Tag Archives: aging services

Aging Service Provider, Family Caregiver, Senior Care Professionals

How Can We Better Support and Educate Family Caregivers?

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Family CaregiversAccording to estimates from the National Alliance for Caregiving, during the past year, 65.7 million Americans (or 29 percent of the adult U.S. adult population involving 31 percent of all U.S. households) served as family caregivers for an ill or disabled relative.   That is 65.7 million family caregivers who are desperately needing education, training, support and help with finding available resources.  We must do a better job as these numbers are increasing drastically with our aging population.

I am passionate about family caregiving needs.  Why?  Because over 25 years ago, I became a family caregiver myself.  With zero preparation and knowledge, little did I know that for the next 15 years I would be identified as a family caregiver for my aging parents.  But 25 year ago I didn’t identify as a caregiver for my parents.  I was raising my two young children for goodness sake!  I loved and respected my parents dearly so I was just doing what a loving child should do.  Little did I know the emotional, physical and spiritual challenges that comes with caring for an aging parent.  Would I trade  that time?  Absolutely not!  Did it make me a passionate advocate for anyone sharing the journey that I walked?  You bet.

I’m going to be very frank in saying that in the 25+ years that I have personally and professionally been in the family caregiving space, we have made some strides.  Not fast enough to keep up with demands.  We still have lots of work to do to include families to actively and  intentionally include them as part of the care team.

A new study lead by Jo-Ana Chase, assistant professor in the University of Missouri’s Sinclair School of Nursing, interviewed family caregivers of old adults who received home health care after a hospitalization to better understand caregiver’s experience regarding training and support.

She found that most family caregivers receive little formal training, and these caregivers need home health care providers to proactively engage them in planning and decision-making for more effective, coordinated care.

“Caregivers want to know how best to care for their loved ones, but they often feel like they are learning on their own,” Chase says.

As stakeholders across the spectrum of care, we will all see better outcomes by including families as a integral member of the care team.  But we must do so intentionally.  Are we including in our staff training the needs of families?  There are many complex issues that family caregivers face, and if staff do not understand their challenges, then they certainly cannot be expected to help them find solutions.

The weaknesses in our healthcare system have been made abundantly clear with the events of COVID-19.  At the same time, we have many opportunities to take from these lessons and make our organizations better.  This is the time that leaders must take a hard look at how effectively they are training and supporting their staff AND families.  Without both of these working together, we’ll continue to struggle in providing the quality of care that our older adults deserve.

Pam Brandon is President and Founder of AGE-u-cate Training Institute, a global company dedicated to quality aging and dementia care training.   AGE-u-cate’s latest initiative, REVEAL Aging Workforce training includes in all of it’s courses, staff training on the needs of families.  Pam may be reached at pam@AGEucate.com

 

 

Compassionate Touch®, Senior Care Professionals

Touch for Elders is Needed Now More than Ever

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The AGE-u-cate Training Institute supports aging services providers as they respond to the isolation crisis facing their elderly residents and clients.

The title of this article seems counter-intuitive during this time of quarantine.   Touching an unrelated person is not a popular notion right now.  But, caregivers for the frail elderly are becoming more aware of the effects that isolation has on those in their care.

Human contact now consists of gloves, gowns, face shields, and masks.  The frail elderly live in an unfamiliar world.  Also, many do not possess the cognitive ability to make sense of it all.

Family members and friends can’t be with loved ones in elder care communities. The term “skin hunger” was new to me, but now I understand.  Touching others through a hug, holding a hand, a stroke of the arm or shoulder is virtually non-existent these days.

Consider this with the fact that touch deprivation is already a reality for the elderly.  Now we have a bigger problem on our hands.

Touch in Quarantine

The great news is that we can reduce the effects of extreme isolation with expressive touch.  We need not be afraid to offer a back, shoulder, hand, or foot rub to those in our care.

More than ever, touch is essential and life-giving for both caregiver and receiver, especially during this quarantine.  With infection prevention protocols,  we can and should offer touch as a way to ease anxiety, fear, and loneliness.

“The current COVID-19 Pandemic is creating an isolation crisis for the vulnerable elders of our country.  We need the transformative power of human connection and touch now, more than ever,” Pam Brandon, Founder and President of AGE-u-cate Training Institute.

Touching Moments Scholarship

The AGE-u-cate Training Institute is awarding a Compassionate Touch Certified Community training to one Assisted Living, Memory Care, Nursing Home, Home Care, or Hospice Agency in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

That’s 51 organizations that will have a powerful tool to meet the isolation crisis that is happening in elder care nationwide.

The online application process is simple and the form along with more information can be found at  https://ageucate.com/index.php?main_page=touching_moments.

Julie has worked in Aging Services for over 30 years and has been a Licensed Nursing Home Administrator since 1990. She is a Certified Master Trainer with the AGE-u-cate Training Institute. Through her company Enlighten Eldercare,  Julie provides training and educational programs on elder caregiving for family and professional caregivers.  In addition, she is an instructor and the Interim Director of Gerontology at Northern Illinois University and lives in the Chicago Northwest Suburb of Mount Prospect, IL.

Senior Care Professionals

Wake-up Call: Aging Services Workforce Wage Crisis

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We need to examine the value of our long term care system within an ethical framework.

