Chicago's Geriatric Care Manager Center of Excellence – Since 1991 • geriatric care ChicagoChicago's Geriatric Care Manager Center of Excellence

Advice from the Perspective of 100
This marks the 100th posting on our blog since its inception October, 2010, and it gave me pause to stop and...
Read more
April 16, 2012
0
0
Are You Getting Older or Better?
With this posting, I am introducing a colleague and guest blogger, Pamela Holtzman, who is a therapist I know...
Read more
January 27, 2012
0
0
Caregiving to Older Workers
It may surprise you to learn that as many as one in five caregivers are lending their help to...
Read more
December 28, 2011
0
0
Making Home Safer for the Holidays
If you will be heading home for any of these seasonal holidays you will find that it can be...
Read more
December 23, 2011
0
0
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...
Read more
December 14, 2011
0
0
Four Things a Geriatric Care Manager Is
It has been over a year since my first posting when I started this blog by talking about why...
Read more
December 8, 2011
0
0
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...
Read more
October 14, 2011
0
0
Four Ways to Fight Dementia
What do hearing aids, exercise, support groups and travel have in common? They all are ways that individuals suffering...
Read more
October 2, 2011
0
0
Illinois’ Long Term Care Scorecard
Illinois long term care has been ranked at about number 24 out of the 50 United States on a...
Read more
September 29, 2011
0
0
Four Tips for Making Long Distance Caregiving Work
With a lot of talk these days about children moving back in with parents and intergenerational homes, it is...
Read more
September 19, 2011
0
0

In the Caregiver's Words

Recent Client Praise

With a lot of talk these days about children moving back in with parents and intergenerational homes, it is easy to overlook the huge growth in “distance caregiving” in America. In 1997 the number of distance caregivers - family who are caring for an older parent in another location – was about 7 million; it has since doubled to an estimated 14 million today. I came across a study on distance caregiving by a nurse oncologist, Polly Mazanec, that addressed a lot of the issues I see as a geriatric care manager with my own clients.

We often get a call from a son or daughter (and yes, it is more often a daughter), because they are concerned about some life issue of an older parent who still resides here where we work. It can be a change for the worse in a chronic medical condition, a sense that the parent is “confused,” a progression of a cancer, a fall or a home security concern. But almost without exception, the distance caregiver clearly sounds stressed. When I talk about “distance,” there is no magical number of miles to be distant, if it is perceived as distance then that becomes stressful. Distance can be measured in miles, but if the caregiver has a strenuous workload or is the sole wage earner in this recession or has family obligations in their own home, the ability to make frequent trips to help mom or dad is limited.

Caring for an older parent from distance is stressful, because there can be a long interval between visits or a most recent visit has shown visible changes in mom or dad or there has been a change in treatment regimen that the distance caregiver does not understand. And the medical change actually can be more stressful for the distance caregiver than for the patient. The stress comes as much from anxiety and guilt than it does from concern for the elder’s well-being, a stress owing to having “not been there to help."

