 2011
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If Not Home, Then What?
In my last posting, I talked about how a caregiver can facilitate an older adult’s decision around when it...
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December 20, 2010
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In the Caregiver's Words

Recent Client Praise

When I say there is no ‘D’ in dementia, it is not that I am Deficient in spelling. Medical research has been accumulating that people with low levels of vitamin D in their bloodstreams are more likely to experience cognitive decline and even develop Alzheimer’s Disease. When I say cognitive issues, it is not all aspects of brain function. The declines associated with vitamin D deficiency are focused on episodic memory loss and deterioration of executive function. Researchers from University of California, Davis and Rutgers University studied 382 adults whose average age was 75.5 years old. These adults received cognitive assessments which categorized them as having dementia (17.5%), having mild cognitive impairment (32.7%) or as cognitively normal (49.5%). Vitamin D levels were lowest for those diagnosed with dementia, but there was only very nominal difference in vitamin D levels for those who were mildly impaired and those who were classified as cognitively normal. All of these adults were studied for nearly five years and then assessed again. During that time the magnitudes of decline in episodic memory and executive function were greater in adults who had been diagnosed as vitamin D deficient or vitamin D-insufficient. The investigators found that regardless of their baseline cognitive assessment, their ethnicity or a range of other risk factors, those who had been vitamin D deficient at the beginning of the five year period were at greater risk of developing Alzheimer’s Disease. Scientists continue to study the association between vitamin D levels and dementia. While there are no studies that suggest taking vitamin D supplements can prevent Alzheimer’s, doctors in practice are not waiting. They are prescribing D for their older patients, especially those who are already at low blood levels of the vitamin. We who live in northern regions should be particularly on top of getting enough sun to activate our natural vitamin D, consuming more dairy products and green leafy vegetables and augmenting our diets with vitamin supplements. 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.
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Yesterday, we talked about dealing with stress and melancholy during the holidays. Here are even more tips that you can use to cut down on stress and post-holiday blues while caring for a loved one. Remember, it is okay and understandable to feel down during and after the holidays. But the more you are prepared, the better your holidays may be.
1. It’s okay to say no. When it comes to holidays, if you feel the need to cut down on the amount of gatherings you’ll be able to attend this year – there’s no need to worry. Pace yourself – you’ll have a much better time, especially you tend to feel overwhelmed when running around place to place.
2. Keep gatherings small. You may find that scheduling festivities with smaller groups is much easier to manage as well as much more comfortable for you and your loved one.
3. Communicate. If you plan to host a gathering or go to one, be sure to talk to your loved one about it often so he or she is able to anticipate being social. In addition, talk to your guests beforehand about your loved one’s condition if they haven’t visited in a while.
4. Give yourself and your loved one a break. Realize that it is okay to take time out for yourself as a caregiver. You may find that setting aside a bit of time to relax is just what you need to reduce stress levels. Recognize that your loved one may need some quiet time too.
Last but not least, monitor how you’re feeling as you go through the holidays. If you’re feeling melancholic during festivities because you’re remembering how things were in the past, understand that this is okay and you should let yourself feel them. However, it may be a matter of focusing as much as you can on positivity, your loved ones, your happiness, and the present moment. You can find more these tips at Caregiver.com.

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.
April is what most realtors consider to be the beginning of the "market season." Winter has nearly - I did say nearly - left us, and everyone's houses and yards begin to look like showcases. I have shared a lot of postings in the past about the kind of residential options that may be right for your older parent who is ripe for the move. But the fact a growing trend may be that a lot of older adults may not move or make a transition to new housing.

Have you had this conversation with your older parent, leaving contact information for a residential facility, but they never made the phone call? Or has your older parent confided that they would really be fine with moving, but they want the new home to be just like the present one? Or do they simply state, point blank, that they cannot leave the home where they raised their children, entertained their grandchildren or even said goodbye to their lifelong partner? All of these point to an emotional bond that makes it difficult, or perhaps even impossible, for mom or dad to ever leave their residence.

