Don’t leave your elderly parents without care. Here are 4 ways to help your elderly parents in their golden years.
by Kimberly Pangaro | Kimberly is a proud mom of four daughters, devoted wife, and the owner of Atomic Mommy – a media company dedicated to empowering parents. When she’s not running her company or momming all day, she’s writing about family life. She’s been featured in Parents magazine and Voyage Savannah magazine. She’s considered by many as the time management queen of parenting and an uplifting inspirational mompreneur. You can follow her on Instagram and Twitter @atomic_mommy.
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When you’re young, you never think of your parents as getting too old to care for themselves. It’s just not what the youth thinks about. And then what feels like completely out of the blue, your parents become elderly and you realize, they’ll need senior living locations to live.
To give them the best chances at a happy senior life, they’ll need to get started with Chelsea Senior Living or other great places for seniors. But when it comes to senior living, it can be hard to find the right place for our parents, after all it’s not their home. So then we get lost in the research, postpone the interviews, and make poor choices based on the unknown. This can cause delay in providing them proper care, and can cause us extreme stress and worry.
We will all go through this phase, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Knowing some simple truths about senior care can begin preparing your mindset for the day your own parents grow older with the need of a quality caregiver.
Some people will take the route of caring for their elderly parents themselves to avoid the high financial cost of senior homes. Others may hire outside facilities to watch over them. If you opt not to live with your parents or have them live with you, then help them by choosing the right living arrangements for them. And that’s where guidance from in-home care services like Aged care services sydney comes in–companies like this can help you determine what’s best for you.
But to really help your elderly parents, you’ll need a few tips and a little of bit guidance. Here are 4 tips to help your elderly parents if you can’t be their caregiver.
#1 Find the Best Care and Living Arrangements
No one dreams of sending their parents to live in a senior home, but sometimes people don’t believe there are other options. The truth is there are. If you want to take care of your elderly parents, it may be best to find in-home care for your parents, in order to meet their needs. While others may be willing to downsize or move somewhere like a retirement community or assisted living community. The important part is that it may be you who needs to make the final choice for where your parents live and the type of care they will receive. Who knows, perhaps this experience of having carers for your parents may even inspire you to look into how to start a senior care franchise so that you can make sure that other people’s parents live with dignity and retain as much of their independence as possible in their later years.
#2 Help Them Manage Their Finances
Money matters can become a sticky issue as your parents get older. They might not be sure how to manage their money, especially after they’ve retired, and they can also be at risk of people taking advantage of them. You can offer to help with money management to make it easier for your parents to handle their finances. That could include helping them to budget their money or helping them to make smarter financial decisions. If you think your parents aren’t capable of managing their own finances, you might have to consider legal avenues for protecting them.
#3 Protect Them from Harm
As your parents get older, they can be more vulnerable to harm. They might be more easily confused, too trusting, or incapable of caring for themselves. Protecting them from harm can be more difficult if you’re not physically close to them. However, you can still do things to keep them safe. One of the biggest concerns that often comes up, is the possibility of elder abuse. Preventing this can be difficult if you live far away, but not impossible. You can do your due diligence in researching any facilities or caregivers. This will help you choose the right care options for them. Try to visit them as often as you can, never leaving them without your presence for too long. In the off-chance you do suspect something has happened, you can hire a nursing home abuse lawyer. They can help you address any issues concerning abuse and neglect in settings such as nursing homes.
#4 Prevent Loneliness
Loneliness can be a big problem for older people. You might feel guilty if you’re not able to be there for your parents all the time. But there are things you can do if you want to help your parents remain social and engaged with their local community.
The elderly, including elderly couples, can feel lonely if they only have each other. To combat this feeling, you can provide support by helping them find extracurricular activities such as book clubs, sports groups, history clubs, and elderly physical activity clubs. There may be group field trips that you can set up for them, possibly scheduling transport if they need it. Alternatively, someone could visit them or call them regularly for a chat. You can find charities that offer services such as these. You can also support them by staying in touch regularly. Even if you can’t visit often, you can still use phone calls or methods of keeping in touch online to help prevent your parents from getting lonely.
The Takeaway
The idea of caring for your parents in their golden ages is a hard thing to think about, but it doesn’t have to be. You can consider alternative caregiver options, or you can opt to be their caregiver yourself. The point is, there are many things you can do to support them, even from afar.
