Communication Archives - Elder Maze Solutions

Neutral Elder Care Oversight: Expert Guide for Complex Families

Some families approach elder care decisions united, while others arrive thoughtful but divided. Not due to neglect, but because complexity has entered the room. Blended families, adult children with unequal proximity or authority, strong personalities shaped by decades, and financial or legal considerations all influence care. In these situations, love is rarely absent, but clarity…

Adult children disagree not because of a lack of care, but because each is concerned from a different perspective. One child may prioritize safety, another independence, and a third might worry about cost or timing. Each viewpoint is valid, yet together they can create paralysis. In these moments, the question becomes: Who has the authority…

Families who invest in premium senior care often do so with a sense of relief. The assumption is understandable: higher cost implies higher standards, greater attentiveness, and fewer compromises. For many families, choosing premium care feels like choosing safety. Yet experience suggests a quieter truth. Even at the highest levels, care can falter. Not through…

Families make elder care decisions choices quickly, responding to immediate needs rather than long-term plans. As medical events trigger financial actions, authority often shifts informally. Consequently, practical decisions can gradually change the trajectory of trusts, assets, and inheritance. The effects do not always appear immediately. Over time, families notice when plans no longer function as…

Surrogate decision making in elder care rarely begins with a formal declaration. It begins quietly, in moments when decisions are postponed because they feel uncomfortable, premature, or emotionally heavy. A medical appointment ends with unanswered questions. Financial paperwork is set aside because it feels intrusive. Care decisions linger because no one is certain who should…

Aging Parent Support: A Guide for Families

Aging Parent Support! There is often a moment, quiet and easily overlooked, when a family realizes something has shifted. Not enough to call it a problem. Not enough to demand action. Just enough to linger. A parent pauses where decisions once came easily. A story is told again, unchanged. A familiar warmth gives way to…

When parents and adult children don’t get along, it can be hard on the whole family. Check out this blog to learn how you can improve your family dynamic.

Living in the world of Alzheimer’s Disease sometimes requires “stepping into their world and seeing it from the perspective of the person with dementia”.

Untreated hearing loss has been linked to numerous health complications such as diabetes, hypertension, depression, anxiety, and even cognitive decline.

Elder Maze Solutions - Options for Elder Care

4.3

Based on 11 reviews

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Diane Lazzaris

14:38 19 Dec 21

Holistic Aging and Options for Elder Care helped our family immensely with care for my father, from arranging his care during a complex move from out of state to PA so that it was completely safely, to establishing his healthcare and home care support system once here, and helping us care for him and manage his care as his condition changed over the years. Highly recommended.

Patrick Reitz

12:38 15 Dec 21

Holistic Aging's insider knowledge of continuing care communities for seniors was indispensable to me. I recently moved my elderly parents from their own home in a small town to a senior living residence in Pittsburgh. Holistic Aging gave me a short list of appropriate, well run facilities to visit, which saved me an incredible amount of time, effort and confusion. They also gave me a more inside perspective about how each place differed subtly in its practices for allowing 'aging in place' with supports transitions to more assisted living options. And they helped demystify the different pricing packages each place offered, which again saved me a tremendous amount of time and energy. I was able to use all this information to help my parents choose a place, and now they're comfortably settled.

Lisa Schneider

21:40 09 Apr 21

Very helpful and caring agency. The staff are knowledgeable and dedicated to assisting with elder care. They know about resources and nursing facilities in the Pittsburgh area and provided wonderful staff to help oversee and supplement my mother's care. As a working mother, I greatly appreciated their help since I was unable to be at my mother's nursing home every day. Lisa S.

ourBurgh Family

17:30 08 Mar 21

I recommend Holistic Aging. Firstly, if you are reading this, I’m sending you my heartfelt care, because it probably means that you are in the midst of navigating the painful circumstance of managing a loved one’s difficult end-of-life situation. This is inevitably stressful, both for them and you. I am so sorry. But I also commend you for your courage to step up, do your homework and find the healthiest, most positive ways forward.

My family worked with Holistic Aging for almost a decade, over the course of a family member’s long and challenging journey with dementia. Holistic Aging's support was so important to us all, every step of the way.

Support is the key word here- it is something both you and your loved one absolutely need, in different ways. As the person responsible for your loved one’s well-being, you will need clear-headed, experienced, respectful help navigating the care options available. Throughout our years of working together, Holistic Aging's founder and staff consistently provided me with thoughtful, informed guidance about options, and creatively adapted and evolved care plans to meet our loved one’s changing needs, in the sincere interest of providing them with the best quality of life possible, at each stage of their journey.

Holistic Aging’s founder, Bobbi Kolonay, is passionate about her work. She is a pioneer in the field of holistic elder care who brings decades of experience within the elder care community to her clients’ benefit. Bobbi and her company excel in a field that is too often not given the attention it deserves because death and dying, particularly in vulnerable circumstances like dementia care, can be a very emotionally fraught experience for families.

Sometimes there is mixed oversight within the elder care industry, and perhaps because of its painful nature, it can be hard for families to really look at and deal with the care process. And sometimes this can lead to loved ones not receiving all the attention they need. My family chose to work with Holistic Aging because they offer a multi-level framework, with RN case care managers overseeing well-vetted caregivers, which adds layers of security to ensuring that loved ones are being taken care of properly. My family’s experience with Holistic Aging’s management was positive- we learned so much from Bobbi and the truly excellent care managers and caregivers who touched our lives.

