In this issue, Ron talks about how to make sure your loved one doesn’t broadcast the fact that they are a vulnerable adult if they are out with a caregiver. Please watch the video below:

A Brief Message From Ron Goldman

Other Articles of Interest:

Path Is Found for the Spread of Alzheimer’s
Alzheimer’s disease seems to spread like an infection from brain cell to brain cell, two new studies in mice have found. But instead of viruses or bacteria, what is being spread is a distorted protein known as tau.

Read the full article…

A Conversation Many Doctors Won’t Have
At Home and Hospice Care of Rhode Island, where she’s a medical director, Dr. Joan Teno has grown accustomed to patients being admitted with no clear understanding of their condition or prognosis. “The oncologist has told them, ‘It’s time to take a holiday from chemo,’” she said. “It’s a way not to have a conversation he or she finds hard to do.”

Read the full article…

In this issue, Ron talks about the value of having an objective observer and advocate for your family. Please watch the video below:

A Brief Message From Ron Goldman

Other Articles of Interest:

How to Deal With Caregiver Burnout
If you or someone you know is providing care for a loved one, this article will explain why it’s so important to make sure your loved one is not the only person who receives proper care.

Read the full article…

Choosing the Best Facility
If you’re in the process of searching for the best care facility for someone you love, make sure you don’t fall into this trap. You won’t get the best placement, if the company you use for information gets kick backs from facilities.

Read the full article…

In this issue, Ron answers two frequently asked questions about geriatric care management. You can read his answers below or listen to his answers in audio form at the bottom of each section.

A Brief Message From Ron Goldman

What Is a Geriatric Care Manager?

Lots of people ask me what is a Geriatric Care Manager and what do we do. A Geriatric Care Manager is somebody who can advocate for your loved one when you’re not available and can do anything that you would do for your parents if you lived right next door. We provide all kinds of services that include daily bill paying, continuity of care with doctors, dealing with insurance companies, benefits planning, and power of attorney, really anything that would be necessary to make sure that our clients are being looked after from their perspective. What is in their best interest? Whether that is what medications they are taking, what sorts of tests their doctors are ordering, what types of treatments are being used? Are they getting their full benefits from the VA? Are they safe in their home? If they end up in the emergency room in the middle of the night, who shows up? Making sure that people throughout the community are on the up-and-up in dealing with your loved ones in an honest and honorable way.

We take care of our clients the way we want our parents to be taken care of.

Thanks for the question and if you have any other questions or want to talk further, we’d be happy to talk to you. Just go ahead and give us a call.

What’s the Difference Between a Geriatric Care Management Agency and Non-Medical Home Care Agencies?

So the question comes up often about what’s the difference between a Geriatric Care Management Agency and these non-medical home care agencies. To a lot of people, it sounds like that they provide the same types of services. The reality is that a lot of times these non-medical home care agencies are run by people who really don’t have any social services background at all. Their main objective is to supply support to people in their homes in a way that makes them dependent. Our goal is to keep people as independent as safely possible with the minimum amount of support necessary to ensure our clients safety and well-being.

I think that it’s important for people to realize that the people that are helping to advocate for their family and loved ones needs to have critical thinking skills that you don’t often find in a lot of the non-medical home care agencies. A new trend is a certification called a “CSA” a “Certified Senior Advisor”. This is a new certification that’s been created to generate a sense of credibility. It is an on-line course where you read seventeen chapters of material, take a test and become a Certified Senior Advisor. There’s a huge difference between that and someone who has a graduate degree or a professional certification either from the National Association of Social Workers or the National Association of Professional Geriatric Care Managers. I think it’s invaluable to have somebody who is looking out for your loved ones or yourself even, that really looks at the whole system, looks at the whole situation and can really make critical decisions on your behalf.

One thing that we are really proud of is that we are a team of professionals with applicable experience and education who strive to take good care of people. You’ll find in other non-medical home care agencies they tend to be run by business people who really don’t have any social services background. Taking care of people is about social services. It’s about people and that is one thing that we can say that we excel at.

From AARP:

For eight years, Thomas Smallwood got around relatively well for a man with no legs. Poor circulation had led Smallwood, 63 at the time, to a difficult choice: his legs or his life. He chose the latter. You don’t need legs to be a man, he thought. The man makes the legs.

