The film was inspired by the recent, true-life events in the family of writer and producer Pamela Glasner, whose parents’ life savings were embezzled.

In Glasner’s frustrating and ultimately futile struggle for justice, she learned just how prevalent these crimes are and how safe from prosecution the perpetrators are.

She felt she had to do something, and so Last Will was born.

Implausible as it may sound, this lack of cooperation on the part of the authorities is more often the rule than the exception. Glasner warns, “If you think for one moment that it doesn’t effect everyone, think again.”

Baby Boomers control 80% of the world’s personal finances and are reaching age 65 at a rate of 61,000 per day across the globe.

Our world is facing the largest transfer of wealth from one generation to the next in history, putting into harm’s way more than 500 million Baby Boomers [worldwide] as we march headlong into old age – not including our adult children and our already-aged parents.

Glasner and her business partner, Deborah Louise Robinson, hope Last Will and Embezzlement will shine a light on this global problem, help those who have potentially vulnerable adults in their lives to be on the look-out for signs of victimization, and maybe make waves in the communities where the rights of these citizens are not being looked after and protected by the public servants and law enforcement officials charged with that responsibility.

This is about to become a global horror show, if nothing is done to stop it.

Click on the play button below to view a two-minute trailer of Last Will and Embezzlement.

If the embed video does not appear, click on this Last Will and Embezzlement YouTube link.

Pamela S K Glasner shared this information with The Caregiver’s Voice to help raise awareness of the vulnerability of elders and to help prevent these forms of abuse.

Martin Avadian

Loved One Disappears from Nursing Home

The phone rang. It was the sheriff’s deputy. Martin Avadian disappeared from the nursing home.
What? Did I hear that correctly?
Only twelve hours after my father walked across the threshold into a secured nursing facility, we received the worst possible news.

A line in the signature block of nursing home abuse blogger, Amber Paley held my attention: Protect The Elderly – We Owe Them Our Lives. 

What happens when your parent is missing?

After hours of searching frantically–around the adult day care center he had attended until just days earlier, a nearby hospital, and neighboring homes…nothing. We stopped people to show them my father’s picture … nothing. He was no where. What were we going to do?

Stricken with fear, we questioned the good deed we had done months earlier by moving my father from his Wisconsin home of 45 years into our home. Trembling, we feared he might be dead.

The phone rang. It was the deputy sheriff. They found my father in the Mojave Desert walking along the freeway in another county. He was trying to get a ride home to Milwaukee.

Did a movie scriptwriter make this up!

That night, we walked into the nursing home administrator’s office.
“I don’t know if we can keep your father here,” she said.

What? After all that time asking questions of the staff, visiting the home at different times and days, and completing aaalllll that paperwork? NO WAY!

Although, my father was a victim of neglect (a form of abuse); we can’t simply sue to solve our problems. We need to collaborate. Even when the administrator got the company attorneys involved, I reminded her that during the admission interview, the leadership assured me that the nursing home had a person at the front desk at all times to monitor comings and goings of residents; especially, after a new resident is admitted. It is even in their procedures.

The nursing home had excellent procedures in place.
The problem was they weren’t following them.

As stressful as the idea was that my father could be evicted despite all the preliminary work we did to insure this was the best option for him near our home, I held my ground. They did not have a person at the front desk to notice that their newest resident (my father) was leaving with a handful of visitors that evening.

TIPS to PREVENT Nursing Home Abuse

1. Follow-up with the staff and management.
   I followed up to ensure they followed their procedures–for example, that they covered the keypad when entering the code to exit the area ,so that visitors or mildly demented residents wouldn’t see the code.
2. Visit often and talk with visiting families about their experiences.
   I learned from residents’ families and well-meaning staff about others’ experiences.
3. Attend all meetings.
   I gave feedback during the quarterly care conferences, even when I felt they weren’t listening.
4. Attend support group meetings.
5. Remain involved.
6. Keep a current photo of your loved one handy. Keep several on your phone.
   Imagine if I didn’t have a photo while searching for my father that night.
7. Make sure your loved one wears his/her identification bracelet.
   I made sure my father wore his Safe Return or the nursing home’s identification bracelet.
8. Kept important phone numbers handy or in your smart phone.

