Displaying items by tag: aging parent

Each glance in the mirror shows us that we are getting older. We can feel it in our bones, in our energy levels, and in witnessing of our own parents aging and, in many cases, losing their vitality. This stage of life can be challenging, that’s for sure. There are many difficult conversations to have around healthcare, finances, and end-of-life planning.

It is all too easy for fear, grief, and even resentment to creep into the space between family members. But there’s another way to approach this delicate stage—one that allows this unique time in life to be shared with reverence, gratitude, and grace between adult children and their aging parents.

The tips below will help you plan a path forward with loving intention, courage, and clarity as the time to make critical decisions nears.

Embrace Blessings, Find Peace. The challenges inherent with interacting with our aging parents can be balanced with unexpected blessings if we focus on finding peace. It’s hard work to rise to this challenge, but well worth the effort. You have the opportunity to discover one another anew by taking the perspective of understanding the life choices your parents made through the lens of your own adult life. This change in stance also invites your aging parent into a different way of seeing your choices and relating with you—one that comes from a new shared perspective. If needed, seek out an eldercare mediator, professional counselor, or support group that specializes in strengthening the bond between adult children and older parents.

Who are You, Now? If your family is blessed with longstanding strong ties, open communication and support for one another, then now is a good time to deepen that bond. Maintain focus on building mutual understanding by keeping updated on each other’s lives through regular calls, texts, and letters that show the nuances of who you are and what is happening in your life. When interacting, ask deep questions that allow for open dialogue rather than short answers. Inquire about the kind of emotional support you need from each other, not just physical or logistical support. (ex: What concerns weigh on your mind or heart these days, Mom?). Also, discuss current events in the world and in daily life such as each other’s work, hobbies, and social relationships. If you sense gaps in your parents’ life that affect their wellbeing (e.g. loneliness), then raise that topic with them.

Find Value in the Little Things. For many of adult children, it’s hard to see past the shortcomings and missteps (or mistakes) we perceived our parents made with us while growing up under their roof. Again, looking at their choices or even asking them about those choices with the intention to understand and appreciate the challenges they faced at the time can go a long way to repairing frayed family ties. In doing so, you can find value in the little things and the sacrifices that impacted their choices, much of which is lost on us during our youth. Gaining appreciation for their experience at the time, helps create space for forgiveness, for healing old wounds and resolving differences. Again, a counselor or support group can be a real asset in helping aging parents and adult children move into alliance with one another.

Healthy Boundaries, Stronger Family Connections. You may be in a situation where you want a peaceful and amicable relationship with your loved ones, but old hurt, rivalries with siblings, and other family drama keeps popping up. In these circumstances, a counselor is essential to help all family members set healthy boundaries and focus on how to maintain open dialogue, steering clear of hurtful topics and drama. Sometimes we won’t be able to come to resolution, but with acceptance of what we can’t change, we can move forward well-enough to be present without resentment or regret. 

Life is fragile; we sense this the older we get. Helping our parents age with courage and dignity through open dialogue, mending strained family relations, forgiving and showing grace to ourselves and our parents can be difficult to do. Planning the path forward for our aging parents before memory loss or other illness makes them unable to participate in the process is an act of compassion for all involved. One that will help us bear the sorrow or their passing without resentment or regret. Take the time, now to strengthen your relationship with an aging parent or adult child so that when the time does come to day good-bye you are not just prepared, you both can move on in peace knowing that you gave it your best.

Support for Planning a Path Forward with Everbrook Senior Living

All of us at Everbrook Senior Living have walked the path of planning a path forward for our aging parents—many of us needed to mend fences along the way. We understand the challenge and the reward in this process. It is at the heart of the work we do for the families we serve. It is why we established the Everbrook communities for active older adults and assisted living. Our compassionate, professional staff can help facilitate honest conversations between family members faced with making decisions about care for aging parents. Our first and utmost concern is that everyone involved has a voice in the process and finds the best fit for their loved one’s needs, including social-emotional, spiritual, medical, and financial. Contact us to learn more about how we can assist with the conversation and decision making between aging parents and adult children. 

