Senior Care Planning with Greg Mundell

*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.

This is a special presentation of answers for elders with carriage. Welcome back to the program everyone, and we are here with a very special guest, Mr Greg Mandel, and he’s with carriage and patriots landing down by JBLM, joint based. Louis mccord and Greg, well, I’m glad you’re here because you were what’s called the care plant. What is your titles? Specifically, I am the resident care coordinator. They’re called different, different titles and different facilities. All right, so the resident care coordinator. That’s a that’s a very important role because obviously you are the person that when you, you’re your loved one comes to live at Patriots landing, they go through what I’m so sure we what you would call an assessment type of the program and what Greg, explain to me what your role is when somebody comes into your facility? So I’m in a unique position. Often the resident care coordinator is a nurse and I’m social worker. So I’ve paired with the director of nursing in our community when which is fantastic. Yeah, because she can she can reach to that medical side and I can look at the psychosocial side and then we pair it and fine tune that plan. So what I do is specifically there is a plan that is regulated by the state. That is what they call an individualized service plan or a negotiated service agreement, in which the resident or their family, or both, and the facility reach a negotiation as to what the care will look like for that person that will help them succeed. Right, right. So when somebody comes to your community, obviously they if they go and assisted leaving, they need help in some ways and so it really depends on how much help they need. I’m sure is how you charge them, based on how much care is is needed. Is that correct? That is correct. And different facilities do it different ways. Some do it by the service and some do it as a different level tier. So how much time they’re stirreds chere. Yeah, and and you know, some it really depends which one is better. And really when it washes out at the end of the day, it pretty much is the same, I guess. Right, you know, it doesn’t matter. So obviously in care planning, I know that that things evolved, things change. How often do you want to like reassess? So it is, as I said, it’s regulated by this state and it is mandated we do a at the beginning, you create the care plan, and then an annually. Okay, anytime there’s a change of care, we’re mereated to to do that. Some facilities will do quarterly m you know, some residents I found don’t need that. It actually bothers them. Stop writing me, I haven’t changed. So you really it’s based on the individual. So people you’ll do it every couple of months. Well, and the other thing, obviously somebody’s going to have a fall. That that changes if they have the flu, if you know things like that that you’re having to do some extra things for. That makes a determination. And of course, if a senior has a long term care policy, and many cases that assisted living can be covered by their long term care policy, not the residents part, but the assisted living peace correct. So that’s a really again, if you are younger and looking at your future, I cannot emphasize enough the cost of assisted living. It’s worth a an investment in a long term care policy. So so I know that there’s such a thing in care planning is if I’m an adult child of somebody that’s in assisted living and off, I have their healthcare directive and their power of attorney. You know, I’m also entitled to what’s called a care conference, and am I not? Now what happens in it? CARE CONFERENCE? So a care conference is when the family the resident and any staff that they want. It can be nursing, in my case, frequently it’s just the director of nursing and myself, right, but it can be the activities director, whoever, the Dietitian because they’re not eating and specifically if they have needs that are specific here, those areas. Sure. So it’s it can be an interdisciplinary meeting, physical therapy, sure, sure, you can have I mean, their primary care physician can can, can attend, that’s for sure. Wonder if they’re on hospice, things like that. Right, body can attend. Right. So what? That what it looks like. You’re reviewing that plan. You’re making sure what we have already on that plan is it working? Uh Huh. Have they changed? You want to avoid, you want to avoid not seeing little things that may allow them to fall through the cracks and end up going back to the hospital unnecessarily. Exactly exactly how you want to keep them as socially active as possible and as physically safe as possible. Right and, you know, in keeping with that tuna thought as well, it’s also having that ability to just be dialed in on. You know, we as adult children, you know, we may go visit mom and dad, you know, maybe on the weekends or something like that, but we not necessarily know what the real scoop is. Maybe there, you know, they had a fall during the week, maybe they’re not eating right during the week, anything like that, and it’s such a valuable thing to be able to sit down with the people that are there day and day out to make sure that the quality of your life for your loved one is the best. Sir. Sure, and I would say though, I say that we it’s mandated once a year. If you’re an adult family member contact of the facility, you can have a care conference whenever you want. Sure, somebody WHO’s out of state, we have people that fly in three every three or four months and they want to check in during that time. Absolutely, because that is their eyes on and that’s our time to interject. Maybe phone calls they’ve had with their loved one where things have been shared that they haven’t told