Excerpted from The Great Escape chapter (pages 163 – 179). Read more in “Where’s my shoes?” My Father’s Walk through Alzheimer’s

For more information:
Preventing Nursing Home Abuse and TIPS

To learn more about avoiding potential nursing home abuse, visit Amber Paley’s website at NursingHomeAbuse.net, which provides statistics, articles, and advice to prevent or deal with nursing home abuse.

Brenda Avadian, MA
Alzheimer’s / Dementia Caregiver, Expert Spokesperson, Coach, and Author
Editor, TheCaregiversVoice monthly Newsletter and The Caregiver’s Voice Book Review

• Elder Care options
• Caring for a loved one without jeopardizing your job
• Use of restraints

QUESTION: What are the elder healthcare options for those who have the resources to pay privately?

The Caregiver’s Voice answers: The continuum of care choices include -

• In-home care (by a family member or hired help)
• Adult Day Care (from several hours in a day for respite to one to five days a week)
• Residential care (small care home with a handful of residents)
• Assisted Living
• Skilled Nursing Care

Oftentimes, we find ourselves suddenly forced to make quick and uncomfortable decisions about care for a loved one with an illness.

Learning as much as possible about our loved one’s disease or illness in advance, will leave us better prepared and less stressed when the time comes to take action. Talk with caregiver friends, search the Internet, talk with your loved one’s doctor, and decide which of the above options (or a combination of) is best for your loved one and you.

Long term care insurance and other funding sources (agencies, Medicaid/Medical) may help defray some of the costs of the choices above.

QUESTION: How do you ensure your job is not jeopardized when you need time off to care for a loved one?

The Caregiver’s Voice answers: It’s not an easy answer but one that can be worked out with cooperation of co-workers and the employer.

Like a parent caring for a child, when an elder loved one has an emergency and you are the sole caregiver, what are your options?

• Do you leave to care for your loved one?
• Have you made prior arrangements with a helpful and willing neighbor, friend, or family member?
• Do you have an employer who understands and allows you the flexibility to make up the time / work?

Sure there’s the Family and Medical Leave Act granting employees twelve weeks of unpaid leave without risk of losing their jobs. But read the guidelines closely. Can you afford to go three months without pay in today’s economy?

Read the last answer to first question above–gain knowledge, know what to expect, develop support networks in order to balance work and caregiving.

Then work with your employer and your support network of family, friends, church members, neighbors, and others. Keeping your employer apprised of your at-home challenges while reminding him/her of your commitment to being a productive member of the team will help allay his/her fears about your loyalty and your continued performance. You can then work together to find appropriate  solutions given your job responsibilities–such as flextime, working from home, job sharing, or even temporary leave.

There are only so many hours in a day. And you have so much energy. We are humans knit by common experiences working together to overcome to life’s ongoing challenges.

QUESTION: Can you comment on the use of restraints on the elderly?

Brenda Avadian answers: After my father began falling frequently and started using a wheelchair, his cognitive ability (due to Alzheimer’s) had declined enough where the different colored tiles along the nursing home hallway confused him. He’d focus on a dark spot then reach down to “pick it up” and fall out of his chair. I’d get a call each time and later see the bruises on his arms as he tried to break his fall.

Fearing a worse outcome should he break his wrist or arm, I requested the use of restraints.

The best option is constant loving attention for our elder loved ones. Regardless of what we say, this is impossible 24/7. Even at home, the moment you step away to use the bathroom, your loved one falls and gets injured. Knowing this, we seek workable alternatives.