Aging Services providers are screaming from the mountain tops about the workforce crisis– is anyone listening? The workforce crisis is about the inability of aging services providers to fill open positions and the lack of competitive wages, primarily for certified nursing assistants.

How do we square the high level of quality care that most seem to desire for our frail elders with the lack of attention that this issue receives at the national level?

Other industries are also fighting for service workers. This Washington Post article reports that a Chick-fil-A owner in California is planning to pay $18.00 for front line workers. The problem is, nursing assistants in C.A. make, on average, $17.00/hr with the low end at $15.53, according to salary.com. 

The mean hourly wage for a C.N.A. nationally is $14.22, and working in a nursing home or assisted living drops it to $13.73. Given these points, can we, and should we do better than this?

It is simply unrealistic to expect that we can nationally build and maintain an eldercare workforce and not address wages. For this reason, this crisis is worthy of an ethical and philosophical national discussion.

The Value of Excellence in ElderCare

Healthcare reimbursement should reflect the value that our society ascribes to quality eldercare services. To that end, we need a reimbursement methodology that invests in improving wages for front line caregiving.

Chick-fil-A can raise prices to offset higher wages. However, with less than 30% of long-term care consumers paying privately, there is no way for providers to raise pricing enough to offset higher wages. Furthermore, it is not right to balance this problem on the backs of those paying privately. Therefore, with 70% of reimbursements to skilled nursing providers coming from Medicaid/Medicare, the solution largely rests with policy-makers.

We have to seriously discuss the value of quality ElderCare in the United States. Given that a majority of the U.S. Congress being of the baby boom generation, the time is right. With this in mind, the ethical and philosophical questions to examine include:

  • Does our system act in such a way to produce a greater amount of good over harm?
  • Do we maximize utility- the sum of the benefits produced minus the costs (disbenefits)?
  • Do we have a system that we all want for ourselves?
  • Fidelity- have we kept our promise, and are we forsaking the well-being of our elders?
  • Have we assigned an appropriate societal value to the work provided by personal caregivers?

Is this the right place to start?

 

 

Julie has worked in Aging Services for over 30 years and has been a Licensed Nursing Home Administrator since 1990. She is a Certified Master Trainer with the AGE-u-cate Training Institute. Through her company Enlighten Eldercare,  Julie provides training and educational programs on elder caregiving for family and professional caregivers.  In addition, she is an instructor and the Interim Director of Gerontology at Northern Illinois University and lives in the Chicago Northwest Suburb of Mount Prospect, IL.

Faith Community, Family Caregiver, Senior Care Professionals

The Family Caregiving Tsunami is Here. How are We Supporting Them?

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We have a family caregiving tsunami whose tidal waves are affecting every corner of our society.  I venture to say that most communities are not prepared for the domino effects of a fast-aging population let along to provide support to their families that are scrambling to stay above water – emotionally, physically and financially.

November is National Family Caregivers Month.  Spearheaded by the Caregiver Action Network, the theme is Caregiving Around the Clock.  

As I travel abroad, I certainly see first hand that the challenges in the US are felt around the globe as this age-wave takes hold.  Public institutions are already stretched to serve current needs and despite the growth of

Let’s look at a few staggering US statistics compiled by the Family Caregiver Alliance:

  • Approximately 43.5 million caregivers have provided unpaid care to an adult or child in the last 12 months. [National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP. (2015). Caregiving in the U.S.]
  • About 34.2 million Americans have provided unpaid care to an adult age 50 or older in the last 12 months. [National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP. (2015). Caregiving in the U.S.]
  • The majority of caregivers (82%) care for one other adult, while 15% care for 2 adults, and 3% for 3 or more adults. [National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP. (2015). Caregiving in the U.S.]
  • Approximately 39.8 million caregivers provide care to adults (aged 18+) with a disability or illness or 16.6% of Americans. [Coughlin, J. (2010). Estimating the Impact of Caregiving and Employment on Well-Being: Outcomes & Insights in Health Management.]
  • About 15.7 million adult family caregivers care for someone who has Alzheimer’s disease or other dementia. [Alzheimer’s Association. (2015). 2015 Alzheimer’s Disease Facts and Figures.]

What is the Economic Impact?  

  • The value of services provided by informal caregivers has steadily increased over the last decade, with an estimated economic value of $470 billion in 2013, up from $450 billion in 2009 and $375 billion in 2007. [AARP Public Policy Institute. (2015). Valuing the Invaluable: 2015 Update.]
  • At $470 billion in 2013, the value of unpaid caregiving exceeded the value of paid home care and total Medicaid spending in the same year and nearly matched the value of the sales of the world’s largest company, Wal-Mart ($477 billion). [AARP Public Policy Institute. (2015). Valuing the Invaluable: 2015 Update.]
  • The economic value of the care provided by unpaid caregivers of those with Alzheimer’s disease or other dementias was $217.7 billion in 2014. [Alzheimer’s Association. (2015). 2015 Alzheimer’s Disease Facts and Figures.]

The clock never stops for family caregivers, and globally the clock is ticking for public and private institutions, community organizations, faith communities and each one of us in this space to make a committment-  that in 2019 we do more to reach family caregivers, provide support services and needed resources.  They are and will remain the largest group support our aging population in the years ahead.

Pam Brandon is President/Founder of AGE-u-cate® Training Institute and a passionate advocate for older adults and those who serve them.