Exactly What Does a Geriatric Care Manager Do?

People frequently ask me what Geriatric Care Managers actually do. Although I truly think I am answering in plain, clear English, my answers often don’t seem to hit home.  So I am taking this opportunity to write a blog which explains in more vivid detail exactly what we do to contribute to the optimum care of our frail elderly clients.

ABOUT TRAINING

As a group, we Geriatric Care Managers are highly qualified professionals with advanced degrees in social work, counseling or nursing. We have many hours of supervised experience working with older adults and are either members or associate members of the National Association of Professional Geriatric Care Managers.  We are especially good at advocating for our clients and locating and engaging the best, most appropriate resources in the community for their benefit.

CARE MANAGEMENT 101

We advocate, coordinate, manage, supervise and plan for the short term and long term care of our clients. We educate, guide and support their families. Our overarching goal is to help clients remain in their homes comfortably and safely for as long as possible and to help with life’s transitions when they are necessary. We build expert care teams using our extensive community networks in the fields of medicine, law, finance, social services and others.

Engaging the services of a Geriatric Care Manager is especially helpful for families who live at a distance from their elders and for family care-givers who work full time while raising their own children. It really does take a village!

REAL-LIFE EXAMPLES

That being said, exactly what do Geriatric Care Managers actually DO? Here are a dozen examples of specific contributions I have made to the well-being of my clients over the course of my 17 years in practice:

1. Stayed in the ER with a client for seven hours, until she was admitted to the hospital. During that time I answered the multitude of repeated questions from doctors and nurses that my client was unable to respond to, kept her calm and fetched warm blankets when she got cold.
2. Read aloud favorite mysteries and biographies to a client who could no longer read to herself.Took a wheel-chair bound client on occasional fieldtrips to the movies, to area museums and even (at her request) to a casino!
3. Helped a client reconnect with her minister and church congregation.
4. Toured several assisted living facilities with a client so she could select the one she liked best.
5. Pre-screened several Certified Nurses’ Aides so the family could select the one that fit best for their father.Shoveled snow off the steps at a client’s house after an unexpected snow storm.
6. Picked up a client at the dialysis clinic when the driving service forgot to bring him home. 
7. Accompanied a 95-year-old old client to the hospital to have a pacemaker battery replaced and made certain that the doctor read her living will before doing the procedure.
8. Noticed that a client’s hospital discharge plan did not include either a nebulizer or a home supply of oxygen for congestive heart failure. Requested that a doctor review the plan and make the order before we left the hospital.
9. Decorated a client’s room at the nursing home with paintings, photographs and other memorabilia from her home that illustrated the many aspects of her colorful life.
10. Insisted that the nursing home call in a palliative care pain specialist to evaluate and treat a client who had terminal cancer.