After my father was restrained with a pelvic posey and fell with the wheelchair, I requested privately paid sessions with a physical therapist, alternated with supervised time in a wheelchair or a geri-chair with a tray in front to keep my father’s focus off the floor. The staff situated him in front of the nurses’ station where he could “keep an eye on things.” He focused so intently on the nurses with their brightly colored lipstick that he forgot about picking up dark spots from the floor.

For additional information click on: “Use Restraints with Caution” in Aging Well Magazine.

Brenda Avadian, MA
Alzheimer’s / Dementia Caregiver, Expert Spokesperson, Coach, and Author
Editor, TheCaregiversVoice monthly Newsletter and The Caregiver’s Voice Book Review

Hatcher embraces caregiving first-hand and through her writing. Her just- released (Valentine’s Day) novel, Heart of Gold, finds Shannon Adair whose greatest satisfaction is serving as a volunteer caregiver.

Nominations for The Caregiver’s Voice Heart of Gold Caregiver of the Month of April are open to any caregiver (male or female; volunteer, family, or paid professional). Self nominations are also welcome. (Nominations are due March 10, 2012.)  For information, visit Robin Lee Hatcher’s News page.

Robin Lee Hatcher will collaborate with The Caregiver’s Voice selection committee to choose the finalists for this contest.

The Caregiver of the Month of April with a Heart of Gold will receive a special gift — a heart of gold from Robin Lee Hatcher.

After reading the guidelines at Robin Lee Hatcher’s site, be sure to NOMINATE TCV’s Caregiver of the Month with a Heart of Gold–using the same easy form we use for our monthly caregiver recognition program.

Be sure to add “Heart of Gold” at the top of your nomination to receive an acknowledgment eMail from Robin.

All nominee submissions (through The Caregiver’s Voice’s direct channels and through this “Heart of Gold” collaboration) will be evaluated equally and are eligible to receive both the Heart of Gold and a choice of one (of four) gifts from PersonCare.net.

Caregivers with a Heart of Gold deserve recognition. We look forward to receiving your nomination.

Brenda Avadian, MA
Alzheimer’s / Dementia Caregiver, Expert Spokesperson, Coach, and Author
Editor, TheCaregiversVoice monthly Newsletter and The Caregiver’s Voice Book Review

Caregiver Rhonda Calk-Shalton

The day we met Rhonda Shalton changed the quality of our lives. I spent 15 years without help taking care of my mentally challenged son, Travis. Rhonda came into our lives just we needed her. She was so kind and gentle with Travis. Before I knew it, she had won our hearts. Years of not trusting anyone to take care of my son was behind me, I had the most caring person at my house loving my son as much as I did. Rhonda has helped Travis at all his signings for his book, King Travis, on her own time and has never missed one event he has been in. She’s a loving caregiver.
– Kristin McCullough, Travis’ Mom

Rhonda Calk-Shalton is the kind of caregiver we all hope our loved ones will have.

She came into Travis’ life at a critical time and has been a treasure to his family. For the last six years, she has been caring for a young man who has not been expected to live and held fewer expectations by the medical community.

A remarkable person with an enormous amount compassion.
– Director of a caregiver resource organization.

Twenty-two-year-old Travis’ diagnosis is complicated.

Travis and Rhonda Calk-Shalton (with curlier hair)

When Travis was four years old, he began having strokes. The doctors diagnosed him with a rare disease called Mitochondrial Encephalopathy Lactic Acidosis with Stroke-like episodes (MELAS). This disease results in seizures, neuropathy, myopathy, and an inability to control his body temperature, leaving Travis mentally challenged with autistic tendencies.

If this weren’t enough, Travis suffers from pica disorder–cravings for food and even non-food items. He eats anything. At 6-plus-feet and 250-plus pounds, he is so child-like, he needs to be monitored constantly so he doesn’t eat anything inappropriate.

It was strongly recommended that Travis be institutionalized because of the magnitude of his problems. Yet, over twenty years ago, his then single mother, Kristin, refused. Due to Kristin’ efforts and an extremely patient Rhonda, Travis learned to walk and talk again after the strokes.

