Chicago Senior Living Advisors Blog
In this very informative article, author Dawn Reiss has done a great service ed o seniors and their caregivers, including my many ADSLA clients. As a Care Manager Certified & founder of Andrea Donovan Senior Living Advisors, I was delighted to offer insights on the challenges and questions faced by ‘Sandwich Caregivers,’ and pleased to see Ms. Reiss highlight the resources we can help make available to families:http://chicagocaregiving.com/sandwich-caregiving/?mc_cid=b807c04904
When I was hired by the Ellisons, who are the family featured in this article, the son explained to me that his mother was 72 years old and had a diagnosis of Lewy body dementia. She lived in the garden apartment of the building he owned. When I met Barbara, she completely different than how I had envisioned her. She was extremely independent and traveled to all of her medical appointments in an Uber. I was hired to attend her Dr. appointments with her. Although her thinking was mostly coherent, she had issues with speech ephasia, and I had to complete her thoughts for her. She would arrive in the Uber and I would meet her at every appointment she had. We had a very happy, fun relationship.
One of the tasks that was assigned to me was to look over her medication system to be certain she wasn’t missing any doses. I was shocked to find that she had a three-tiered, color coded medication box that even I couldn’t have imagined. I asked her if she ever missed any doses, and she said only once, but she took it right away when she realized she missed. Her kids arranged to have all of her meals delivered to her. She enjoyed babysitting for her grandchildren. She was capable of going to Walgreen’s to pick up her prescriptions.
Then, the day I dreaded arrived. I knew that at some point her memory was going to diminish. She started to arrive late to appointsments. Sometimes she was over an hour late. The first physician was able to see her although she was late. The second time she was tardy, the physician made us wait for over 2 hours until he was finished seeing all of his other patients. She seemed to be growing very distant from me. When I realized she needed a lot more help, I applied to Medicaid in order to secure a private caregiver who could accompany her to and from the appointments. I would then attend the appointments by phone and advocate for her. Currently, I am advocating for her while she attends appointments with the neurologists, cardiologist, hematologist, gastroenterologist, movement specialists and a host of about 10 other physician’s. That’s my side of the story. And I encourage you to read the article to find out what this family is experiencing.