Further Reading

HopkinsMedicine.org: “Tough (But Important) Conversations [with Aging Parents]”

NPR.org: “8 Essential Conversations to Have with Your Aging Parent”

Family Caregiver Alliance Webinar: “Families with Aging Parents: Difficult Conversations Just Got Easier”, presented by Nicole Lance, JD.

AARP.org: “5 Tips for Difficult Family Caregiving Conversations”

We often hope for holiday visits with aging parents to be sentimental celebrations. For some adult children, though, the holiday visit can be a distressing time. Subtle signs may surface, indicating their parent is not taking proper care of themself—and it may be time to consider assisted living. 

You may already be familiar with the more obvious warning signs that an aging parent is not able to live on their own, such as frequent falls, persistent forgetfulness, hoarding, lack of social relationships, misuse of medication, and overdue bills. During holiday visits, adult children can pay attention for subtle signs that an aging parent needs assisted living care.

When visiting an aging parent, be observant of the following:

• Is their home environment tidy and relatively clean? Or, is there an odor, dirty sinks/toilets/floors, and general messiness that is not typical for them? 
• Are there late notices for bills? Is mail piled up?
• Do they appear unsteady in their gait? navigating stairs? difficulty rising from or lowering to a chair?
• Do you notice any weight loss? 
• Are they maintaining personal hygiene?
• Do they see friends, engage with social groups, or do they spend more time alone?
• Are they taking medications properly? (count pills and check refill dates)
• Do they become defensive about you touching their things or helping to tidy up?
• Are they quick to anger, more easily frustrated, or impulsive? 

How concerned should you be about changes noticed in an aging parent?

There are many reasons why changes occur in an aging parent. Sometime the changes are transient, even temporary, caused by things like a recent illness or injury, or the loss of a beloved pet, friend or partner. Retirement or societal changes that require personal adaptations (such as to new technologies) can bring about temporary attitudinal and emotional shifts as your parent tries to establish a new sense of meaning and purpose for their life.

While such changes warrant careful monitoring and should be addressed with appropriate physical and emotional support, they likely are not indicators that your parent needs assisted living.

You should be concerned, and ready to consider assisted living care for an aging parent if the changes you notice are persistent, intense or worsening, and if they result in frequent visits to the doctor or hospital. Be on the watch for increased isolation, suspicion that your parent is experiencing more than just holiday blues, or overt signs of emotional and physical hazards or self-harm, which require immediate medical attention. Now would be the time to make inquiries about assisted living care.

Start the Conversation: Is it Time to Move to Assisted Living?

When you realize your aging parent is not able to care for themselves and their living space, you may experience conflicting emotions, too. It’s important to be open and honest with your parent. If having the conversation with them is difficult, consider working an aging advocate who can help you both navigate the decision with impartial support for both of you. It’s a good idea to schedule a tour of senior living communities so your loved one can see what the community offers and how their life can improve in an assisted care environment. 

Everbrook Assisted Living offers support from compassionate counselors who can in help you decide about the residential lifestyle and care that meets your parent’s unique needs. We provide a variety of affordable, quality living options (including Independent Living, Assisted Living, and Memory Care), amenities, and the medical resources an aging parent needs to live a healthy and meaningful life.

Do you feel like you are having to keep tabs on your aging parent? Are you second guessing if mom or dad should still be living on their own and may need more supervised care? There are several hidden warning signs that can be indicators an aging parent needs assisted living care.

• Forgetfulness 
• House is a Mess
• Changes in Mobility
• Poor Personal Hygiene 
• Not Engaging in Day-to-Day Activities

When observing your older adult parent in their living space, you’ll want to keep tabs on the following warning signs to assess whether or not they can continue to independently care for themselves and their home. You may want to keep a notebook, so you can see patterns of behavior and can share this information with your parent and their physician. This information will be helpful for decision making and for engaging with assisted living counselors when you start evaluating residential options for your parent.

