Geriatric Care Management Services

A Geriatric Care Manager helps families to make informed decisions, conducts planning, coordinates and monitors care, makes referrals, and provides advocacy on your behalf.

Geriatric care management is ideal for a spouse, adult children, and others who manage an elder’s needs when they become ill, sustain an injury resulting in compromised health, receive a distressing medical diagnosis which threatens well-being, or lose a spouse or partner who was their caregiver.

Calling on the services of a Geriatric Care Manager becomes especially important when having to deal with an elderly person’s noticeable signs of decline due to dementia, cognitive problems co-existing with mental illness, and physical decline.

Regardless of the circumstances, families may find that they are increasingly stressed or perhaps even in a crisis, and are faced with making choices about senior care and appropriate places to live. Experience has shown that family members or friends attempt to identify appropriate services, but are at a loss as to which services are needed or have the potential to be most beneficial.

A Geriatric Care Manager helps families to explore care options and access the right service for seniors who are living with medical conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, stroke, diabetes, neurological disorders, or symptoms of dementia.

Employing the services of a Geriatric Care Manager is especially important when a family member lives a long distance from the elderly person, and needs someone local to look after their parent(s). Timely assistance and putting the right services in place can support families, and help keep an older adult living at home for as long as possible. In the event that an older adult can no longer live at home, the Geriatric Care Manager accesses elder care services in an alternative senior residential community appropriate to their needs.

Elder care consultation is available when you are faced with making important decisions like supporting a senior’s independence, selecting appropriate community-based programs, or finding an alternative senior residence.

As a Geriatric Care Manager, Gary’s individualized services include the following:

Provide specialized services while protecting an individual’s privacy and confidentiality

Empower an individual to arrive at informed decision-making

Provide information and referral while supporting one’s right to remain in control

Provide information and resources regarding health care programs, senior living-residential options, and community-based services for the elderly

Examples of Service Options:

Aging in Place 

• • Completing home safety assessments
  • Arranging for personal emergency response systems (for example, Lifeline)
  • Obtaining general home maintenance
  • Arranging for home delivered meals/ nutrition services
  • Assisting with bills, mail, Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans Affairs, Social Security or Supplemental Insurance
  • Collaborating with primary care physicians and medical specialists in both outpatient and inpatient settings
  • Arranging for durable medical equipment (DME) to support seniors living at home
  • Communicating with adult children and other family members living afar regarding a parent’s well-being

Community Supports

• • Arranging for transportation
  • Arranging for Adult Day Care or social activities programs
  • Selecting a non-medical home care agency
  • Obtaining skilled home health care including occupational, physical, and speech therapies via physician referral
  • Identifying referrals to elder-care attorneys and certified financial planners
  • Provide adult psychotherapy and family counseling

Moving to Alternative Residences

• • Accessing senior housing such as continuing care retirement community, personal care residence, and assisted living community
  • Helping select skilled nursing facilities and monitoring care
  • Transitioning an older adult from one residential location to another
  • Providing personal interstate escort to another residence
  • Working therapeutically with a person’s resistance to change and support their adjustment

End of Life Planning

• • Provide guidance on Health Care Proxy/Advanced Directives
  • Help with considering an older adult’s perspective, coping and managing feelings, and understanding the concept of “shutting down” that often accompanies the aging process
  • Helping select a hospice care agency
  • Help memorialize a loved one’s life before, during, and after death. Provide assistance with funeral/ burial arrangements and handling sentimental family possessions