Biography
In 2005, I was awarded a scholarship from San Francisco State University in the Master of Arts Gerontology program for Geriatric Care Management, which gave me a fruitful career over the next 19 years as a Geriatric Care Manager. I started employment at the prestigious Institute on Aging in San Francisco, CA. My educational background with a master’s degree in gerontology and a bachelor’s degree in nursing provides knowledge for an all-inclusive medical and psycho-social assessment to dispense enhanced care for our ailing elderly and mostly for those having dementia.
After many years of experience in Care Management (CM), in 2018, I founded Care Aging with Harmony, a Care Management organization, continuing with comprehensive care plans to counsel and collaborate with families and advocate for older adults in mid to advanced stages of Alzheimer’s disease, other forms of dementia, Parkinson’s disease, and mental health. Care/Case Managers identify(s), assess, and resolve problems through administering short medical assessments and detailed psycho-social assessments including the Geriatric Depression Scale and the Mini Mental Status Exam. Case Managers also supervised clients’ continuum of care in their homes or facilities.
Additionally, my background experience provides family counseling, crises counseling, expertise utilizing resources in the community, collaborating with families, and medical advocacy with healthcare providers for ill-health older adult clients.
In 2006, I completed my master’s thesis on The Effects of Reiki, a Complementary and Alternative Medicine, on Depression and Anxiety in the Alzheimer’s and Dementia Population.
Since results from the study, I completed in 2006 were notably significant, I employed certified Reiki Masters to administer Reiki to all my patients with mid to late-stage dementia weekly, with doctor and family approval. For 18 years the results for these patients have been impressive by integrating Reiki, calming flute music therapy and diffused lavender aroma therapy with patients including Lewy Body, Vascular Dementia, Frontotemporal, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s disease. Not only did Reiki, and the combination of therapies, eliminate anxiety and depression, Reiki also halted frightful hallucinations during the first Reiki session for a patient with Lewy Body’s dementia, who was previously institutionalized in a lockdown facility.
Reiki with aroma therapy and music therapy, ceased wandering, sundowners, psychotropic medications, and insomnia, for my Alzheimer patients. A late-stage Alzheimer’s patient on hospice, had reversed speech with partial speech after two years of absent speech. Furthermore, this 100-year-old patient had recognition of family members from photos and Zoom on-line video calls. Reiki treatments were adminstered twice a week, along with continuous aroma therapy, music therapy and reversed hospice to palliative care three times for this Alzheimer’s patient.
In short, the significant results of the master’s thesis study I completed in 2006, suggests that Geriatric Care Management can provide an integrated approach, with allopathic and Complementary Alternative Medicine, for the well-being of our elders with dementia and an increase of peace of mind for both the patient and the family members.