From my Burgh family to yours, we wish you well with your journey. I hope you find your best ways forward, bringing as much peace of mind, and love, as possible to yourself and those dear to you.

Lori Wynn

17:57 10 Jan 21

As a physical therapist over the last year, I have worked with some of the clients of Holistic Aging. The clients are accompanied by the excellent caregivers of Holistic Aging to their appointments. I have spent a good amount of time witnessing the way that these caregivers attend to their clients. The clients are treated by the staff like they are family. The details of their lives are well known and their well-being is top priority. On numerous occasions, I have needed to communicate with the staff, and this is always seamless. If I had family in need of elder care, I would be eager to have one of these exceptionally caring staff of Holistic Aging be a part of the team.

Julie Densmore

19:52 10 Aug 20

The Best Medical Investment and Care Decision Our Family Has Made
I highly recommend Holistic Aging for their Life Care Manager support of an aging loved one who may be living in the Pittsburgh area. Bobbi and her team of qualified individuals are compassionate and trained in geriatric care management. They have provided unsurpassed medical and general support for my 85 year old mother-in-law (MIL) over the past 2 years while we are living on the West Coast. Their services provide us with peace-of-mind and confidence that our loved one is safe and cared for even when we cannot be present. Their expert care has enabled my MIL to live comfortably alone in her home. They have helped to systematically address and resolve my MILs growing medical issues and ensure that her most pressing challenges are adequately managed. Our life care manager, Kristi - who is a RN - accompanies my MIL to all doctor appointments to ask the right questions during the visit. Kristi maintains a comprehensive picture of my MIL's health conditions and acts as her personal advocate at all doctor visits. We chose Holistic Aging for their fusion of both East and Western treatment modalities that are tailored to the unique individual so along with medical care, my MIL has received acupuncture, nutritional supplements, massage, and myofacial release therapies - all considered to be "alternative" to treatments and normally would not have been offered. However, each of these treatments have majorly improved my MIL's well-being so we welcome the East/West treatment fusion that Holistic Aging provides. We are incredibly grateful and impressed with the service that Holistic Aging provides for our family. I highly recommend them for care of a loved one. Thank you Bobbi and Kristi!

Carina Didiano

01:49 20 Aug 18

I just wanted to say how much I appreciate Renee’s work as a nurse with her clients, who are in their early 90’s. I have worked with her for a while now and she has such a good heart, especially when it comes to her clients well being. She always goes above and beyond for all of them! She deserves the recognition.

Dianna Long

01:25 30 Jan 18

Personally sought advice and counsel from the owner - very helpful and knowledgeable about reimbursement and geriatric aging. Owner keeps up to date on all related geriatric trends and medication trends. True desire to change and help the lives of those aging - to improve the quality of life and ensure maximum reimbursement.

Morgan Grimes

20:33 07 Nov 17

Elder Maze Solutions Client

18:23 05 Sep 17

It is difficult to put into words how much Susan’s work with Elder Maze Solutions has meant to our family. After my father passed away, he left behind our widowed mother, physically weak, depressed and living at some distance from family. She was vulnerable in so many ways, needing help with things including medical and nursing care, physical therapy, transportation, financial protection, troubleshooting and coordinating a complex array of services. We found that we just couldn’t manage everything from a distance, and that what we needed more than anything else was someone acting as Mom’s advocate and coordinating her access to needed supports. Susan stepped in and really took charge of the situation, keeping tabs on everything happening on the medical front, not only making sure that key appointments were made and kept, but also accompanying Mom to them and maintaining organized health reports. Susan ensured that no one was taking financial advantage, that in-home caregivers were providing adequate support, and even that home maintenance problems were addressed. She really made an effort to understand our mother and her unique needs. Susan was willing to play bad cop as necessary, dismissing caregivers who weren’t up to the job, arranging for better ones to be put in place, making sure that physical therapy proceeded on schedule, and pushing back on advice from any service sellers that didn’t serve our mother’s interests. Because Susan was so organized, committed, and pro-active, we are in a much improved situation now: Mom’s health, mental outlook and physical conditioning are all better than they were a couple of years ago. Having Susan there was the closest thing we could manage to actually having a family member on-site to look after our mother.

Rebekah Simpson

13:12 19 Oct 16

Bobbi and her team of care manager's have been a "God Send" to our family. My mother has Alzheimer's disease and with family all over the country, we were not able to assist mom with the needed care she required to continue to live a meaningful life. A friend of ours had used Options For Elder Care services and highly recommend them. They know everything there is to know about Alzheimer's, not only improving my mom's life but realizing the stress of our entire family. We will continue to have challenges as mom progresses through Alzheimer's but feel confident being directed by this care management company.

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Communication

Neutral Elder Care Oversight: Expert Guide for Complex Families

Who Makes the Call When Adult Children Disagree

Critical Warning: Red Flags in Premium Senior Care For Families

Secure Your Legacy: Elder Care Decisions and Estate Risks

Urgent Elder Care Decisions: Acting Wisely Before It’s Too Late

How to Get Your Aging Parent to Accept Help

When Parents and Adult Children Don’t Get Along

Living in the World of Alzheimer’s Disease

Untreated Hearing Loss