Or in his case, the arms. Until age 71, Smallwood used his arms to amble around his home. But the stairs — five to the front door, 13 once inside — were the problem. “I had to go up the steps on my nubs,” says Smallwood. “If I wanted to go outside, somebody had to carry me out.”

Read the rest of the article.

From AARP:

Their answers will give you a clearer picture of how your parents are faring and will help you assess their needs.

Their Home

-Is your home still appropriate for you now that you’re getting older?

-Can you manage the stairs, or would you do better on one level?

-Does your home have any safety hazards?

-Could simple modifications to your home make it more convenient?

-Should you think about living somewhere else?

Read the rest of the article.

From the NEW YORK TIMES:

When I got up, Mom was already awake. I could hear her rummaging in the kitchen. Through the glass doors in the living room, sunlight flared so brightly off the hillocks of snow that I had to shield my eyes.

It was my birthday, and I was afraid.

What if my husband had neglected to take Mom shopping for a card? Once Mom found out it was my birthday, she would be devastated that she had forgotten and had nothing to give me. Little matter that she has dementia and can’t remember what we did two hours ago. Birthdays are a big deal to Mom.

Birthdays are not a big deal to me. I hate growing older. I don’t mind if Mom forgets my birthday as long as she still remembers me. That someday she might not recognize me has been my biggest fear ever since Mom got dementia. I can’t imagine anything more devastating than being forgotten by your own mother.

Read the rest of the article.

From WASHINGTONIAN.COM:

Like many young adults, I couldn’t remember ever being in a nursing home. I couldn’t even name one in my area. But there I was standing over my father as he lay in a hospital bed, trying to make a decision about who could best take care of him.

An elderly parent’s health problems can be as predictable as aging itself, but sometimes health emergencies take us by surprise and we’re forced to make hard decisions about a loved one’s care quickly and without much information.

Three years ago, my father had a benign brain tumor. Two weeks after a biopsy–a simple procedure that required a one-night hospital stay–he got an infection from the surgery, which caused his brain to swell to the point where doctors had to remove part of his skull. He spent months in the hospital, rehab, and a skilled-nursing facility before he was ready to go home.

Read the rest of the article.

From the NEW YORK TIMES:

During one especially dicey period with my mother, then in an assisted living facility, my brother and I hired a geriatric care manager, first for a consultation and then for additional help at an hourly rate. It felt like such an extravagance, given that we weren’t rolling in money, but the care manager helped solve a series of complex problems that I doubt I’d have solved by myself, mostly involving brokering a compromise with the facility, whose management wouldn’t let me hire a private aide for my mom but could not provide what she needed.

Relations had soured to the point that all I could do was scream at them, which was making a bad situation worse, so having an advocate was a blessing. Also, the care manager, who visited regularly with my mother, often was privy to concerns she was keeping from me, and she was always there for me by telephone, which was a lifesaver.

Read the rest of the article.

From USATODAY.COM

“Dad, you shouldn’t be driving anymore.”
” I haven’t hit anyone yet!”

“You ran over Mrs. Peabody’s cherry tree.”

“That tree was half dead anyway,” Dad growls. “And so is Mrs. Peabody!”

Are you dreading a conversation like this over the holidays? It’s that time of year when we are confronted with signs of aging in our parents that are not evident in long-distance phone conversations. One friend of mine was shocked to find her father on a ladder stringing Christmas lights despite his heart condition. When she learned he was having chest pains and told him she’d drive him to the hospital, he exploded in rebellion, jumped in his own car and peeled away.

Not long after that Christmas, she got The Call. Her father ran a red light and hit another car. And didn’t remember how it happened.

Read the rest of the article.

From KIPLINGER.COM

A few months before my mom’s 66th birthday, a doctor diagnosed her with Alzheimer’s disease. At that time — November 2008 — she was exhibiting symptoms of the early stages of dementia, such as short-term memory loss.

In July 2009, another doctor confirmed the Alzheimer’s diagnosis and also said she had white-matter disease — another possible contributor to her dementia. By then, she could still handle daily tasks, such as cooking and bathing, and she was still active socially. Yet she didn’t know what day of the week, month or year it was. She couldn’t recite a sequence of three words the doctor had said just a minute earlier. The doctor told her that she should stop driving and that someone else should handle her finances.

Read the rest of the article.