You are not without options, but remember that it has to be their choice, and patience is important. But try this approach. Offer to make a scrapbook with pictures of all the rooms that can be captioned. You might even include vintage pictures of the same rooms from when the kids were younger or when a holiday was celebrated. A memory book of home is transportable no matter where mom or dad lives. You may even take this up a notch and create a literal home video with mom's or dad's narration to make all the memories and rooms come alive.

And moving experts whom I know suggest exporting your parent's "nest" to a new residence. The nest is the place with all the family photos looking down, or the magazine rack or the most comfortable chair which may be home to the remote control for the TV. Take photos of that spot so that you can take the furniture and the pictures and yes, the remote, to a new residence that will give the feel of home.

There are other strictly financial reasons why your older parent may not move. Mortgage and property tax debt is rising among adults 75 years of age and older. It is their fixed incomes which explain why 75+ year olds have had a higher foreclosure rate in the recession and post-recession era than the 50+ year olds. In fact the foreclosure rate among the 75+ year olds has been 23 times higher in 2011 than it was as recently as 2007. And it no longer is a given that older adults will have "burned their mortgages" before they retire. Add to this what Forbes Magazine has called the "Greatest Financial Crisis for Older Adults" - a lack of retirement savings. The average older adult today has only about $25,000 in their 401-K, hardly enough to move to a senior residence anywhere... let alone one on a golf course.

So, as you speak with your older parent about residential options, be listening for the cues. They may not be willing to move. But even more sobering, they may not be financially able to move from their house. Be sensitive. Ask questions. Make no judgments. Explore all the options ... including intergenerational living accommodations.

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.
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.
The processed food consumption that has been linked to our global epidemic of obesity is also tied to the rising rates of Alzheimer's Disease world-wide. I don't mean to sound the alarm about sugar, but I came across an article recently that tied together a number of facts and trends that we all may have seen. And we all should be very alarmed! As a geriatric care manager, I often work with older adults who have developed medical conditions that reflect a lifetime of poor health and nutrition habits. We see the elevated blood pressure and the obesity that can arise from sedentary lifestyles and poor diet. One of the more common developments we see is the onset of type-2 diabetes resulting from a lifetime of too many sweets that have resulted in what doctors call "insulin resistance," the pancreas' inability to keep producing enough insulin to process the large doses of sugar it confronts. What you may not know is that the brain also produces insulin, and that when faced with a prolonged assault from more sugar than it can process, its ability to produce insulin may falter and then fail. The result is "type-3 diabetes." The research has been piling up. For instance, people who suffer from type-2 diabetes (type-1 is the form that people are either born with or develop as an immune response) have deposits of amyloid-beta in their pancreas. Sound familiar? Yes, amyloid beta deposits in the brain are the signature marker for Alzheimer's Disease. And this also begins to explain why type-2 diabetics are estimated to be anywhere from 50 percent to 100 percent as likely to also develop insulin-resistant Alzheimer's Disease. Now, it is important to point out that type-2 diabetes does not cause Alzheimer's Disease, but type-3 diabetes is caused by the same over-consumption of sweets that causes type-2 diabetes. This may begin to also explain why the rates of the two conditions both have tripled in the United States in the past forty years. This, along with a lot of other inflammatory conditions related to the heart and the circulatory system. You may have thought that the extra care required for the estimated 5.4 million obese Americans with type-2 diabetes was costing us a lot - $150 billion annually? It is estimated that care for that many Alzheimer's patients is even higher at about $200 billion, the reason being in part because the close supervision for the safety of a cognitively-impaired patient is so much higher than for an obese individual. This is probably one of the situations where I don't have to connect the dots for any of you who are caregivers to an older adult...or attending even to your own well-being. My advice can best be summed up with two words: diet, exercise. Ironically, these are considered first line treatment for people who are obese or who have begun showing the signs of type-2 diabetes. Of all the advice I have digitally-shared these many years, this may be the best for a whole host of reasons. Please pass it on. 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.