Eldercare Illuminated

Host Lenore Tracey speaks with Rebecca Wild-Wesley to explore how aging life care managers (a.k.a. geriatric care managers) help families and individuals get the right services and the best services for their loved ones.

Engaging a care manager can be as brief as a one-time needs assessment or a long-term relationship to manage the complex needs of someone who is frail, ill, or disabled. Another set of eyes and hands, with expertise and connections can make life easier – and better – for the family caregiver and the person receiving care.

Learn more about care managers or find one in your area at the Aging Life Care Association https://www.aginglifecare.org/.

About Our Guest:

Rebecca Wild-Wesley is a former President of the Aging Life Care Association™ New England (ALCANE™). She has over 40 years of experience as a nurse, holds a Master of Arts in Gerontology, and is a Certified Care Manager.

Rebecca realized her long-held goal of providing consultation services to aging families within a
personalized holistic framework when she formed her company, The Aging Space. She left the medical model of eldercare after years of working in home health care and insurance. The Aging Space offers individuals and families help by considering their specific needs and desires and developing a plan. Care managers like Rebecca assess and monitor; plan and problem-solve; educate and advocate; and coach family caregivers — all in service of an aging or ill loved one.

Enjoy this lively conversation with Teepa Snow and learn new ways to think about and work with a loved one with a dementia diagnosis. With the ability to "put your agenda in your back pocket," you can communicate with humor, flexibility, and respect. The result — more success and satisfaction in your caregiving relationships.

Teepa also shares ideas about how to create meaningful activities and help individuals find purpose in life despite the limitations imposed by the progression of the disease.

About Our Guest:

Teepa Snow is an occupational therapist by trade. She founded her company, Positive Approach to Care, in 2005. Today, she is known around the world for her strategies and interaction techniques that are used to improve communication, engagement, and quality of life for people living with brain change. Teepa travels throughout North America and abroad to train professional and family caregivers. She has taught at colleges and universities, from technical to post-doctoral levels. She is much sought after as a presenter and mentor. Find out more about Teepa or her company at https://teepasnow.com.

Contracts may not be your favorite reading material. But if your loved one is moving
to an Assisted Living Facility or a Nursing Home, you need to understand exactly
what you are agreeing to. In this episode, Attorney Christine Boutin shares valuable insights about what these contracts typically contain, what sections you may wish to negotiate, and areas to beware and be wary. Who signs? Who is responsible? And what contract
requirements can you simply reject?

This is a great opportunity to get a close look at some of the details you may be asked to consider when you review such an agreement with or for your loved one.

About Our Guest:

Christine Boutin, Esq. practices law in the state of Massachusetts. She specializes in elder law,
guardianships, and estate planning. An attorney since 1994, Christine is Of Counsel with the firm Levine-Piro Law, PC. She accepts appointments as a guardian ad litem cases alleging neglect of elders and adults with disabilities. She also serves as a guardian, conservator and trustee in cases involving incapacitated persons.

Join this episode of Eldercare Illuminated to hear how this working caregiver and her father are weathering the changes that the last few months have brought. Alison and her siblings were anticipating that driving was about to become a problem for their now 93-year-old father. This and other changes have made it necessary for Alison to spend more time helping out and more time figuring out how to assist in ways that preserve her father’s sense of purpose and independence. Host Lenore Tracey invites Alison to explore how this chapter in her caregiving story is affecting them both.

About Our Guest:

Alison Fox heads Service Operations and Support in her job at Torchlight. It could also be argued that she heads Service Operations and Support as the main caregiver for her family’s aging father. With a great sense of humor and top-notch project management skills, Alison puts her years of experience coordinating client services to excellent use in managing the daily needs of an active nonagenarian.

In this episode of Eldercare Illuminated, host Lenore Tracey speaks with attorney Eric Carlson about the problems that nursing home residents and their caregivers may face — and what to do about them. Nursing homes throughout the country are bound by federal laws that are designed to ensure a person-centered, homelike experience for their residents. As Eric points out, even “good” nursing homes may have practices and procedures that violate federal law. This podcast offers insights and practical assistance to help caregivers advocate effectively for their loved ones' rights as nursing home residents.

About Our Guest:

Eric Carlson is the Directing Attorney at Washington D.C.-based Justice in Aging. Formerly the National Senior Citizens Law Center, since 1972 Justice in Aging has worked for almost 50 years to address the health and economic security needs of older adults with limited resources.

Eric has experience in many forms of long-term services and supports (LTSS), including home and community-based services, nursing facility care, and assisted living facilities. He led Justice in Aging’s extensive research (funded through The Commonwealth Fund) on Medicaid-funded assisted living and currently is leading a project to assist consumer advocacy on Medicaid managed LTSS in Florida and New Jersey. Eric also serves as President of the national Assisted Living Consumer Alliance and is author of the legal treatise Long-Term Care Advocacy (Matthew Bender and Co.).

