Lauren Finney was living in Japan teaching English when her father become seriously ill.
At the urging of her mother and brother, she came home. It had been a year since she had seen her dad and she knew his health had been declining.
“As soon as I saw him, I realized that something was wrong,” said Finney, 37, who lives in Alexandria. She was heartbroken.
Finney’s experience of not seeing her parent for a long time and suddenly realizing there is a problem isn’t unusual. As the holidays approach, many adult children will visit their parents for the first time in months. Unfortunately, when they arrive, some will be surprised by what they find.
“Holiday time, when adult children come home, is when our phones start ringing,” said Robin Edwards, a certified senior advisor and senior care consultant for CarePatrol, a senior placement organization that provides no-cost information for families to help them learn about senior care options.
“It’s so impactful when you come home and see the house isn’t tidy, your parents aren’t tidy and nothing is in the refrigerator,” said Maribeth Bersani, COO of Argentum, an Alexandria-based trade association serving companies that own, operate, and support professionally-managed senior living communities.
One way to avoid the shock of coming home and finding your parents struggling is to ask them certain questions each time you speak with them on the phone. Bersani recommends asking: What did you do today? Did you see your friends? Did you go to book club? What have you read lately? What did you eat for lunch?
Unanticipated changes in behavior can signal a problem, said Terri Lynch, director of the City of Alexandria’s Division of Aging and Adult Services. For instance, if your parent is typically gregarious but is suddenly withdrawn, or if your parent has always been a neat person but suddenly their appearance and home are messy, those are signs they might need help. Don’t despair.
There are plenty of resources available to help you and your elderly parents navigate this transition, whether they want to age at home or move into a senior living community or nursing home, Lynch said.
Alexandria Living Magazine
OLDER ADULTS ARE STAYING AT HOME LONGER
While our first inclination is to move mom or dad to an assisted living community, Lynch warned that might not be the best option. In many cases, your parents will be able to receive needed services in their own home.
The trend is for people to stay in their own home for as long as possible because it’s often the most cost-effective option, said Mary Lee Anderson, executive director of Senior Services of Alexandria. The cost of care for elderly adults in Northern Virginia is expensive.
Assisted living communities face the same taxes and land costs that renters or homeowners face in this region, Bersani said. The average cost of a one-bed-room, private assisted living unit in Northern Virginia is $2,765 per month and nursing home costs are more than $7,000 a month, according to Genworth Financial, Inc. As a result, more elderly adults are stay-ing in their homes longer.
In Alexandria, more than 5,000 of the area’s 22,733 residents who are 60 years or older live alone, according to the Division of Aging and Adult services. In fact, the average age of a resident in assisted living is 87 years old, unless they have early onset Alzheimer’s or another disease that causes them to need around-the-clock care, Bersani said.
** Download a PDF of local resources to help your aging parents here. **
INVOLVE YOUR PARENTS IN THE DECISION
One of the biggest mistakes adult children make is to treat their parents like they are children. Don’t walk in and immediately talk about moving them out of their house, Lynch said. Instead, ask them questions such as “Would it help if you had a housekeeper or if I found someone to check on you a few times a week?” Use matter-of-fact statements like, “I’ve noticed” and say, “I wonder if.” Then listen to their response.
If your parent is reluctant to get assistance, tell them that accepting outside help will ease your mind, Anderson said. Anderson suggests saying, “I’m far away and I’m worried I couldn’t be here to help you if there was an emergency. Can you share with me what you would do, maybe get a life alert, or let me know you have all the necessary paperwork in place so that I can make sure you can be taken care of the way you want to be taken care of, if something happens?”
For instance, your parents should have a will, power of attorney and advance medical directives. “Be patient. This isn’t a one-time conversation,” Edwards said. “Make sure you have little discussions to start planting that seed in their head.”
Many adult children are balancing careers and young children so they want to fix the problem immediately, Edwards said, but you shouldn’t push your parents into making a quick decision. Frequently, families don’t understand all the options available.
“Often, they just put their parents in the nursing home down the street but that might not be the best fit,” Edwards said. Keep in mind that you’re not just shop-ping for housing but also somewhere your parent can thrive and be safe. You can’t just get a list of places to live and approach it like a real estate transaction, Edwards said, because it’s really a health care decision. “If your parent is outgoing and likes to do things, then you want to make sure they move somewhere active and engaging,” she said. “Not all communities are the same.”
See more articles in this series:
- How to Help Your Elderly Parent
- How to Assess Whether a Home Can Let Your Parents Age In Place
- Investing in Your Future: What to Know About Long-Term Care Insurance
- Estate Planning and Elder Law: Not Just for Seniors
- Silverado Memory Care Opens in Alexandria
KEEPING YOUR PARENTS SAFE
If your parents are going to stay in their home, it’s important that you look around the home and focus on safety. They should have a bathroom and bedroom on the main floor, and not have to climb stairs several times a day, Anderson said.
Check for tripping hazards such as stairs without railings, area rugs and loose electrical cords on the floor. Make sure they have a smoke detector and a carbon monoxide detector. If they use a walker or a cane, they shouldn’t necessarily do their own grocery shopping.
You also want to make sure your parents aren’t alone all the time. “Isolation is a huge problem for older adults, particularly those who don’t have family members living nearby and checking on them,” Anderson said.
MOVING OUT OF THE FAMILY HOME
It’s never too early to start the discussion about whether to move to an independent living or assisted living community. Bersani recommends taking your parents to visit an assisted living facility long before they need to make that move. If they have friends in assisted living, take them for a visit, and visit senior living communities multiple times. It’s not unusual for it take a year or longer to make a decision, Edwards said.
If you’re worried your parents can’t properly care for themselves and live safely in their home, Anderson recommends contacting their physician or clergy member. While your parent’s physician can’t share confidential information, you can make the doctor aware of your concerns. Edwards recommends getting a neutral third-party such as CarePatrol involved so it’s not the children telling them what to do.
Explain to your parents that you aren’t trying to take something away from them but to help them improve their overall quality of life, Edwards said. Experts know anecdotally that residents in assisted living have a better quality of life because they’re consistently eating three meals a day, socializing and taking their medications, Bersani said.
Moving to a senior living community can be a scary process for your parents because it can feel like you’re taking away everything they ever knew – their car, their house, their neighborhood. Once they move into assisted living, the majority will say they wish they had done it sooner.
