How to Deal with Elderly Parents
As the Baby Boomer generation ages, more families are finding themselves responsible for caring for elderly relatives. When parents start needing extra help or full-time care, the roles of parent and child become reversed. There are major financial and medical decisions to content with, as well as large time commitments. Families often struggle with how to divide the care and financial burden, and both caregivers and elderly parents are more prone to depression and stress-related illness.
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Things You'll Need
- Insurance information
- Financial information
- Property deeds
- Wills and living wills
- Vital records (birth and marriage certificates, divorce degrees, etc.)
- Doctors' information
- Numbers for parents' friends, neighbors, and service providers
- Medication information
Instructions
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Sit down with your parents and discuss the future before it becomes truly necessary. Many families find themselves unprepared in health crisis, which creates even more stress in an already difficult situation. Caring for an elderly or disabled parent is never easy, but being organized prepared helps you know what you should do.
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Talk to your parents about what they want to happen as they age. Find out if they want to stay at home or if they're considering a retirement village or assisted living. Are they planning to live with their children? Learn about the kinds of financial arrangements have they made for their care, and discuss who should be given power of attorney.
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Keep accurate records. Compile your parents' insurance, investments, medical history and retirement plans. Make copies of property deeds, wills and vital records. Know where to find their doctors' information, phone numbers for friends and service providers like accountants and clergy, and learn about their medications.
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Consider your own finances. Plan for the sacrifices that caring for your parents will entail. For example, you might need to work less to help out a parent or pay travel costs for visits.You may have to contribute money to their care. According to Consumer Health Ratings, in 2009, a Medicare certified, licensed in-home aid cost $46 per hour. Assisted living averaged $2,800 per month and a nursing home was $183 per day. Additionally, a family caregiver can expect to contribute more than $5,000 a year for groceries, travel costs, medical costs and other expenses.
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Assess your parents' changing needs. As they age, you can provide help by driving them for errands, cooking, or housekeeping. Keep an eye out for signs that your parents might need more in-home help, such as increased forgetfulness, poor grooming or bathing, or increased difficulty getting around. Consider in-home help, from a part-time housekeeper to a full-time licensed nurse.
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Respect your parents' wishes as much as possible, but be prepared to make hard decisions if your parents lose the ability to decide for themselves. It's possible you will have to put a parent's safety before his or her desires. For example, a parent with dementia may need to be committed to a care facility, and a parent with increasing disabilities might have to go live in a nursing home.
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Use the resources available to you. Many communities have support groups for people caring for elderly parents, and there is online support available from organizations like the Family Caregiver Alliance (www.caregiver.org), the Administration on Aging (www.aoa.gov), and Medicare (www.medicare.gov/caregivers/).
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Tips & Warnings
Take care of yourself. Care-giving is stressful and emotionally draining. Give yourself breaks, and rely on others for support as much as you can.
