Fall Prevention: Being a Watch Dog with Tracy Marcom

*The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

The following is a podcast from a qualified senior care provider part on the answers for elders radio show. And welcome everyone to answers for elders radio. And I’m here with a very special, brand new guest, a wonderful lady by the name of Tracy Morecam and Tracy, you are from cascade incomemn care. tells us a little bit about you and welcome. Thank you for having me. The company I represent is cascade in home care. UH, Huh. We are a family owned and operated business. The Huh? John and Linda Sen of Arlington, Washington started in two thousand and eleven. MMM. He is an occupational therapist by trade and a veteran of the US army. Wow. She is a CSA, which is a certified senior assistant, or, sorry, advisor, senior advisor. Yeah, and the philosophy is we’re not franchised, locally owned and operated and treat everybody like they’re your own family. And that’s music to my ears. Is that one? Is Our listeners have heard me say several times if you’re going to go to with the Home Care Agency, I strongly recommend you go with somebody that’s locally owned and operated for the main reason that you know that there’s a heart mission behind it and, and I’m not saying that franchise he’s don’t have that, but overall, a person that goes on on their own and put their name, own name on it is really a good stamp of you know, I’m committed. So that’s an important thing. And you guys are you provide in home care services, which is non medical. Correct, because a lot of people get confused between home health and home care. That’s one of those little misnomers in our industry. Absolutely. So explain to me what for our listeners. What do in home care agencies do? We’re able to go in and do, like you said, non medical. However, is a home care company. We also have our home health license. That’s wonderful. We maintain that because John is an occupational therapist, has the ability to go in and do fall and risk assessments and that’s what can we’re here talk about here, and he can do wheelchair re certification. We also staff our own our N so we’re able to go in and do nurse delegated tasks, which is a level of care that not every home care company can go in and do absolutely keeps the cost down for a client because we staff at ourselves. Our nurse would go in and delegate the tasks to our caregivers so that client and those caregivers would fall under her license, and so she maintains those accounts. So when probably in many cases just because, for example, if you have a home health agency, but sometimes Medicare will only pay so much. A lot of times, what you can do is continue a lot of those services, like say, if you’re recovering from surgery or stroke or something like that, because of your special certifications that you guys have. And that’s wonderful and that’s how we work so well with home health. We can go in and maybe provide that fourth or fifth day of wound care. Yeah, type of thing. We wouldn’t go in and perform occupational therapy or physical therapy, but we could certainly do the wound care right, right, right. Well, that’s important. That’s so in so many seniors today. You know, Woods happen, obviously sometimes a circulation issues if you bump something. But you know, what we’re really here to talk about this month, the month of October, is we you know, I we obviously it’s stepping into fall and we say prevention, right. So it’s really about one of the things that we’ve heard, and we’ve got an inform of graphic going around the Internet right now, is one point six million seniors are served. You know, that they fall in their homes every year and is something that is a huge issue and certainly it can make the difference of you know, it can make the difference in their quality of life going forward, because if you fall in you break a hip or you break my in my mother’s case, she broke her pelvis right. Those things can be traumatic and she could never go back to her home again. Well, that’s just it. Sometimes it is a matter of staying comfortably with your independence in your own home or having to move into a community. Yeah, and there’s some beautiful communities out there, but who doesn’t want to stay in their own home with their own bed, their own yard? And that’s the thing and and unlike what that. You know, a lot of people think that the people in the senior world, we want to get them into retirement living. Actually, that’s not the case. Okay, it’s like, first of all, there’s a shortage. If all seniors needed to go to retirement living, there wouldn’t be enough apartments right. So that’s the bottom line is we want in the industry to make sure that your loved ones are safe in their home for as long as possible. And that’s Today’s topic about being a watchdog. And you guys probably go into people’s homes all the time, don’t you, and you see little things that could be fixed or change in order to you know, and we may not realize it as a family member. So, Tracy, tell us a little bit about what are the things that you noticed in, you know, your clients homes that you can help with. Sometimes, for like a fall prevention it it may seem like common sense, but you go in and they’ll have throw rugs on top of carpet on top of a throw rug and it’s apt such a safety issue where as people get older, they don’t always lift their legs as high as they used to. So you’ve created a tripping hazard for yourself. Absolutely trip and if you, you know, break your hip or shadow your pelvis, then it’s will you be able to return home. And even in the bathroom, you know bathrooms, the bathroom is people say, well, have to have a drug in the bathroom and and you know. Yes, to a certain degree, I understand that. But make sure if you’re going to have a rug on the bathroom that it’s got a rubber Matt on the bottom so that it’s not going to lift up, because a lot of times we buy these little fluffy little bath mats and think that that’s just fine and it’s