Realtors Advising Family Caregivers
December 28, 2010
Hosted by Dr. Gordon Atherley
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Guest Information
Episode Description
Mona Gandy has 12 years’ experience as a licensed realtor in the state of Texas. Asko Marjanovic is a Partner in Avant Garde Real Estate, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. They talk about the ways in which realtors can help family caregivers who have to sell the homes or businesses of family members because of age or health conditions. They discuss the things that can go wrong and the risks in home or business sales in these circumstances, the concerns that family caregivers have, and the help that realtors can provide. They discuss challenges for family caregivers selling homes or businesses of aging parents affected by dementia and similar health conditions that affect the person’s judgment. They discuss advice for family caregivers in selling homes outside of North America. They talk about the situation for families where there is no family caregiver. They say what should be done to encourage family caregivers to get the help of a good realtor in the sale of a family home or business.
Family Caregivers Unite!
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Family caregivers are the people who provide care to partners, parents, children, brothers, sisters, cousins, friends, neighbors and even co-workers. They are the people who provide care when everyone else has gone home. They are the people who organize the functioning of the home for the person with special needs, and for the family as a whole. They are the coordinators of care, the managers of appointments, the preventers of loneliness, and the makers of decisions even to the point of Power of Attorney. And they are so often people who themselves are burdened with their own health challenges and who may be in only marginally better health than the persons to whom they are providing family caregiving.
Dr. Gordon Atherley
Dr Gordon Atherley holds the British equivalent of the Canadian PhD and MD degrees, and LLD, Honoris Causa, from Canada’s Simon Fraser University. His awards include Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, UK. His medical specialties are occupational medicine and public health.
As first President and Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, the Canadian equivalent of the US National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, he led the creation of Canada’s electronic information service in occupational health and safety, now used in more than 40 countries.
In academia, he held senior, tenured, full-time positions, including departmental chair, in university faculties of physics, engineering, and medicine. He is the author of a textbook and numerous articles and publications.
Since retiring from medical practice, he’s built up Greyhead Associates, which critically researches the safety, effectiveness and fairness of health services for persons with special needs.
Through Virtual Care International, a company of which he’s President, he’s involved in providing sensible technology to family caregivers to help them with their responsibilities, workloads, and concerns.
Now an activist, he urges family caregivers to unite because, more and more, it’s not just their families who depend on them, it’s also the healthcare system as a whole, as it struggles to meet more and more needs of more and more people.