Some advice needed

[HILARY BECKER]

Thought I’d get our chapter board going a bit!

I have a client in her early 80s who has no immediate family, her only relatives are in Europe. She’s listed her health care proxy as her doctor, she has a friend that is her POA and while the friend does get her account alerts, they aren’t very close from what I can tell.

I’m starting to notice her getting a little forgetful… I see her every three weeks. She does have a 24/7 aide, she goes out twice a week to an adult facility for PT and OT… I’m worried that one of two things will happen:

She’ll slowly decline and no one will notice it. OR I’ll get a call one day that she’s in the hospital. I am not equipped to take on either of those situations (none of us are in our positions I would think!) and I’m also an hour away from her.

I had a geriatric care manager come a few weeks ago, they hit it off great and although my client couldn’t afford to keep her ‘on staff’ so to speak, I figured she’d be a good resource for health issues (plus she found some activities to keep my client’s mental health going)… Fast forward to my latest visit yesterday and my client wouldn’t stop complaining about “that woman” and “who hired her” and “I don’t want her back.”
She has always been very picky about her caretakers, aides, I couldn’t even suggest her meeting a backup DMM in case I went on vacation or in an emergency.

So I guess in short, do any of you have clients that have no support system and what do you do in that case? And for those of you who say, engage another professional/care manager/etc, what do you do when they won’t? I’m sure the exact same thing would happen with another GCM.

(wish I could make the chapter meetings more often but Thursday evenings are tough, I don’t get home until almost right before 7 and it doesn’t leave me enough time for dinner and walking the dog)

[Author]

Posts