Aging Care Management Will Come to Us All

You're in your late 40s or early 50s with at least one aging parent or other loved one whose life situation you may eventually have responsibility for.

Are you prepared for the steps that need to be taken as the aging process changes his or her ability to deal with the daily necessities of life? Do you know who her primary care physician is? Is his major medical insurance from an HMO or Medicare? Does he have supplementary and/or long-term care insurance? Has she made a living will? Do you have power of attorney for health, finance or both? Have you talked about any of this with your parent and your siblings?

As the country's baby boomer population and their parents age over the next 20-30 years those questions and more will have to be answered by thousands and thousands of families. And now's the time to find out those answers - before a crisis occurs.

That's where a new program of The University of Texas-Houston's Center on Aging comes in. The ARISE Consultation Center opened in April in the Texas Medical Center area. ARISE (Aging Resource Information Support & Education) is designed to help caregivers and their aging loved ones continue to have good quality of life, lived with dignity even as their circumstances change.

The ARISE Center furthers the goals of the Center on Aging: to promote aging-related education and public policies, provide aging-related research and community services, and to disseminate aging-related information.

"The idea for the ARISE Consultation Center grew out of many years of experience helping individuals and families try to navigate through a fragmented long-term care system during a time of crisis," says Sharon K. Ostwald, Ph.D., director of the Center on Aging. Dr. Ostwald also holds the Isla Carroll Turner Chair in Gerontological Nursing. "My own experiences with my 92-year-old mother last year reinforced, in a personal way, the need for this type of resource."

Sharon Holder, a social worker who has a specialization in gerontology and is a geriatric care manager, was hired as the program director last fall. "We were delighted to find someone with her experience and enthusiasm to develop ARISE," says Dr. Ostwald.

The center's goals, Holder explains, are to provide:

• Aging care management: assessment to identify physical, social and financial needs, resources and preferences; consultation with clients, family members and/or caregivers; service coordination including weekly follow-up visits by a geriatric care manager or nurse practitioner;
• Assistance with long-distance caregiving; relocation of older adults; continuous management;
• Information and individual consultation: community resources on aging; education and counseling; benefit and entitlement counseling; support groups and services.

Support groups are free, as is the first half-hour of consultation. Fees for other services vary from $45 to $95 per hour.

Within the first month of full operation, says Holder, "we have been averaging 10 calls a day from family members who need assistance in a variety of areas." The four areas with which they are most requesting help:

1. alternative living opportunities;
2. how to find an in-home caregiver;
3. benefit entitlement/coverage; and
4. making arrangements for care in Houston for parents of children who live in another city or state.

The center is mainly contracting with individual clients, but, Holder says, ARISE also can help financial professionals and attorneys working with older adults, physicians or nurses who recognize the needs of elderly patients and their families, and corporations offering elder care benefits to employees.

The center is open 8 a.m.-5 p.m., weekdays, but "we are pretty much available 24 hours a day by pager in emergencies," she says. "To me, this is much more than a job. The most gratifying part of this center, for me, is knowing that the quality of life of an older person or their caregiver has been enhanced by my work with them."

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©2006 Texas Medical Center

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