Molly Shomer asked:


Taking care of an elderly person in their own home often seems like the first and best option for families. Most seniors want more than anything to stay at home, and their families want to see them remain independent as long as possible.

Asking an elderly person to make the best long term plans and choose the “best” options doesn’t always work, however. An elderly person who wants desperately to stay at home will often deny problems and safety hazards that are glaringly obvious to everyone else. So, adult children and other family members are the ones who may have to ultimately make some of these decisions.

Caregiving spouses and adult children have often made promises to do whatever is necessary to keep an aging person at home. Often they have made this committment when the older person was still living an active and independent life. When the disabilities of aging begin to crop up, these famiy members feel guilty even thinking about alternatives to care at home.

Very few family members can leave jobs and their own family responsibilities to manage a senior’s care at home full time. With the passage of time, family caregivers often find that they are stretched beyond the breaking point by the needs of their elderly family member. Sooner or later, almost everyone will have to turn to outside help to make home care possible.

The trick to making aging at home successful is to anticipate changes before they happen, and to ask the important “what if” questions early.

If a senior is both able to afford and willing to accept non-family care, then staying at home can be a very successful option. If home care is not affordable, or if your senior will not willingly accept help from someone other than family, then remaining at home will probably not be a good choice for long term elder care.

Ideally, seniors and family members will talk frankly about both the financial and the personal facts openly and honestly long before the need is obvious. If a senior is firm that no outsider will ever be accepted into his or her home, it’s better to know early that getting professional home care assistance will be a fight.

Unfortunately, many families aren’t able to talk frankly about these issues. If your elderly relative refuses to talk about those future “what ifs,” this may be your clue that home care may be difficult when it’s most needed. An assisted living residence might actually be more acceptable to this senior than having someone “invade” their home.

If home care would be acceptable, but the available funds won’t stretch to cover the cost of private elderly care at home, starting early will permit everyone to look at and talk frankly about less expensive alternatives before a crisis occurs.



Brittney

Carol McGowan RN and Cindy Streekstra RN asked:


The person providing the hands-on or direct care is often viewed as the only caregiver. However, there are many other tasks that need to be addressed as families take over responsibilities that their aging loved ones can no longer take care of.

The Challenge - Families view the person providing the direct (hands-on) care as the only caregiver.

It is common that the “entire family unit” does not see themselves as “caregivers” with multiple tasks. Usually, the attention is drawn to the family member who is willing to provide the physical care. Whether you are providing the “hands-on” care or are coordinating with other family members for the provision of care, you are still a caregiver.

The Solution - Identify how your family will divide the responsibility for providing care.

1. Consider the different types of responsibilities involved in the entire process of caregiving.

• Anticipating and thinking ahead to what may be needed:

o Health care decisions

o Housekeeping, cooking, shopping

o Financial and legal responsibilities

• Overseeing what is needed to ensure the care needs are being met

• Arranging for care

• Providing the hands on physical care

2. Ask your aging loved ones who they are comfortable with to handle the different tasks. Often, they have already decided who they want to be responsible for certain tasks, example, medical decisions and legal affairs.

3. Explore what responsibility each family member is comfortable with and what task/tasks they are willing to commit to. Many factors can enter in, distance from the older adult, other personal and family responsibilities, relationship with the older adult.

4. Set up a system of communication between all family members.

• Is there a “team leader” who coordinates the communication

• Who needs to know what

• How often does each person need to be in touch

• How are differences in opinion going to be handled between the family members

5. As individual and family circumstances change, the roles and responsibilities may need to change. At some point outside resources may need to be used to support the changing care needs.

Whenever possible, keep your loved ones in the center of the decision making process. Ask for their input and recommendations. Give them as much control over the decisions as possible.

These are often difficult discussions to have because family members may not want to commit to specific caregiving tasks. Planning for the future is challenging because the future is an unknown.

Engage your family members in the discussion about caregiving roles and tasks.

Have your older loved ones identify whom they may want to do specific tasks. Family members may need time to think about what roles and tasks they are willing to agree to. Identify the coordinator or the person who will communicate the status of things and what needs to be done. Put the plan on paper, knowing that it is a starting point, is flexible and can be changed.



Jeremy