A Geriatric Care Manager helps you provide the best care for your older relative, your family and you. Balancing compassion with knowledge and critical thinking with advocacy, are an important resource to care for your loved one.
Care Managers act as advocates, liaison between physicians, establish plans of care and provide clear options for critical decision making and help families handle the stress and responsibility of caregiving.
Services
They can help by:
- Acting as an advocate for your senior loved one in receiving care
- Fully understand the overall care plan and prognosis of a senior’s aging years
- Negotiating with care facilities or senior communities to assure it is the best fit for a senior loved one
- Counseling with family members to have better flow of communication and gain consensus
- Coordinating care services of Respite care, home caregiving, and home health
- Working with Hospital discharge planners on next steps upon release from the hospital or rehab center.
- Being a liaison and support for families who live at a distance
Specialization
Geriatric Care Managers ensure that your senior loved one is getting the best care in a safe environment that fits their basic need. They have specialized understanding of eldercare, and can help pave a complicated road for families to provide clear options for critical decision-making.
Preparation
Before contacting a Geriatric Care Manager, understand that their role is to act and advise in the best interest of a senior. If you are acting on their behalf, you must have a Durable Power of Attorney and/or Healthcare Directive to be able to make major decisions for them, should they be unable to make them on their own.
Evaluation
Geriatric Care Managers should follow the National Association of Professional Geriatric Care Manager’s Standards of Practice and Code of Ethics. As a result, make sure that they are a NAPGCM member. Questions you should ask are:
- How long have you been providing care management services?
- Are you available for emergencies?
- Does your company also provide home care services?
- How do you communicate information?
- What are your fees? (These should be provided to the consumer/responsible party in writing prior to services starting).
- Can you provide me with references?
- What are the primary services provided by your agency/business?
- How many Geriatric Care Managers are in your agency/business?
- Is there a fee for the initial consultation and, if so, how much?
- What are your professional credentials?
- Are you licensed in your profession?
- Are you a member of the National Association of Professional Geriatric Care Managers?
Geriatric Care Management Radio Show Segments
- Medical Emergencies: How Life Care Professionals Help
Everyone wants to plan ahead. Sometimes you have a parent trying to prevent a crisis, but if something happens, you want to be prepared. Though life care professionals like to help people prevent a crisis, helping families navigate a crisis is the nature of their work. Lisa Mayfield, CEO and founder of Aging Wisdom, joins Suzanne to talk about how life care professionals help.
Lisa says, “I think the first thing is knowing that there are people like us. And even though we love to help people prevent crisis, crisis is really the nature of our work. So that’s what we’re doing, day in and day out, is helping families navigate these situations and they’re typically a fall. A parent falls, they end up in the hospital because they broke a hip. So families are needing help: how do I navigate the hospital? Hospital stays are so much more confusing these days. You might never see the doctor, the discharge planner is a different one every day… You don’t know what to ask. You don’t know who to ask… They’ll make recommendations but they don’t explain what it means. So, helping families navigate that whole hospital stay. But then also helping them figure out what happens next, if rehab is recommended. Why would that be a good thing? Why would you do it? How do you find one? What will happen then? And how much will your insurance pay?”
Lisa adds, “I’m working with a wife right now whose husband had just landed in the hospital. He’s now in rehab. She really wants him to come home. He’s not yet walking again after a significant fall, where he hit his head on the floor. At [home], they have a lot of stairs to navigate. So, is that going to be realistic? And if you really want to make that work, what are we gonna need to do to the home to get [him] more help? So [we’re] helping her navigate those options and those difficult decisions. Because if you’re at a point where your spouse or partner can’t come home, that’s devastating and heartbreaking, and the adult children might not agree. This is a family where there’s stepchildren. Then you’re dealing with stepchildren and the current wife, and they might be at odds at what should happen. So [we’re] helping families really make tough choices and navigate when they’re not on the same page.”
Aging Life Care Association
Aging Wisdom website
More podcasts with Lisa MayfieldCheck out our affiliate podcast Alzheimer’s Speaks
- Five Signs That Mom or Dad Needs Help
Family members may spot changes in how a senior loved one starts behaving. Some are natural for age progression, while others could mean that they might need medical care or assistance. Aging life care professional Lisa Mayfield, CEO and founder of Aging Wisdom, joins Suzanne to list some of the top signs of uncharacteristic behaviors to keep in kind when visiting senior loved ones.
1) Changes in mail management: You’ll see mail start piling up on the table. “When your memory is changing, you can’t look through mail and [tell junk mail from] the electric bill. So the mail just piles up. They may not be paying their bills, they may be behind in their credit card or their electricity.”
2) Changes in appearance. “Maybe your mom was just meticulously dressed all the time. Always had her lipstick on. Her hair was perfect. And you’re just starting to notice that she’s wearing that same shirt each time you visit, it’s starting to have stains on it. Maybe her hair just isn’t quite as nice as it used to be.”
3) Repeating stories. Mom becomes confused about appointments, and starts repeating questions she asked two minutes ago.
