Posts tagged with "senior care"

Were you a KGO caller during the Ronn Owens show about “9 Realities of Caring for an Elderly Parent”?

Did you get your KGO question answered on the Ronn Owens show about “9 Realities of Caring for an Elderly Parent”?

If you missed this radio show, here is the link for my interview on KGO NewsTalk 810: http://tinyurl.com/mnvwpve

Yesterday was an exciting day for me as the guest author on the Ronn Owens show. He has been the voice of SF Bay Area news for 39 years and his callers are loyal listeners. Their questions were intelligent and all included a sense of urgency wondering what we will all be faced with soon enough, “What to do when Mom or Dad can no longer care for themselves?”

I have received emails since the show that I will share here in case any other readers have the same situation. If you are aware of any other resources, please do reply to this blog so we can post your answer within. Additionally, I want to add a couple thoughts for callers who did make it on air, since radio moves so fast and my answers are limited before the next commercial break.

The first caller asked, “What can we do about the in-law who lives in a remote area with no family around?”

Answer: One of the biggest problems facing seniors is isolation. Their social circle is diminishing. They may be outliving their friends. They may not drive anymore and need to depend on others for rides to activities. As a senior ages, doctors’ visits increase. Even for a relatively healthy senior, there are many rotations for regular blood work, hearing checks, eye appointments (especially if macular degeneration is diagnosed), bone density tests (especially if falls are a pattern). Ailments progressing to specialists will only add to the constant running back and forth to doctors that becomes part of a routine in senior care management.

Does the remote area offer a good hospital, or would you need to drive two hours to get to the medical facility that would be treating the problem? If there are no relatives nearby, is there a good neighbor who is close enough to regularly check-in, or to notice the newspaper hadn’t been picked up in a couple of days. If your answer is no, and I honestly do not recommend putting the job of caring for your elderly relative onto a friend because of all that is involved, can you consider relocating to move in with your in-law? If a secure job would be lost, then have the hard conversation within the family, including the senior, of moving her into your home. Remaining with her own loved ones is less scary than moving into an assisted living facility, and a lot less isolating.

If you are raising children at home, you are part of the sandwich generation that is caring simultaneously for elderly parents while raising kids. That is a double whammy. There will be strain, but in the end, the privilege of caring for your elderly parent and knowing you did everything possible to keep her safe, healthy and happy will certainly help you sleep better at night.

An email I received after the show asked, “What can I do to help my alcoholic mother who refuses to leave her home, but cannot be alone because she keeps falling?”

Answer: This makes everything about caring for a senior doubly hard. An alcoholic in a fit of rage is not dissimilar to the Alzheimer’s patient who is throwing things and cursing at loved ones. Check Al-Anon in your area http://www.al-anonsf.org/ since they offer support to the family and loved ones of the alcoholic. They may even have suggestions as to how someone can spell you on your mom’s most difficult days. The email goes on to say how desperately son and wife need a break but are afraid to leave her. I know there are agencies http://www.seniorsathome.org/ that offer companionship to seniors on an hourly, daily, or weekly basis. They will not distribute medications, but can oversee that the senior has taken her pills if the dosage is already set aside in a cup. They will never be allowed to do any injections, so diabetics requiring help with insulin shots will not be a good fit for their services. Sleuth carefully. This is not a resource I have used. Are there any friends, neighbors, or church members who can get on a rotation of visiting so you can take the break you desperately seek and most definitely deserve?

Finally, making sure all of those legal documents are in order will be critical if you are to ever have control over health decisions on her behalf or paying for medical bills because of a broken hip from a fall. Look into these four: 1)Will; 2)Trust; 3)Durable Power of Attorney for Health (the Advance Health Care directive; 4)Durable Power of Attorney for Finances. Without these in place, the court will be making the decisions for your mother, not you.

Your Checklist for Keeping Your Senior Safe at Home

How Do You Determine If This Is Forgetfulness or Something Much Worse? Know The Warning Signs To Keeping Your Senior Safe at Home.

When she flung open the front door to heartily greet me after a long period away from home, I did not need a professional to give me a checklist in order to know what was staring me in the face: my mother was no longer able to care for herself.

The thought registered like a blip on my radar, but I needed proof that these suspicions were correct.

I quickly gleaned from the tour of the house that all was not right within these walls. She was living in filth and clutter, and not just the kind that can be reconciled by making a bed and tidying a sock drawer. The term elder neglect came to mind.

But, I did not want to overreact.

I tried to talk myself into believing that maybe my mother was just unkempt today, an unusual departure from the years I remembered when dressing was a hobby she took seriously.

Other relatives had been coming and going and I never heard them sound the alarm. Aside from her appearance, and the neglect of the house, I witnessed that weekend what professionals will tell you are the first warning signs that your senior is not safe at home.

What I was seeing with fresh eyes was the lifestyle relatives had become blind to. Even friends weren’t privy to what went on behind that front door. I came to find out that my mom insisted on waiting for them on her front porch. People outside of the family just weren’t that close to the situation.

People inside the family just couldn’t see what was staring them in the face all along. In research I’ve read, passive neglect is not unusual; adult children of an elderly parent can be in denial that their parent needs as much care as she does.

To recognize that Mom or Dad can no longer care for themselves would mean you are responsible for providing a solution. If you don’t, there is CPS for seniors, known as APS, Adult Protective Services, an agency who will protect your parents if you can’t.

Here is the Home Alone checklist from the Aging Solutions website which you should monitor regularly, especially as changes begin to occur with your elderly parent. If your answer to any of these questions puts your parent at risk, it may be time to get more support in place.

1)Will your parent turn on the stove and forget to turn it off?

2)Does your parent understand how to leave home if necessary? Where the door is located? How to exit the building?

