Courtesy of AgingwithGrace.com

Not every story about aging loved ones is a sad one. In her blog, Patricia Grace writes a knee-slapper about the time her 87-year-old mother used cherry red lip liner to do her eyebrows. It was a moment, she says, that will live on into the future, when light-hearted memories will be so welcome.

Grace knows a lot about what the aging process does to families. She has been working in the eldercare industry—marketing, housing, care management, serving on boards—for 21 years. She partnered with Rita Files, a nurse who has been involved with assisted living administration for many years and in the health care industry for 28 years, and formed Aging with Grace, a resource for geriatric care management, in late 2005. Through its contracts with major labor organizations, as well as individual memberships, their company reaches more than 11 million people, assessing families’ eldercare needs and providing advice and tools for getting that help.

The two women employ 11 “virtual” staff members, most of whom have worked in assisted living. While serving that number of people may sound like a daunting task, Grace says, “It’s not every day we speak to 5,000 folks, giving them in-depth advice.” Their program “allows people to have the personalized experience of working with an eldercare specialist, but they also have the opportunity to do research (at the Web site) on their own. Not everyone has the same level of questions.” Some use the service one time, some use it only online, and of course, not everyone needs it at once. 

But when people do need help, it’s usually immediate and unexpected, after something has happened. “It’s an emergency-driven, crisis-driven industry,” she said. Someone has gotten lost or injured or left the stove on. The person may be incontinent or confused, or may have fallen too many times. Whatever triggered the call, “the family can’t ignore it anymore.”

Now in crisis mode, these families have to start from scratch to learn about their options.

“They don’t know what they don’t know,” says Grace. They don’t know about funding options, veterans benefits, lines of credit that are available to help defray costs, or even the questions to ask. “We spend a great deal of time educating them on resources they had no idea existed.” The elderly family member may not even need a nursing home or assisted living; they may only need in-home help. “We do a lot of hand-holding and shepherding through a system that is just very confusing, very murky,” she said.