Travis has exceeded all medical predictions and was nominated Prom King.

When he was attending the special education program at the high school, the kids nominated him Prom King–a glorious moment for his mother, new step-father, and Rhonda.

It was at this time that I met the family. I wrote a children’s book about his life that deals with tolerance. But the REAL story behind King Travis:

There are weeks when Kristin and Danny can’t afford to pay Rhonda. Despite her own situation with an unemployed and gravely ill husband, she still cares for Travis because, “He’s so special and I just love ‘im so much. It’s something I can do.” When Kristin had her second back surgery (from caring for her large son), Rhonda was there 24/7. When Kristin nearly died on the operating table and Danny was diagnosed with cancer, Rhonda took this large toddler into her home–for free. Rhonda handles Travis and his outbursts like a champ. She is never riled, never angry, never negative.

I was humbled to and inspired by her story–to have so much going on in her life and still have the strength of character to continue caring for Travis.
– Nursing Home Administrator

Author Alexandra Allred recounts a Day with Travis

Travis can’t always remember how he knows people and must be reintroduced each time.

While reading from King Travis to school children, Travis suddenly stands then walks away after saying “Hello” to people.

Rhonda handles him easily–holding his hand and whispering jokes in his ear after he settles down next to her.

After the reading, we stop for pizza. Travis is a bottomless pit–a result of MELAS and pica. He doesn’t know he is full until it is regretfully too late.

During the 2-hour ride home Travis feels scared. We stop often to let him walk. Picture a 6-foot, large man crying–wailing–next to this short woman as she smiles and whispers little sweet things to calm him.

Rhonda is amazing. She is an angel. I learned she was volunteering on this particularly long and hard day for FREE. For Free?!! Her heart is huge.
– Alexandra Allred

For more information:

• Travis’ Website
• CBS story on “King Travis” – The Most Perfect Boy in the World
• The book, King Travis – The Most Perfect Boy in the World at Amazon.com

Kristin McCullough and Travis do book signings and readings at schools, libraries, and for special interest groups. They educate children and adults about caregiving, the value of education, and love. Kristin and Travis offer hope and joy to families who receive devastating medical news and fear the worst.  Publisher and author, Alexandra Allred, writes that 100% of the proceeds from the King Travis book sales are going to Rhonda and Travis’ ongoing medical care.

Explaining Modern Finance with “Broke Boozers” at Helga’s Bar

Helga is the proprietor of a bar.

She realizes that virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronize her bar.

To solve this problem, she comes up with a new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now, but pay later.

Helga keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting her customers, loans).

Word gets around about Helgas Drink now, Pay later marketing strategy. As a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into Helga’s bar. Soon she has the largest sales volume for any bar in town.

By providing her customers freedom from immediate payment demands, Helga gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer, the most consumed beverages. Consequently, Helga’s gross sales volume increases massively.

A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognizes that these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases Helga’s borrowing limit.

The banker sees no reason for any concern, since he has the debts of unemployed alcohol patrons as collateral.

At the bank’s corporate headquarters, expert traders figure a way to transform these customer loans into Drink Bonds. These “securities” then are bundled and traded on the international securities markets. They make huge commissions.

Naive investors don’t really understand that the securities being sold to them as “AA” and “Secured Bonds” are really the debts of unemployed alcoholics.

Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb! The securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation’s leading brokerage houses.

One day, even though the bond prices still are climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Helga’s bar.

He informs Helga.

Helga then demands payment from her patrons, but being unemployed they cannot pay their drinking debts.

Since Helga cannot fulfill her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy.

The bar closes and Helga’s 11 employees lose their jobs.

Overnight, Drink Bond prices drop by 90%. The collapsed bond asset value destroys the bank’s liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community.