When you are making notes about these changes in your aging parent, you’ll also want to observer how they respond to the changes themselves and how they respond to you when you try to discuss these things with them: 

• Does it frustrate them? Is the frustration at an acceptable level? 
• Can they problem-solve to find a healthy, reasonable work-a-round to the change? 
• Do they get anxious, unnecessarily aggravated or belligerent? 
• Do they brush it off, even though they changing their behavior as a result and this is affecting their usual quality of life? 

1. Forgetfulness. It may not seem like a “hidden warning” because forgetfulness in older adults is something we typically think of as really obvious. Before forgetfulness gets to the problematic point, it progresses, for most people, at a slow pace. You’ll want to look for consistent, insidious patterns of forgetfulness. This is more than just occasionally misplacing the car keys—something all of us do from time-to-time. When the car keys (or anything else) go missing more than occasionally, and to the point where the keys can’t be found so your parent can’t drive the car, that’s the kind of progression that’s a sign something more serious is going on with memory. 

A red-hot warning sign for forgetfulness, which can have tragic outcomes is your aging parent forgetting to take their medication. Be sure that you are keeping tabs on their dosing—that they aren’t taking too much or too little (or none at all), which could result in a medical emergency situation. Other significant warning signs for forgetfulness include: not remembering where they placed important documents, forgetting to cash checks received, to pay bills electronically or by mail, or placing perishable foods in a cabinet instead of the fridge.

2. House is a Mess. If your parent wasn’t a messy person most of their life, and their living space starts to look in disarray, that could be cause for concern. Take notice of:

• the condition of floors, carpets, counters (they stopped vacuuming or dusting) 
• piles of dirty dishes in the kitchen
• the cleanliness of the fridge – is there spoiled food in fridge?
• trash piles inside / outside the home
• evidence of hording
• evidence of insects or rodents
• grass has not been cut/front porch swept
• if they own pets: are the pets toileting in the home?

These things could be signs of forgetfulness and/or changes in mobility, meaning your parent is no longer able to do these things and is ashamed to tell you.

3. Changes in Mobility. The obvious signs are frequent falls and similar mishaps with movement. Before that degree of change, you’ll want to look for these hidden warning signs in your aging parent’s mobility:

• Do they hold onto furniture to move about a room?
• Have trouble standing from a sitting position? Rising from their bed?
• Do they have difficulty navigating even a few steps or the curb?
• Are they avoiding going up or down stairs even though that’s the only way to access a bedroom or bathroom? (In which case—are they washing themselves at the kitchen sink or sleeping on the couch?)

4. Poor Personal Hygiene. If an aging parent suddenly looks unkept, has body odor, or seems to be wearing the same clothes over again, these are subtle signs they are losing the ability to independently care for themself. So pay attention to these things each time you visit:

• Are they brushing their teeth?
• Are they doing laundry (can they access the laundry room?)
• Are the closets/drawers for clothes organized or in disarray?
• Do they have soap, deodorant, and other personal hygiene products or are they forgetting to buy these things?
• If they usually wore make-up, have the stopped or are they applying it wrong?

5. Not Engaging in Activities. If your aging parent has discontinued participation in their usual hobbies, social outings with friends, or routine shopping... and this is not due to an acute illness or minor physical set-back, be concerned. You’ll want to talk 

Is it Time for Your Aging Parent to Move to Assisted Living?

If you find that your aging parent displays any of these hidden warning signs of not being able to care for themselves and their living space, then it may be time to consider assisted living. This is especially important to do if you are unable to take-on the challenge of caregiving for your parent. Everbrook Senior Living offers support from compassionate care counselors who can in help you decide about assisted living care that meets your parent’s unique needs. We provide the resources and options necessary for making an informed and affordable choice. Not only do our state-of-the-art, luxury residences provide medical attention your loved one may made need, they will also have access to a full complement of recreational, social, emotional, and cultural activities to support their well-being in their Golden Years.