As part of celebrating the month of May as Aging Life Care Month, we would like help educate our visitors on what it is that Aging Life Care Professionals, also known as Geriatric Care Managers, do to help aging persons and their involved family members to plan for care and solve aging challenges.
Everyone’s needs are different, and care managers know this well. Each senior we work with gets a personalized plan that provides them with the best support for their situation. Zachary and his 3 adult children had a unique situation after Rosie–a wife, mother, and grandmother in their family–passed away. Here’s how adding the resource of a professional care manager benefitted Zachary, and his daughters Flora, Ann, and Bethany.
Rosie’s passing from her illness was sudden. Her daughters had flown in, taking turns caring for her while she was in the hospital. It was a great comfort that they were all together when Rosie passed. After the funeral, they noticed their father struggling with everyday tasks. Zachary needed help remembering to pick up medications at his pharmacy, food shopping, and even walking the dog. He missed Rosie with every fiber, every ounce of his being, and his grief was making it difficult for him to care for himself. The daughters also realized that Rosie had been caring for him and had not told them that his memory was slipping. They were deeply concerned about him.
Having his daughters back home really helped comfort him, but they couldn’t stay for long, having families of their own, or job responsibilities to return to in person. They discussed that they needed to make some decisions with him about his future care. In the meantime, Flora suggested to her father that he stay with her for a bit on her ranch. She hoped the acres of conserved nature, and time with the grandchildren and horses could keep his heart full and bring him peace. It’s true that it felt too hard to stay in the home he built for Rosie, so he agreed to follow Flora states away, with his dog, Champ in tow.
The daughters considered the idea of having Zachary spend time living with each of them and they knew they needed help making the best decision for him. This is when they scheduled an appointment to have a care manager visit with them and discuss options. After talking about Zachary’s mental health and memory issues, it became clear that moving around to all three of them equally would not work for his care. Further discussions led to a decision that he would live with Flora, on the ranch, and they would have regular assistance come in to help with the day-to-day care needs so that Flora could continue her work. He would travel with care assistance to visit each of the other sisters for one month each during the year. They would continue with this plan as long as it continued working for him.
We reached out to professional care manager colleagues in the other locations where he would be visiting to create a team plan to be able to meet his needs wherever he was staying at the time.
It put the family at ease to know that they had professionals involved every step of the way to make sure that they understood all the care options available, and that Zachary is not alone or isolated.
If you or someone in your family are facing aging challenges, please give us a call at 803-215-1019 or email us at info@longtermliaisons.com. We’ll be happy to assist!