The suppliers of Helga’s bar had granted her generous payment extensions and had invested each of their firm’s pension funds in the Drink Bonds securities. They find they are now faced with having to write off Helga’s bad debt after losing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds.

Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations/ Helga’s beer supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers.

Fortunately, the bank, the brokerage houses, and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multi-billion dollar no-strings attached cash infusion from the government.

The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, non-drinkers who have never been in Helga’s bar.

And this is how modern economics works!

The Caregiver’s Voice thanks Les Hurdle for sharing this. We wish we knew the author of these posts that travel along the Internet–especially, educational ones like this!  ENJOY.

On Thursday, February 16, a doctor, a Medicare recipient, and a caregiver advocate discuss healthcare issues that can be best described as OCCUPY HEALTHCARE.

Topics to be addressed:

• Status of today’s Healthcare–where are we now and where are we headed.
• Strange billing practices–$298 for a 5-minute massage? (Wait ’til you hear this!)
• Politics of healthcare, reform, and long-term care costs
• Doctors caught in the middle.
• Why the primary care physician’s role is so important (and so neglected).

Dr. Carol

JOIN US on the Dr. Carol Show, Thursday February 16 at 4pmET/3pmCT/1pmPT.

1. Carol Peters, MD, host of the Dr. Carol Show will provide a doctor’s perspective.
2. Her husband, and radio show partner, Al Tanksley, will share a Medicare recipient’s and patient’s point of view.
3. The Caregiver’s Voice, Brenda Avadian, MA will share from a patient’s and a caregiver advocate’s perspectives.
   

Got an issue you want us to discuss?

CALL TOLL FREE 888-537-2276. Dr. Carol’s shows are broadcast live from studios in Texas. Or listen online.

Brenda Avadian, MA
Founder, The Caregiver’s Voice

Remarkable insights of skilled nursing care from an insider!

First-time author and married father of four, Charles Schoenfeld, retired in 2003 as a UPS truck driver then took coursework to be a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA). He passed the exam and began working at a dementia care facility where he says, “I fit right in.”

How did he end up at the North Central Health Care facility in Wisconsin?

During one of Chuck’s last visits to his mother’s apartment he slipped and fell on the kitchen floor she had just “washed” with Crisco Oil. Chuck and his wife, Maggie, persuaded her to move in with them. During the Wisconsin winters, his mother lived with her daughter, Jean, in warmer Texas. When their mother’s health declined further, they moved her into a dementia unit a block away from the Schoenfeld home.

As often happens when visiting a family member in a nursing home, Chuck also spent time with other residents. What makes him unique though, is this military veteran and UPS driver was so moved that he changed careers at age 56 to become a CNA.

A journey of tender-hearted adventures with residents in a Wisconsin nursing home.

For the next six-plus years, Schoenfeld made the hard work fun. He described one day as a collage of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Mission Impossible, and Rocky. He learned to redirect Mabel when her piercing screams for the police made him hope they would arrive after she used her walker as a weapon.

Schoenfeld writes humbly, honestly, and vividly, admitting “one of the greatest obstacles [he] had to overcome [were his] own insecurities.” For one, he could never quite get through helping residents with their “personal cares,” such as toileting. However, he was called upon to do the other hard work like calming combative residents. He writes about nursing assistants who work hard and long hours, often working overtime to make ends meet. He adds that they duck, dodge, sometimes take direct hits, and still continue working—a testament to how much they care.

The residents “opened my heart and jumped in.”
– Charles Schoenfeld

Some of the residents he writes about:

• Little Lila in her late nineties had no visitors but was “lovingly feisty.”
• Silly antics with former school teacher Frieda who knew better despite Chuck’s request for her to copy a sentence he had written, “I leave my entire estate to Chuck.”
• Helping depressed Susan agree to take her pills only after he took time to gain her trust and become her friend.

