One never knows…. Who will make decisions for you if you cannot make them for yourself? How will they make those decisions? Would they make the decisions that you would have made if you had the chance? If your parent or spouse were to become unable to make decisions for themselves, would you be legally [read more…]
Planning
Hospital Discharge in 2009: What Families Need to Know
If you have a relative about to go into or be discharged from hospital, you should know that the experience is much different today from the way it used to be. Whereas care used to be mostly physician directed, today much of the decision making and planning, including discharge, are done mostly by a medical [read more…]
Advanced Care Planning
In our last newsletter, we focused on Degrees/Level of Intervention. This month we take a step back to talk about Advanced Care Planning in general. Why should you do advanced care planing? Because if you don’t, and you become unable to make decisions on your own due to a physical or cognitive impairment, someone else [read more…]
Preparing for Moves
by Susan Borax While most seniors want to remain independent in their homes, there comes a time when this may no longer be possible. Moving is considered to be the third most stressful life event after divorce and changing jobs. Downsizing a lifetime’s collection of documents, possessions and their associated memories, can be particularly wrenching [read more…]
In An Emergency: Are You Prepared?
It only takes a moment for something go wrong, and only a moment to learn that something has happened. If you need to take quick action to get your loved one or client to a hospital, are you–and are they–prepared? In an emergency, with your adrenalin going, and the need for speed, it can be [read more…]
Financial Risk and Vulnerability of Seniors
85 year old Miss X was contact by a man claiming to be from her bank. He asked for her help in catching someone who was trying to defraud the bank. Miss X agreed to meet him and gave him $3,000. Her niece contacted us shortly thereafter. Mrs. Y lives in a nursing home. She [read more…]
Checklist For Care
Caregivers and professionals often focus on “large picture” issues such as housing and increasing dementia. Other issues often end up with lower priority due to a lack of time or knowledge, or burnout. Yet these are the ones that often bring on those larger picture issues or distort what is really going on. It is [read more…]