4) Forgetting to take medication. “You’re noticing that they aren’t taking their medications, their pill bottles haven’t changed. You’re just noticing confusion with medications.”
5) Changes in initiative. “There’s lack of initiative when people’s memory is changing. People just end up not doing much. You’ll find your dad sitting on his recliner hour after hour and he seems perfectly content, where he used to be out playing with the car, mowing the grass, or playing golf.”
For more signs that your parent may need help, get the resource guide at https://agingwisdom.com/
Aging Life Care Association
Aging Wisdom website
More podcasts with Lisa MayfieldCheck out our affiliate podcast Alzheimer’s Speaks.
- Planning for Aging, Then Getting a Diagnosis
Lisa Mayfield, CEO and founder of Aging Wisdom, joins Suzanne to talk about how aging life care professionals consult with individuals and families who are navigating changes in health and memory.
Lisa says, “The main thing we’re doing with people that are planning ahead is teaching them the lay of the land. What does it look like if you stay at home, what’s available? What do those resources look like? What does it cost? Where do you find those people? And then if you were to move, what’s assisted living, what’s memory care? What’s a continuing care retirement community? Helping people understand here are all your options. Here’s how they’re different. Here’s why you might pick one or the other. And then, most importantly, being able to strategize with people based on their own situation, which typically relates to their finances. What financial resources does this couple have for their future planning? And based on that, we can help them create plans that are realistic and sustainable financially.”
Lisa adds, “I met with this couple 10 years ago, and they were 70 at the time. They had just retired and they were wanting to meet with me, asking: what should we be thinking about? At that point in time, the most important priority was getting their legal documents together, making sure they’ve done their power of attorney documents, and their advance directives. So they felt better. We made that connection. I heard from them five years later, and that point it was more, ‘Okay, we know we want to stay home, but let’s tour some retirement communities just so we see what they’re like.’ And so I identified a few and they toured, and they went on their way saying, ‘We feel better. We’ve done some planning.’
“I just heard from them recently, and they’re now 80. The husband was just diagnosed with dementia. So this story is helpful, because they were planning, they’ve been planning for 10 years. They had this relationship with me. So when that sort of change had happened, they knew who to call. We had a relationship, they could connect. Now it was much more real: what do we do now with this diagnosis? … And really the big question is, do they want to stay at home or do they want to think about moving?”
Aging Life Care Association
Aging Wisdom website
More podcasts with Lisa MayfieldCheck out our affiliate podcast Alzheimer’s Speaks
- Aging Life Care Advocates For Struggling Seniors
Geriatric care managers are essential advocates for navigating the path for senior loved ones with medical or mobility challenges. A geriatric care manager or aging life care professional consults with individuals and families who are navigating changes in health and memory. People are doing this work across the country to help navigate the complicated, overwhelming, confusing system that is long term care choices and memory changes, and what do people do while amid these changes. Lisa Mayfield, CEO and founder of Aging Wisdom, joins Suzanne to talk about how these consultants advocate for loved ones during these crossroads and transitions.
Suzanne says, “When I was navigating that world as a daughter, way back when, I listened a lot to my mom about what she wanted. And although there was a little voice in the back of my head saying this is probably not the right fit, I didn’t have the toolbox to be able to guide her. So what ended up happening, I ended up moving my mother four times. And that is heartbreaking, because had I made the right decision in advance, she would have not had to move. I didn’t know what I didn’t know, and had I hired somebody like you, I can imagine my world would have been so much easier for on me as well as on her.”
Lisa Mayfield says, “Once we’re hired by the family to be their advocate, we’re looking out for your best interest. Geriatric care managers are part of a professional association. We’re certified, many are licensed and have master’s degrees. We have a code of ethics, and so we don’t take referral fees. So what that means is: when we’re making recommendations to families, we’re not getting anything back for making those referrals. We’re not selling anything. And so we can really be an unbiased person to make recommendations, which I think is really important, that’s hard to find in this industry as a neutral person to help you navigate.”
Aging Life Care Association
Aging Wisdom website
More podcasts with Lisa MayfieldCheck out our affiliate podcast Alzheimer’s Speaks
- Dementia and Family Conflicts, with Lisa Mayfield
Lisa Mayfield, founder and geriatric care manager of Aging Wisdom, talks about facing family dynamics and conflicts. Even in families where all have tight relationships, an aging parent can bring out conflicts. Challenging and subtle symptoms of dementia mean that our loved ones lose insight in the ways that the disease is affecting them.
- Sue Stults, author of “Reaching Beyond the Rail”
Sue Stults is the author of “Reaching Beyond the Rail: The Blood, Sweat and Tears of Caring for Mom and Dad” and founder of Compelled by Compassion. It is a challenge to care for an ailing or aging parent, and there are similar overwhelming things that we all walk through. With so many things to learn, she brings encouragement and tools to help caregivers. She’s seen families pull together and others separate from the family dynamics.
- What is Care Management? with Stephanie Cameron
Stephanie Cameron, RN, CCM, CAPS and founder of Transitions Care Management, answers the question “What is Care Management?”