He always took the high road when dealing with the residents—even feeling defensive while in public, when for example, during a doctor’s appointment, people stared. He notes, If you do “your best to keep people safe and offer them friendship, you’ve given them all you can, which is really all they are asking for.”

A must read for families struggling to move a loved one into a nursing home.

Schoenfeld speaks of Alzheimer’s as taking away everything from residents “until there is nothing left to give.”

Yet, he adds, “My nature is to look for the light side of a worst-possible situation.”

During the author’s nearly seven years of service, you’ll read about the “Secret Club,” CNA drama, compassionate moments, and even deer hunting.

This book is a testament to the Schoenfeld’s nature and a tribute to the residents whose lives he made better with compassion and fun antics.

Inspiring reading for nursing home management and staff.

Brenda Avadian, MA
Alzheimer’s / Dementia Caregiver, Expert Spokesperson, Coach, and Author
Editor, TheCaregiversVoice monthly Newsletter and The Caregiver’s Voice Book Review

That’s why “Questions are the Answer,” a new public education initiative from the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), encourages patients to have more effective two-way communication with their doctors and other clinicians.

“Questions are the Answer” features a website — www.ahrq.gov/questions — where you will find these free educational tools to use with your patients:

• A 7-minute video featuring real-life patients and clinicians who give firsthand accounts on the importance of asking questions and sharing information – this tool is ideal for a patient waiting room area and can be set to run on a continuous loop.
• A brochure, titled “Be More Involved in Your Health Care: Tips for Patients,” that offers helpful suggestions to follow before, during and after a medical visit.
• Notepads to help patients prioritize the top three questions they wish to ask during their medical appointment.

Clinicians can request a free supply of these materials by calling AHRQ at 1-800-358-9295 or sending an email to AHRQpubs@ahrq.hhs.gov.

View Campaign Website

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View Original Video Series

Being honest helps us live more in line with the facts of our life — we forgot a person’s name.

Sure you feel embarrassed as I did, when…

I called the recent widow of our late town council member. Unsure of her name, I was honest (and embarrassed), when I said, “Hello, this is Brenda Avadian…I am sorry, I just went blank on your name.”

She giggled then told me her name.

Trying to dance delicately on egg shells adds to the stress we feel about forgetting. Honesty is best. Humble admission of forgetting brings out the best in us. And if the person is offended (only rarely), Oh well!

How do you politely ask a person’s name when you should already know it?

Well, this is a hard one. If the person is your spouse, this could be embarrassing; especially, if you have not been diagnosed with dementia…yet!

Still, we must be honest!

Yes, I agree, there is only so much embarrassment one can take!

Midway through our conversation, I forgot her name again. I knew it began with S, forgot everything in the middle, and vaguely recalled that it ended in an  i, e, or y.

I asked her, to spell it after confidently volunteering the first letter, “S….”

She saved me further embarrassment and finished spelling her name.

Using the above approach can help you save face when re-learning a person’s name. Of course, there have been occasions when the person replies, “Oh, it’s spelled in the typical way.”

Uhhh, typical…hmmmmm. “I live in California. Even typical needs clarification!”

The honest approach, especially for caregivers for cognitively impaired adults (resulting from causes such as Alzheimer’s or stroke) is to confess, which I did:

“Okay, I’m getting worried that all the work I do with people with Alzheimer’s and their families is starting to rub off on me…for the third time during this minute that we’ve been talking, what did you say your name is?”

Most often, people laugh, make a comment like, “I’m getting worried about you.” Or if they’re equally stressed, “I understand. We all need to work less!”  Then they offer their name.

After all this, I repeated her name then continued using it throughout the rest of our conversation.

Forgetting names happens to all of us. With so much more information coming at us everyday than a few decades ago, it’s no wonder we forget!

Now, what did you say your name is?

Brenda Avadian, MA
Alzheimer’s / Dementia Caregiver, Expert Spokesperson, Coach, and Author
Editor, TheCaregiversVoice monthly Newsletter and The Caregiver’s Voice Book Review