May ENews
Elder Caring’s May 2014 Newsletter:
I recently attended the annual conference of the National Association of Professional Geriatric Care Managers which took place in Nashville. As you may know, Geriatric Care Management in the States is well understood, however I realize that in Canada, there are many individuals who don’t fully understand the benefits a Geriatric Care Manager can provide. (www.caremanager.org) In a nutshell:
Eleven Reasons to Hire a Professional Geriatric Care Manager
We are professionals who have the knowledge, training, and experience to do what you are trying to do without it.
We can do in 2 hours what it would take you 2 weeks to do.
We know how to get around that “I’m saving for a rainy day” syndrome, when your folks are drowning in their problems.
We’re much cheaper than the cost of plane fare if you have to fly into town when your parents say “everything is fine” but you know it isn’t.
We can provide advise on which nursing/retirement residence is right for your parents.
We can make your parents hear what you have said over and over again, but they refuse to listen because to them, you are still a child.
We can tell your annoying sibling to keep quiet, but graciously.
We’ve helped families a lot worse than yours.
Your dad can’t push our buttons.
Next time you want to hang up on your mother, you can tell her to call us.
We’re available, so you don’t have to be.
( Adapted from “Inside GCM,” Winter, 2005, Phyllis Brostoff)
Our goal is to ensure that the older individual is living as well and as safely as they possibly can. Aging is serious business and we are here to help!
Elder Caring’s work to better serve the needs of seniors and their families, is not all altruistic. I have aging family members and I am getting older as well. Appreciating our demographics has direct implications for policy development and how seniors are served and treated. Keeping a macro perspective so that at a micro level, we can get the assistance we need, is critical. I attended the Conference Board of Canada’s Council on Healthy Aging. It was a 2 day working group session on The Importance of Financial Care for Canadians. I learned about the Advance Care Planning policies that have been implemented by the Province of Alberta and I shared the wonderful work they are doing on my blog. This is one example of a pro active Province taking a lead role.
I also attended a stakeholders working group presented by the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA). This is a 20 year study following 50,000 Cdns from ages 45-85. The research data will provide very important information that will shape our policies from health care, to social policies and everything in between! This was shared in last week’s allaboutestates.ca blog. Again I encourage to keep abreast of these important events and I am happy to share them with you.
Other news:
The joint venture with Mosaic Home Care Services (www.mosaichomecare.com) is moving along very well. We have just secured our trademark names for our two new offerings and I will keep you posted! For those of you who know Jane Teasdale, she is one busy lady and she is keeping me hopping! We attended the Palliative Care conference together as well as an event at Armour Heights Church. We will have a display table at the North York General Health Event as well as the OACCAC conference on June 9/10th. I have a few presentations coming up in June with Blakely Wealth Management and with RBC Dominion Securities. Wealth, health and planning ahead continue to be key topics. I would like to highlight the wide selection of videos that are available at http://eldercaring.ca/video-channels/advice-channel/. Topics range from preventing caregiver burnout to understanding how to hire a personal support worker. These information videos can be accessed by anyone at anytime.
Thanks for reading and I look forward to staying connected with you- as your Partner in Healthy Aging. Please follow on me on Tweeter @eldercareexpert.
-Audrey
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