us. Yes, YEP, so now they’re saying they told us they had these concerns and we wanted to bring that to your attention. You know, we are talking with Greg Mendel from Patriots landing. They are a carriage property, and Gregg is talking to us about care planning and basically the service that you are going to negotiate when you when you check your parent in or when they become a resident in assisted living. And we’re talking about care conferences, which I think are so incredibly valuable and and here is one of the reasons why I think they are. Yes, Greg and his staff do an amazing job, but you probably known your mom for, you know, all your life or you’re dad for all your life, and you know, especially in this stage of them getting adjusted, you know it’s understanding what their needs are. There their physical needs as well as their emotional needs. Maybe you know there’s things that you can do to share with patriots landing. Maybe it’s important that you know they love to do crafts or they your mom is a knitter, or you know your my mom collected dolls and they actually did a they’re so great that the assist a living that they did is every month they picked a resonance, and you know resonances hobbies and they put it had a display case out there and it was so cool because people would walk up to me. Oh, your mom has the coolest dolls and she has the original Shirley Temple. All those things were important and I loved that. The communities that that are out there, they go out of their way to acknowledge your parent for what’s what’s most important to them, and that’s why these care conferences are so incredibly important and it’s realizing that the the communities are not a place for these loved ones to fade away quietly right. This is a place for them to be vital, to actually enjoy those golden years, to to receive the care that they deserve. They provided the care for us for all these years. They’ve looked out for us. Now it’s our chance to look out for them, you know, and it’s so interesting, Greg, that you say that. And that goes down to food, right, because I had the worst time with my mom to eat the food that they were serving and finally, when we sat down with the Dietitian, it was like, you know what it really was about. She like to have a gloss of milk with every meal, but she didn’t speak up rights all she wanted was was a glass of milk with every meal, and it’s like that’s easy. So it like all of a sudden changed. All of a sudden she felt like, wow, I get a you know, I get a little carton of milk with my meal every time. That’s really important. Yeah, and that seems like such a small thing to us, but it’s huge for them. It’s that feeling of of knowing that those things are important correct. So what other kinds of things can you discuss and are care con so in a care conference you’ll talk about any recent hospitalizations, their medical care right, changes in maybe in their gait and their balance, things that you see, maybe the need for therapy. Right now they’ve proceeded with therapy right, how they’re participating in activities, if they were Particu desipating, and now we’re seeing their isolating. What’s going on right as a chance to see that it is a time for a family to say, you know what you you’re worried about this person being up in the middle of the night. You’re worried that there may be something going on. She was a knock shift, a night shift nurse for right years. Right her history. That’s her history. That helps us know, oh, there’s not a problem, that’s just a lifelong pattern. Well, and I think the other thing that’s really important is what I always tried to do when I had a care conference, is I wanted an updated list of my mother’s medications. Absolutely because if I go to the doctor or if there’s an emergency that I have to take her to the hospital, one of the things that we should always ask for it when we have a care conference is get an updated list of medications in any sort of care plan that you specifically have on them, because you never know, tomorrow your parent could have a heart attack, you know, and you might have to take them to the hospital are something like that. But it’s being able to be again dialed in and that is a wonderful outlet for you to do so, and this is a good time to to to revisit I was encourage people have a pharmaceutical review every few months and so you can talk about when was the last time that those medications were reviewed, yes, or how many doctors are they going to and our you know, is it probably pharmacy? You know, are you on in medications that you probably should have, you know, reviewed, and things like that and you guys have a great staff that you can do some you know double check type things right, and I know with my mom. I keep going back to my experience, but my mom used to get frequent urinary checked infections and then she’d be in a lot of pain. And one of the things that was great they came out in a care conference is they said to me, you know, Suzanne, we should probably have a, you know, a prescription on file of pretty am so we can get her on that medication so she eliminates the pain while we’re waiting on the antibiotics to clear it up. And that was a suggestion due to the staff and a care conference, and I love that. It really I mean it’s a coming together of everybody’s your brainstormy right, and so you’ve got different, different viewpoints from different sides of the fence. US and I come together and it really it’s so effective. So, Greg, how do we reach to? You can reach me at Patriots ending at two, three, six, four nine zero zero. Wonderful, Greg, thanks so much for being on the thanks you so much. This has been a special precentation of answers for elders with carriage for more information for carriage go to CARRIAGECOM. That’s SAR AGECOM