Download Justice in Aging's Guide: 25 Common Nursing Home Problems and How to Resolve Them (link - http://www.justiceinaging.org/guide-25-common-nursing-home-problems-and-how-to-resolve-them/)

And

Stories from the Field (link - http://www.justiceinaging.org.customers.tigertech.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Stories-from-the-Field.pdf) , a guide for nursing home residents and their loved ones to recognize and address issues that LGBTQ+ individuals may encounter.

Join this episode of Eldercare Illuminated to learn more about hospice — what is on offer for patients and their families. Not just for cancer patients, hospice services can make the end-of-life experience less scary and more comfortable for everyone involved. A hospice team typically includes family members, a hospice physician, hospice nurse, social worker, aides, chaplain, bereavement counselors, and volunteers.

This rich conversation about how hospice works, when it makes sense to involve a hospice team, and what to expect is eye-opening. A better understanding of hospice makes it easier for families to reach out when a loved one is nearing end of life.

About Our Guest:

Beth Rubio, MSW, LICSW is a medical social worker who has worked with seniors and their families for over 30 years. As a hospice social worker, she has extensive knowledge about end-of-life care and the many aspects of both the patient’s and the family’s lives that are enhanced by special attention to social, emotional, spiritual, and medical care. In her day-to-day work, Beth focuses on increasing a sense of wellness, reducing stress, and honoring each individual’s unique life journey.

Beth has an undergraduate degree in psychology from Saint Michael's College and a Masters in Social Work from the Boston College Graduate School of Social Work.

In Season 2, we talked about Aging in Place with the founder of HomesRenewed, which focused on ways to make the built environment work for people who wish to remain in their own homes or apartments and avoid moving into a facility if at all possible.

In this episode, we speak with Dr. Sarah Szanton, one of the founders of the CAPABLE Project (https://nursing.jhu.edu/CAPABLE), which takes the problem of aging in place a step further – addressing both the physical space and the functional limitations of the resident. When you pay attention to both the house and the body, the results can be amazing.

Resources mentioned in this podcast include:

-The CAPABLE Project: https://nursing.jhu.edu/CAPABLE
-Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl (originally published in 1946)

About Our Guest:

Sarah L. Szanton, PhD, ANP, FAAN is the Endowed Professor for Health Equity and Social Justice and Director of the Center for Innovative Care in Aging at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing.

While making house calls to homebound, low-income elderly patients in West Baltimore, Dr. Szanton noticed that her patients’ environmental challenges were often as pressing as their health challenges. As a result of her observations, she and colleagues at Johns Hopkins University developed a program of research on the role that the environment and functional limitations play in the ability of older adults to “age in place” or stay out of a nursing home. The result is the CAPABLE Project - Community Aging in Place—Advancing Better Living for Elders, which combines handyman services with nursing and occupational therapy to improve mobility, reduce disability, and decrease healthcare costs.

Welcome to Season 3 of Eldercare Illuminated, brought to you by Torchlight. Tune in for helpful tips, practical advice, and strategies for caregivers at all stages of helping an aging loved one. Listen to find out what's ahead in the coming months.

Long-Term Care Insurance is the only insurance specifically designed to pay for long-term care - the type of care that many of us can expect to need if we reach old age. Yet not many people know about or understand this type of insurance.

Eldercare Illuminated host Lenore Tracey spends time in this episode talking to Eileen Tell, to explore what’s available, how it works, and whether to consider long-term care insurance for you or your loved one.

About Our Guest:

Eileen J. Tell, MPH is Principal and CEO of ET Consulting, LLC, a woman-owned business focused on long-term care and aging services. Eileen has more than 30 years of experience and industry thought leadership in long-term care. Areas of expertise include policy analysis, market research, product development, and program management and evaluation. Her clients include the State of Washington Department of Social and Health Services, US Department of Health and Human Services, National Council on Aging (NCOA) and others. She is a graduate of Tufts University and has a Masters of Public Health degree from University of Michigan.

Meet a speech therapist whose work with adults keeps the conversation going! In this episode, Eldercare Illuminated host, Lenore Tracey, meets with a speech and language pathologist. These professionals work with individuals whose medical issues have impaired their ability to speak or understand. They also work with patients who have difficulty swallowing due to a stroke, surgery, or other condition, such as Alzheimer’s disease. Listen now to find out why these capacities can become impaired, about the various solutions that can help, and how patients and their families can move forward.

About Our Guest:

Julia Haffer is a Clinical Speech and Language Pathologist, trained at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She works primarily with adult patients in hospitals and rehabilitation facilities on a wide variety of speech, language, and swallowing issues. Originally considering a speech pathology career with children, Julia found that working with adults was a challenging and rewarding opportunity, to which she quickly became committed.