aussiegenes asked:


My dad has always been a brilliant man. But due to a couple of small strokes he now has periods of confusion and is a very unsafe driver. He signs papers for anyone who asks but doesn’t understand what he’s signed. My mother had to go to the store where he’d done this and recover the papers and put them through the shredder. What do you do to gain control over someone who clearly has lost mental capacity to make sound judgements but can legally drive a car and sign papers?! He acts like a child at times but he can get into considerably more trouble than a child. We love him dearly and respect him but we have to protect him from himself and protect Mom from his bad decisions. He’s always been naiive and too trusting of people, and now it’s much more so; he’s very vulnerable to con men who prey on the elderly.

Logan

James Brown asked:


Many family members feel that a deadbolt on the front door of their parent’s home will take care of any elder care safety issues that might harm them. There are other safety issues that family members never stop to consider and those considerations include what their parent’s state of mind is, the structural soundness of the building that they are living in, and the quality of the company that they keep.

The children of the elderly naturally assume that their parent’s are quite capable of making sound decisions and can take care of themselves. They may not realize that their parents have reached the age of regression and that they are now in need of someone to take care of their needs for a while. They might not be conscious about structural changes in the building where they live and may need someone to call a repairman before an accident occurs.

These are just elder care safety issues and are not meant to be confused with elder care inefficiencies that say they are incapable of living on their own. If the children of elderly parents would simply take the viewpoint of being a second set of eyes for someone whose eyesight has dimmed a bit, then there should be no elder care safety issues that slip by unnoticed.

Many elderly people feel that they have been able to make their own decisions for a long time, and just because they have aged a bit over the years, it does not mean that they can not make the right decisions. They made bad judgments on people when they were young and vibrant and will most likely make some bad decisions in their elder years too. The elder care safety issues on trusting others should not go unobserved by children and they should feel comfortable in expressing concerns.

Some elder care safety issues surface when elderly people continue to drive automobiles when they have reduced vision or need a hearing aid. These are some of the bad decisions that the elderly might make and are ones that could cost them their lives in a very painful fashion. The children of the elderly should routinely ask their parents to drive them somewhere so that they can judge how well their driving skills still are without giving the elderly any cause to be concerned.

There are definitely elder care safety issues to be addressed if a family member is confined to a nursing home or assisted care facility. There are many opportunities for the elderly to be abused and when children make regular visits to check on the health and safety status of their loved one, it will be far easier to recognize the tell-tale signs that their parent has been abused since the last visit.



Leslie