3)Will your parent stay home or near the house rather than wander off?

4)If your parent goes outside, do they know how to get back inside?

5)Can they identify signals, such as smoke from the kitchen or fire alarms that would alert them to potential dangers?

6)Do they know how to access emergency services? Do they know how and when to dial 911? Would they be able to communicate over the phone? Can they physically get to the phone no matter where they are?

7)Do they have frequent life-threatening medical emergencies that require immediate intervention? Do they know where their medication is located? Do they have the capacity to select the right medicines in the correct amounts?

8)Does your parent have the judgment to identify who they should and should not let into the home? Will they know to allow family, friends and emergency personnel into the home?

9)Can your parent get to the bathroom and use the toilet on their own? If not, have alternatives been worked out?

10)Are they afraid to be alone for an hour or more? Do they become clingy when caregivers depart and make frequent telephone calls if they are alone?

Too many of my answers during this first weekend visit convinced me my parent was a high-risk for living alone. So, we made the decision together that I would move back into my childhood home to care for our mother until the very end.

What I learned from this experience is the subject of my new book, a funny and compassionate account, with guideposts for the daunting role every adult child coming home to care for an elderly parent should know. 9 Realities of Caring for An Elderly Parent: A Love Story of a Different Kind, released in August 2013.

The Companion Playbook, is the workbook streamlined from the Memoir, chock-full of checklists and task sheets for the busy caregiver to begin doing today. June 2016. Both available at amazon and kindle.

Blog question: Which warning sign has you the most worried?

Sobering Statistics in Elder Care

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Are you worried about providing elder care for your senior parents?

Let’s open with some sobering statistics that you cannot ignore for much longer. The number of people caring for an aging parent has soared in the past 15 years, according to MetLife. In 1994, 3 percent of men, and 9 percent of women, helped with basic care for an aging parent; In 2008, these numbers increased to 17 percent of men, and 28 percent of women providing help which is defined as dressing, feeding, bathing, and other personal care needs. This goes well beyond grocery shopping, driving parents to appointments, and helping them with financial matters. And it is more stressful as well. In 2011, nearly 10 million adult children over the age of 50 provided this care for an aging parent.

In a deeper look at options available for seniors with limited finances who cannot stay in their own home because they are unable to care for themselves anymore, USA Today reports that most families are unprepared for the news that Medicare doesn’t pay for long-term care. The median cost of a year in a private room at a nursing home in 2011 was $77,745, according to Genworth. Assisted Living is another option, but it’s also not cheap and isn’t covered by Medicaid. The national median cost in 2011 was $39,135, by Genworth’s count. With 90 percent of elderly parents preferring to stay at home, from AARP research, families are left with the agonizing question of who will be stepping up to care for Mom or Dad.

As more people live into their 90’s, most of us will face caregiving responsibilities, or need caregiving ourselves. AARP says 45 million Americans perform some kind of caregiving. After A. Barry Rand, CEO of AARP, experienced caring for his own elderly father, he began addressing the daunting problem of caregiving by building the AARP Caregiving Resource Center in January 2012 where caregivers can come together to find experts and advice through local agencies. What starts out as just helping our parent can quickly turn into a full-time job.

I was not at all thinking the job would fall to me. Until it did.

I had no idea the call was coming, but my mother’s invitation to visit opened my eyes to the pitfalls of seniors living alone in a home they can no longer manage. It was enough for me to uproot my life to fulfill her wish that she live out the rest of her years in her own home.

No one prepared me for this undertaking and what I learned has become the subject of my new book 9 Realities of Caring For An Elderly Parent: A Love Story of A Different Kind, a funny, compassionate account of your daunting role if you are the adult child coming home to care for your elderly parent until the very end. Released August 2013 and available at amazon.com/kindle.

Blog question: How did your life change when you took on the role of caring for your elderly parent?

Who will be taking care of Mom or Dad?

Still Got Your Head Stuck In The Sand When It Comes To Senior Care?

Have you been avoiding the nagging thought of what will happen when your mom or dad can no longer care for themselves? This is a question plaguing more than 45 million of us this year, according to AARP in an article from November 2012.

As more people live into their nineties, most of us will face caregiving responsibilities, or need caregiving ourselves. This can include meal preparation for older or impaired adult relatives or friends. Maybe you are the thoughtful neighbor taking lasagna to the woman who lives alone at the end of your block. Do you know how she is eating the rest of the week? Maybe you are the friend who takes her to the grocery store once a week because she can no longer drive. Do you know how she is preparing meals?

Maybe you are the adult child who lives nearby, popping in twice a week. When you leave, do you know if she has a tendency to nap while the kettle has been left abandoned on the stove to melt all over the burners again? Who will be taking care of your elderly mom or dad? Sadly, this is not a job for the faint of heart. Or the neighbors. Or even the best friends.

There is a lot that goes on behind closed doors that neighbors and well-meaning friends cannot see. Most adult children cannot even recognize when their parent’s needs require a different kind of care. We are so accustomed to our parents fixing everything for us there is a sense of denial taking over. We don’t want to “see” the condition that our parent is living in if the cats they love so dearly have become more than they can manage, as evidenced by the little piles of defecation hidden in corners of the living room. If we become aware, then we need to be part of a solution, and this is scary because our lives are about to change dramatically.

These nine realities come from my new Memoir, 9 Realities of Caring For An Elderly Parent: A Love Story Of A Different Kind, released August 2013 and taken from my personal experience in caring for my mother during the last five years of her life. They are the bits of advice no one prepared me for in this undertaking that I learned the hard way. I share them here with you in a funny and compassionate account of what you can expect from your daunting role if you are the adult child coming home to care for your elderly parent until the very end.

Blog question: What was your first clue your mom or dad needed care?