not right necessarily. So, yeah, yeah, this one wrong placement of your foot and it slips out from you. Yeah, absolutely. So we are talking to Tracy Morecam and Tracy is the what is your title exactly, Tracy, community liaison? You are the community liaison from cascade in home care and tell us a little bit about what areas that you guys serve. We are office is located in Arlington, Washington, but our office staff range from seedro Willie to Lynwood. That’s wonderful. That so mostly South scadget, you know, county, all of snowomish and it North King, North King, so I always like to say from shoreline Decedro and all the towns in between. Yeah, that’s wonderful. That’s wonderful and such a needed area and of course growing area up and snahomish county and we have a lot of listeners up in snahomish county and scadget county. So and of course I was raised in set scadget county. Song, I’m a I’m a connector what about island county? Do you go into like would be island area? We do not. Okay, okay, and there’s some outlying areas that might take us a little longer for staffing. Typically we’re able, we have in the past have been able to do an assessment and start care that evening. Sometimes in the outlying areas it may take a little longer. Okay, that’s good. That’s good. So we talked about the throw rug tells a little bit about other things better than extension cords can be a huge tripping factor for people. I’m guilty of that. I was going to say not a senior yet I was gonna say yeah, now. Well, and especially those of us that have laptops and and cords. I don’t know how many times I’ve gotten up from my computer and I’ve got, you know, my computer on my lap and here’s the cord going in and of course I step on the cord and luckily I’m not, you know, I’m not immobile, but that would be easily away for somebody to fall. Absolutely finding ways to keep those cords off the floor in, you know, in in in a way that they can be hidden from and not in the path is probably the most important thing. Yeah, and there’s great little fasteners you can buy that are like velcrow and so sometimes you can take the leg of a table and secure your extension cord that way, like say, a table lamp. You don’t have to have the extension cord, you know, the excess of that just on the floor. That’s so important too, and I can see that you know, just little things like that when you’re when you’re going into your parents home, that’s that’s a huge issue. Absolutely. So tell me something else. I think placement of things on night tables. People have, you know, a phone. Sometimes the phone should probably be closer to the bed instead of that being the farthest thing on the nightstand and people try to reach for that. So when you guys go into a home, that’s probably one of the things that you might have help with. Help them, you know, put their phone a little bit in a better spot and things like that. Do you help families without a little bit? We certainly could. When an assessment is being performed. There are questions that we have to ask fire extinguisher. You know, how many bathrooms is a bathroom safe? And we can certainly make those recommendations because sometimes people, once they live in their home, they’re not really seeing right what’s going on in a kind of become blind to it, uh Huh. And so our care managers can go in and see things. There also required to when they’re going in to perform a home assessment to see if care is going to start. Sure, sure. And then we talked about the bathroom. Bathroom is huge. Yes, I think it’s seventy five percent of in home falls happen in the bathroom. Goodness, and it’s crazy. So obviously there’s things that you can do to help in the safety factor of your loved ones home. What are some things you should look for? They could do the bars by the commode, a bar in the shower. People always think it’s not very you know that it’s not very nice looking. No, but it’s functional. It may not be esthetically pleasing, but there’s session. It provides bars out there now that yeah, these surprised. Yeah, I was shocked. I’m got in contact with the company not too long ago. They have these amazing, beautiful bathroom accessories that you’d never know that we’re really functional. So it’s amazing how things have evolved, that somebody became brilliant, right. Yeah, exactly. They don’t ugly, they don’t look institutionals. I mean it, I was amazed. And then obviously things like little things like like nonskid. What are those sticky things, so that you don’t slip and slide and on skid? Matt’s, yes, and of course, a good shower mat and to make sure that that shower matt is cleaned or and or replaced regularly, because I think sometimes people don’t think about well, I have a mat in the shower, so I don’t need to do that, right. So wellen, what’s wrong with having a shower chair? Yeah, you know, put one of the stools in there. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, that’s important too. So, Tracy, we could go on and on and talking about this. Would you stay on for another segment? Sure, I would love to have you. This is Tracy Morkam, and you’re from what company again, tell us a little bit about where you’re located in your contact, infoe cascade, in home care. Our main office is located in Arlington, Washington. Ah Huh. Our phone number is four to five, three hundred and six, one, zero, zero, four four and our website is cascade in home carecom great and Tracy will be right back everyone and we’ll hear more answers for elders radio show with Susan Newman. Hopes you found this podcast useful in your journey of navigating senior care. Check out more podcast like this to help you find qualified senior care experts and areas of financial, legal, health and wellness and living options. Learn about our radio show, receive our monthly newsletter, receive promotional discounts and meet our experts by clicking on the banner to join the Senior Advocate Network at answers for elders RADIOCOM. Now there is one place to find the answers for elders.