Tag Archive for: Home Instead

‘The Talk’ With Mom and Dad -Wall Street Journal reports!!!

This is another great article by the Wall Street Journal’s Sue Shellenbarger (see below)!!!  The business approach is absolutely a great way to get everyone involved and really make the decisions together! We find that with technologies, this is often a great way to approach the situation as well. When we have a family that is considering installing the GrandCare technology (sometimes, the family members say if a Loved One agrees to adopt some sort of remote wellness technology like GrandCare, they will have the assurance and peace of mind to let them stay at home). If a Loved One is engaged and part of that process, it can be a very connected and family-oriented solution! Of course, as the author mentions – if a Loved One is incapable of making this decision (dementia or other mental troubles) that would change the decision process altogether. Often times, I think there is no ONE correct solution, instead there are many puzzle pieces that fit together to provide the perfect in-home solution.  With the new technologies out there, it has added a new “step” into the continuum of care. The new phase can be thought of as enabling technologies. GrandCare, like many others, absolutely requires a human caregiver in order to properly function. Much like a baby monitor, if nobody is on the other end, it really does no good.

GrandCare technology is a tool designed to help caregivers make better informed decisions, connect with their loved ones (by video chatting, sending pictures, videos, music, games, trivia, etc.), and have “peace of mind” that a loved one is safe, happy and healthy at home. I believe that there are many times when an in-home care provider and some type of monitoring technology like GrandCare can be a perfect synergy. GrandCare does not have panning cameras, but instead acts like a customized security system (complete with motion, indoor temperature, lighting, caller-id, door sensors while combining telewellness such as blood pressure, weight, pulseox, glucose, medication dispensers).  There is obviously no one size fits all, but that’s where the customization plays such a huge role! It’s exciting that there are so many options out there – and people can choose exactly what fits their needs.

‘The Talk’ With Mom and Dad

When the time came for Kathy Peel’s mother and father to consider moving into an assisted-living facility, Ms. Peel tried reasoning with them, citing examples of friends who were happy they had made the move.

 

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Morris and Kathryn Weeks helped write a ‘strategic plan’ before deciding to move to a senior-living community in Memphis.

When that didn’t work, she took a business approach. Ms. Peel and her husband Bill convened a conference at her parents’ kitchen table in Memphis and helped them write a three-page “strategic plan.” Her parents, Morris and Kathryn Weeks —both retired businesspeople in their late 80s—joined in, talking about their goals and helping list dozens of pros and cons to staying in their home.

Among the pros the family agreed on were the Weeks’ “positive attitude” and desire to share care for each other. But the cons loomed large, including the fact that no family members lived nearby to provide emergency care in a crisis. Ms. Peel had been forced to make 10 trips to Memphis from her home in Dallas in 2009 to help her parents with health problems, from her mother’s heart ailment to her father’s failure to notice her bout with dehydration. Ms. Peel printed the plan, and after mulling it for a few weeks, the Weeks agreed to move to a senior-living community in Memphis.

It’s an agonizing discussion for adult children: whether elderly parents can no longer live on their own. Some 42% of adults between ages 45 and 65 cite the topic as the most difficult one to discuss with their parents, according to a 2006 survey of 1,000 people by Home Instead Inc., an Omaha, Neb., provider of in-home care. And 31% said their biggest communication obstacle is getting stuck in the parent-child roles of the past.

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Join our 3-31-11 Webinar- The 50/50 Rule: Solving Family Conflict

We invite you to join in GrandCare’s aging/technology industry webinars. All are welcome to join us!
Date: Thursday March 31st 2011
Time: 2pm EST (11am PST)
Room: Go to http://grandcaresystems.webex.com
If you would like to call in but you do not have access to a computer, call: 1-408-600-3600 access code: 668 422 850

NOTE: If you are new to using Webex and you have questions, please contact us at info@grandcare.com. Some of the initial kinks have been fixed, so please try again. You may opt to ONLY dial in (number listed above) We appreciate your patience!

Topic Description: The 50/50 Rule: Solving Family Conflict

This webinar is designed to help adult siblings and their aging parents deal with those sensitive situations that ariseamong brothers and sisters as their parents age and need assistance. Our speaker will cover a variety of sibling caregiving topics such as: How do you divide workload with your sister? What’s the best way to build teamworkwith your brothers? How can you reach agreement as a family on important topics to avoid family conflict?

About our speaker: Cathy Majkowski from Home Instead

Cathy Majkowski is the Community service Representative for Home Instead, where sheprides herself in being called a senior care advocate. Her first association with working with seniors was her small business “Catherine Tours- Motorcoach rours for Seniors”.Beyond her work with Home Instead, she serves on Board of Directors for the West Bend Senior Center,she was a founding  member of the Caregiver Coalation in Ozaukee County, and she serves on the planning committee for Ozaukee County Senior Conference and the the Washington County Aging Concerns Network Group.Cathy is an amazign community partner in West Bend, Wisconsin, where she resides with her husband, Rick and 2 children.Her passion for seniors and families is sure to come through as she shares what families need to be successful and independent.

Webinar Objectives:

Webinar Objectives- Get ideas on how to work through family conflict

– How to ease the caregiver/family into technology conversation

– Opening the doors to communication in a complicated family situation

Live from the NAPGCM – Geriatric Care Manager Conference

Well here we are in New Mexico at the National Geriatric Care Manager Conference NAPGCM.  It’s been a great show for us so far.  Not too many attendees – around 250, but they are all definitely interested in using technology for their clients – which is a great shift that we are seeing and very encouraging.  We are pairing them together with our local dealers in their area (our dealers will take care of pricing, installation, tech support, etc).  They will help our dealers to determine the care plan assessment for the clients and in turn, our dealers will help them to set up rules, train the families on how to add communications, how to view the data and provide all customer and technical assistance.  It’s a match made in heaven!

It’s just so invigorating to be witnessing the shift to a genuine belief and acceptance and even excitement about the possibilities of this sort of technology.
The thing about the group of these people, they are genuinely passionate and care about what they do.  You hardly could not be.  Being a GCM, you have to love people, care about them and want to help!  It’s wonderful chatting with them, we were fortunate enough to go upstairs to a social event put on by Senior Bridge and got to socialize with many of them.  We discussed the potential opportunities for working together, things are looking great!

Tomorrow is the last day of the show, we have distributed close to 200 flyers, which means many of them took one.  I have collected a handful of business cards that want to be paired with dealers immediately.  Many more took my information to contact me about getting paired together!!

We have gotten a nice opportunity to meet some of the other vendors at the show – many are old friends!!  Home Instead is right next to us, our friends VRI,  CloseBy Network is also here, Phillips Lifeline, ElderCare Channel (very cool new concept – just launched), etc!!

Things are looking good and the weather (I hear) in New Mexico is great – – soon I’ll have to put work away and go outside to enjoy some of it 🙂