The New Solution to Eldercare for 30 Million Baby Boomers: Care Support of America - 'Trusted Guidance as Your Parents Age'

NEW YORK, Oct. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- An aging mother falls and breaks her hip and is coming home from the hospital. . .A father with mild cognitive impairment begins to develop serious Alzheimer's disease and has to move to a nursing home. . .An adult child tries to help an aging parent in a distant state who lives alone and struggles to remain independent with the help of home health aides and community services.

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Today, Care Support of America (CSA), the national family care manager service, introduces a new expanded Web resource and corporate identity geared to reach the 30 million baby boomer family caregivers around the country who are searching for practical solutions and support in caring for their aging parents.

"Baby boomers are increasingly being consumed by caregiving responsibilities as their parents live longer, but not always well," says Dan Tobin, M.D., Care Support of America Founder and CEO. "We have an invaluable service, proven over years of clinical research, to help them."

Care Support of America exists for family caregivers anytime, anywhere - when their parents are coming home from the hospital, when they are trying to make sense of doctors' treatments for advancing illness, when in-home services and equipment need to be arranged, or when insurance benefits and community services seem complex and unfamiliar.

CSA provides registered nurses, specially trained as family care managers, who work over the phone and in person doing home safety assessments of parents' homes. CSA's nurses work with the patient's doctors and their hospitals and help family caregivers understand and evaluate treatment options, develop an individualized plan, and coordinate for family caregivers all medical and non-medical aspects of a parent's care - including home health aides, transportation, medication management, insurance questions, and more.

Real-life Success Stories

Care Support of America's method has helped thousands of families in 32 states and Canada, through partnerships with local home care services in more than 500 locations.

Real-life Care Support of America success stories include:

    --  Making sure an aging mother's hospital-discharge plans were in place,
        visiting the parent the day she was discharged, and following up to be
        sure medications were in order, doctor's treatment recommendations were
        followed, and organizing home nurses, aides, and equipment.
    --  Providing expert help with the interstate relocation of an aging mother,
        including handling forms and dealing with agencies and providers.
    --  Discovering elder abuse by a local home care aide who had a parent sign
        a power-of-attorney and was about to steal a lifetime of savings.

    --  Finding the best assisted living facility in a parent's home town (CSA
        does not get paid for referring to any organization).

"I know that as I tried to care for elderly and chronically ill parents, uncles, and cousins myself, I found the whole medical system incredibly complex - and I'm an insider," says Joseph F. O'Donnell, M.D., Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry and Senior Advising Dean and Director of Community Programs at Dartmouth Medical School, and Senior Scholar of the C. Everett Koop Institute at Dartmouth. "If I had a service like Care Support of America, I would have been able to sleep better with less worry about their care and more effectively utilize my time trying to coordinate their care in the disjointed system we have. Most important, I feel they would have been able to receive better care."

Extend Aging at Home, Improve Outcomes

Care Support of America's service was developed through years of clinical research by Dr. Tobin at Kaiser Permanente, Catholic Healthcare Hospitals nationwide, selected Medicare demonstrations, and other large group healthcare systems and HMOs.

In independent peer-review studies, care coordination and CSA's approach in particular have been shown to improve patient outcomes and satisfaction, extend aging at home, and reduce time in nursing homes. Most Care Support of America clients, 80%, say that they get the help they need after only four hours of service, according to client surveys.

New Web Resource; New Identity Geared to Reach 30 Million

Care Support of America's new Website (www.caresupportofamerica.com), which launches today, includes expanded information, tools, and checklists for family members coping with eldercare crises and coordinating care.

The new Care Support of America identity and "Trusted Guidance as Your Parents Age(TM)" tagline reflect CSA's mission and nationwide scope. A new logo of stylized stars symbolizes the changing relationship of adult children becoming caregivers for their parents. The logo and Care Support of America's redesigned and enhanced Website were developed by leading global branding consultancy Siegel+Gale.

"As baby boomers, we're as hard-wired to take care of our parents as our parents are hard-wired to take care of us," Dr. Tobin says. "Our tools and methods solve problems and also help navigate the sensitive - and changing - relationship between an aging parent and an adult child. We help our clients manage the stress and leave room for them to spend meaningful quality time with their aging parents."

About Dan Tobin, M.D.

Dan Tobin, M.D. is Founder and CEO of Care Support of America, a national family care manager service. He is an adjunct assistant professor of psychiatry (health psychology) at Dartmouth Medical School and the author of books and articles on eldercare issues and positive solutions to family caregiving problems. Dr. Tobin's blog, The Caregiver, appears on the Psychology Today Website at http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-caregiver.

About Care Support of America

Care Support of America (http://www.caresupportofamerica.com) is an independent family care manager service that helps identify and solve family caregiving problems to provide trusted guidance as your parents age, wherever you and your parents live. Care Support of America has partnerships with home care providers in 500 locations and has provided family care manager services in 32 states and Canada.

If you would like to speak with Dr. Tobin, please contact Davia Temin or Christine Summerson of Temin and Company at 212-588-8788 or news@teminandco.com.

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Dan Tobin, M.D.

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SOURCE Care Support of America

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