Based on our experience, I offer some suggestions for long distance caregivers:
1. Help with the things that can be done at distance - arrange for meals to be delivered, housekeeping details to be attended, a checkbook balanced, in-home help to be present, or a neighbor to look-in at intervals.
2. Appreciate that being an adult yourself may not release you from the way you related to your parents back when you were a child at home - give yourself permission to help as you can without feeling guilt about not being there.
3. Enlist the help of a local advocate - this can be a nurse clinician at the doctor’s office or a geriatric care manager, but it is helpful to have someone to monitor and manage and then inform you.
4. Acknowledge that hands-on is not the only kind of care; distance caregiving can be a very important part of the village it takes to care for an elder or other person with special needs.
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.
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.
I have really lost track of how many conversations and/or blog postings I have had about Caregiver Stress. As a certified geriatric care manager, we work with families, and a substantial part of my focus is upon the stress of a caregiver trying to both deal with a loved one's eroding health, but also the demands on them from the others who depend on them. I would like to devote a bit of space here to addressing the stress of the aging loved one and how a caregiver can help them to cope with what life throws their way. Retirement is a break from the stressors of a workaday world, to be sure. But as one lives to do what one wishes as a reward from a long career, there comes a time when new stressors emerge. There can be increasing physical challenges from a medical condition that is not going to get better. Many of these conditions like arthritis, cardiovascular or pulmonary issues just get worse with time. As a person becomes less and less able to do the things they used to do to take care of themselves, the stress mounts. Other very common stressors are those that come with needing an elder caregiver, a spouse or partner to help with every day tasks; it takes an increasing toll. With general changes in health status can come a profoundly diminished sense of well-being and just plain depression. So much for the Golden Years. As a caregiver, look for these warning signs of excessive stress in one or both of your older loved ones:
- signs of anxiety, undue worry or outright panic attacks
- irritability or angry outbursts
- sadness, melancholy or lethargy
- indecisiveness or difficulty focusing
- difficulty getting to sleep or staying asleep
- an array of aches, pains or other issues of nonspecific origin
- rashes, breathing problems or other "new" allergies
- drinking or eating too much or too little; or
- an increasing number of prescription or OTC medications on hand.
As a caregiver, you can help by helping your loved one to find a remedy for the stress. There is no absolute way to rid ourselves of all stress at any age, but the key is finding help to cope more effectively with the stress in our lives. For your older loved one, consider:
1. Gently and persistently encouraging your loved one to be more socially engaged with friends, clubs or outings in order to get a break from the stress cycle;
2. Help your loved one to find seek out talk therapy; it is not about getting another prescription nearly as much as "unloading" to a trained therapist;
3. Seeking a physical aid in the form of gentle massage therapy, exercise classes like yoga, relaxation therapy or just getting out for longer walks.
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@creativecasemanagement.com.
I heard a reporter talk about cases of post-traumatic stress disorder growing during this pandemic and quarantine. I admit that I initially scoffed at the idea that our pandemic house arrest could be at all like the front line experiences of a veteran of war, but this week I looked up the definition of PTSD. Without getting overly clinical, PTSD involves:
- Mental and emotional stress as a result of psychological shock,
- Disturbance of normal sleep patterns, and
- Dulled responses to others and the outside world.
As with so many conditions, there are degrees of stress, so I would like you all to take your stress and the stress of others in your orbits seriously and work to dial it back. Stress in the body pushes your sympathetic nervous system to a state of “high alert.” This high alert affects your ability to sleep, your disposition and even your blood pressure. So, take your foot off the pedal with your own calming methods or try one of these that are available online:
- The Anxiety Toolkit – provides a range of relaxation techniques in a downloadable app, motivational messages and even a change to “ask an expert” any questions you may have.
- UCLA also offers applications with a “mindfulness meditations” application as well as weekly podcasts.
- A division of the American Psychological Association, covers a range of apps for stressed or traumatized individuals as well as those simply looking to enhance their own mental and physical wellness.
- Twenty Minutes and one second - is all this downloadable audio file takes to work with your breathing to relax you. It is greatly helped by a background sound, so headphones or ear buds are recommended.
Relieving stress is not a one and done, so allow yourself to experiment with what works best for you. We all will get through this with a bit more wellness. Please email (info@creativecaremanagement.com) me with any questions on any of these…as well as how to take the next steps which is your plan. Do yourself a favor…don’t wait. 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.
Nearly two in three adults report they use some sort of social media, up nearly tenfold just over the past 10 years. While younger adult consumers are a large part of this boom, adults 65 years and older have been skyrocketing in their usage going from only 2% on social media a decade ago to more than 35% today. So, the odds that your mother or grandmother may be tagging you on Facebook are getting higher every week. So also the odds that your mom or dad and grandmother or grandfather may be scammed on-line are growing just as rapidly. If you are a caregiver to an older loved one, help them to avoid these “phive” phishing scams that disproportionately target older adults:
1. Click to the Stars: It used to be the checkout line at the grocery stores that gave everyone a titillating tale of Hollywood stars’ “real stories.” Now the stories pop up on a whole host of places that your older loved one may visit through social media. Encourage them to only click on links they know…and appreciate that many of the scams that are trying to gain access to an unsuspecting visitor’s computer may look like a brand name people trust.
2. A Quick Survey: It may be just a few questions as part of a “national survey,” maybe even with the promise of an honorarium or entering the respondent into a drawing, but it also could be an effort to gain important information about income or financial resources as the sponsors mine your older loved one to see what they are worth in order to target them later.
3. Streaming Cheap: It is only a free trial that you can discontinue any time in order to get access to a movie still in the theaters or a vintage film that your older loved one enjoyed in their early years. But your loved one is stuck with a charge that may kick-in after the free trial period is over and they have forgotten to put a stop on their “purchase.”
4. Coupons and Promos: Here again is a chance for cyber crooks to get the credit card information of an older social media surfer as they get what seems to be a really good deal on consumer goods. But if the hosts of the offer keep the credit card information for their own use later, mom or dad has been scammed.
5. Deceiving Looks: It may seem like the brand name site, but maybe an extra letter is in the name or the logo only looks real. Or in the case of a Twitter offer, maybe it is not the name of the company at all, because it is easy to not read correctly when all the letters of a corporate name are jammed together without spaces in a hashtag address.
And the list can go on … because the Phishers continue to be very creative folks. 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.
Full Name:*
[text* fullname 75/ id:Full_Name]
Phone Number:
[text phones 75/ id:Phone_Number]
Email:*
[email* emailc 75/ id:Email]
Your Question:
[text question 75/ id:question]
Type the Characters Shown:*

[captchar captcha-220 class:contact-input]
[captchac captcha-220 class:contact-image size:m]

[submit class:ccm-send-btn1 "Get In Touch"]

Personally committed to you and your loved one's well being.

1 New contact form submission received from CreativeCareManagement.com - Caregiver Advice on Bad Medicine [fullname] <[emailc]> info@creativecasemanagement.com, lynda@llvirtual.com From: [fullname] <[emailc]> Phone: [phones] Message Body: [question] -- This email was sent via the contact form on the Creative Care Management website, http://www.CreativeCareManagement.com. Your message was sent successfully. Thanks. Failed to send your message. Please try later or contact the administrator by another method. Validation errors occurred. Please confirm the fields and submit it again. Failed to send your message. Please try later or contact the administrator by another method. Please accept the terms to proceed. Please fill the required field. The field is too long. The field is too short. Date format seems invalid. This date is too early. This date is too late. Failed to upload file. This file type is not allowed. This file is too large. Failed to upload file. Error occurred. Number format seems invalid. This number is too small. This number is too large. Your answer is not correct. Your entered code is incorrect. Email address seems invalid. URL seems invalid. Telephone number seems invalid.