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Business & Tech

Business of the Week: Care Solutions for Elders

Care Solutions for Elders offers compassion and guidance on difficult issues.

Care Solutions for Elders

524 San Anselmo Avenue, Suite 217, San Anselmo

456-3439; caresolutionsforelders.com

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What Care Solutions for Elders offers?

Care Solutions for Elders is a geriatric care management and consulting service that offers families of elders the knowledge and tools they need to care for relatives so that they can remain living safely in their own home. It is the key to "aging in place," and when other options of living need to be explored these resources can make the journey easier.

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As part of supporting appropriate and safe decision making, Care Solutions for Elders addresses the financial concerns of the family, assesses the emotional well being of the elder, and connects their clients to community resources. They are committed to providing straightforward communication, so that the comfort and dignity of the elder is not compromised.

Services for clients include: nursing assessment, assistance with medical care, medication evaluations, nutritional counseling, home care, transitional care and seminars on aging.

Care Solutions also offers a basic skills training with hands on experience in a lab. Family members can gain skills to make care giving tasks easier, safer, more efficient, and more fun. For basic skills training in the "assimilated lab," it is $95 for dementia or care-giving skills classes limited to 10 students and four hours.

The assimilated skills lab consists of five stations: handwashing, bathing, toileting, transfer and ambulation, and nail care and skin care. Students learn the basics of how to handle common items elders use in their daily routines. You probably didn't even know there is a right and wrong way to dress someone who has had a stroke.

Care Solutions for Elders also offers caregiver training and certification classes. The program for personal care training is $299. It can also be taken online.

Who are they?

Care Solutions is owned and operated by Tina Cheplick, a registered nurse who grew up in Cambridge, MA. She went to college in the east, then finished nursing school at UCSF. While she was a nurse working at UCSF, Cheplick designed one of the first resource books for families with kids who had catastrophic illness. Though she started with pediatrics, Cheplick is now helping people cope with the other end of the aging spectrum.

In 1980, she moved to Marin and started working with a dynamic group of ladies, including Liz Rottger and Linda Crossman, who were pioneers in establishing quality and safety standards for home care for seniors. In those days many health care givers acted in ways detrimental to seniors. In addition to pushing through legislation, Cheplick and the team designed an initial screening process for caregivers, which consisted of finger printing, DMV reference, and background checks. She was also one of the first trainers of personal care attendants.  

Cheplick specialized in geriatrics 25 years before society even saw it as a need. 

Now, Cheplick is still dealing with some of the same issues. Her consulting services address Medicare issues about money, how you pay for health care, what insurance does and does not cover.  Custodial care is always a problem family members either have to deal with or pass on to caregivers. 

"As the Medicare system started to change, so did the avenue of how we deliver care, through the understanding of how we age, our lifespan, and what the medical complications might be." Cheplick says. "In order to understand the older adult, you have to have a lot of experience in how people live. Listening to our elders is an important aspect of communicating."

How long have they been here? 

Care Solutions for Elders opened in March 2010 in San Anselmo. Having a storefront office -- with a large bright yellow sunflower painted on the window -- has provided them with great visibility in the community. Because many people who want to work with Cheplick have stopped by with their resumes of skills, from nutritional chefs to people who install safety railings or build wheelchair ramps, her rolodex for services she can suggest continues to grow within our community.

Why are they business of the week?

Many of us are struggling with the dilemma of how to handle an aging parent or relative. Often when an elder is released from the hospital, we are left with a stack of discharge papers, prescriptions to fill, and some general instructions from the doctors. But most of us don't have a clue where to go from there. Cheplick has the knowledge, skills, and resources within the community to help give us all peace of mind in these stressful situations.

As an RN, Cheplick brings a medical component to her work as a case manager and health care advocate. Cheplick has both the background and the time to discuss what the next medical steps for any family should be, and she can draw up a tailor-made care plan.

Cheplick offers a fee for service program. A basic assessment costs $250. 

"I tell everybody that I will do what they want me to do. I want my service to run parallel to their financial plan," she said.

A typical scenario, Cheplick said, runs like this: "Say a family member calls because they have a mother who is 92, living alone, and they are concerned about memory decline. I can offer an RN nursing assessment that will evaluate the client's status, and then I can make recommendations, and provide resources.   

"Typically the patient has seen a doctor first, or we would recommend this, so we know the medical condition and expectations. From that point on, I can work with the client and family to figure out how the client can 'age in place' safely so the family will be secure knowing that their elder can stay in his/her own home."

With conference calls, Cheplick says she can easily impart the same information to all the family members (who sometimes live in other parts of the country) at the same time so that there are no misunderstandings or blanks to fill in. The family members can then make informed decisions knowing all the facts.  

Once she has the entire picture of a client and family, Cheplick can refer the family to sources: an attorney, estate planning, or other disciplines such as a neuropsychologist. In addition, she offers home care coordination, medical management, and safe living. Anytime along the continuum, Cheplick can assist in problem solving, recommend next steps, and clarify concerns.

If Cheplick herself is involved in the case management of a patient, she typically sees that client one or two times a week per family request. As an RN, she can make note of when the medical situation changes and advise the family.  As she gets to know her clients and sees them several times a week, she is able to notice and assess these changes better and faster than a doctor who only sees the patient every several months.    

"Family members are going to have to start pitching in. In Marin we have a high population of aging. The aging adult is living longer and it is lopsided in older population compared to the number of kids being born.  Our demographics are changing and today one out of every four people in Marin is 60 or older, and this number will increase over the next four decades," she said. And as we all deal with these issues in our own lives, places like Care Solutions for Elders helps add knowledge and compassion to what can be a difficult situation.

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