Real Sage Advice

Keep your Aging Parents Upbeat During the Holidays

When you have aging parents in a long-term care facility, it is not uncommon for them to get upset at the situation from time to time. Chances are things are not always perfect, just as in your own day-to-day life. However, the holidays can really stir up emotions that don’t come out as often throughout the year.

This can be especially true if your parent has suffered a major loss or even recently moved to the facility where he or she now resides. Browse through some of the following suggestions and see what you can do to help make your aging parent’s holiday season a little brighter.

Encourage Them to Make Friends

Moving into a long-term care facility can be a challenging new time for your parent. Encourage them to meet people and interact socially with their new friends. Certainly, living in a new environment can be a stressful and sometimes difficult situation to say the least. Making friends can help bring things back to normal.

Hobbies

Hobbies are one of the best ways to help pass the time and are a constructive thing that keeps the mind active and engaged. Perhaps the facility where your parent now lives has classes that they offer to residents. Encourage your parent to engage in a hobby and they will see results from their hard work.

Participate in Activities and Festivities

Many long-term care facilities have a detailed schedule of what will be going on for the month. Make sure that your parent is aware of all the things that are going on for the month, especially during the holidays. This will help them to stay involved and meet new people, while being able to participate in activities that bring people together.

Call Them Often

It would be most preferable if you could call them every day. They may not say anything to you, but a call every day could be just what they need when they feel down. It will help them feel connected and help to lift their spirits when they are feeling down. A regular call also gives them something to look forward to and talk about with others.

By-line:

This post was contributed by Kelly Kilpatrick, who writes on the subject of a

geriatric nursing

. She invites your feedback at kellykilpatrick24 at gmail dot com

Asking for Help with Aging Parents-Procrastination

The professionals I work with in senior housing and senior services often struggle with how to get their elderly clients and their families to plan ahead for health care needs and costs.

The fact is, we are working against human nature to ask people to draft wills, identify health care representatives, create trusts, and then talk about their wishes with their families. These activities imply that someday things will be different than they are today most of us are uncomfortable with change.  We procrastinate when it comes to doing things that make us uncomfortable. 

Yesterday I told you about my colleague "Sandy." She knew one day she would need to address her parent's need to move. That conversation would stir up other conversations about comfortable family dynamics. So, she procrastinated, but that day came despite her trying to put it off.

We're working against human nature...

Her willingness to reach out and ask for help resulted in her feeling vulnerable, unprofessional, and embarrassed. These feelings are a result of thinking she couldn't talk with a colleague about her personal struggles, she was the oldest daughter and so "should" have it all under control, and thinking she should have done something earlier.

I've written lots of posts about starting conversations with aging parents about moving:

• Use Research to Talk with Mom and Dad about Moving
• The Best Advice to Help Elderly Parents Move
• What do I do with the stuff?
• How do I Talk with My Parents About Moving?
• Change-One Step at a Time
• Moving Your Parents-Where to Start?
• Time to Talk About Moving Mom and Dad

When the adult child reaches out and asks for help they are often struck by emotions for which they did not expect.

• Anger-Why do I have to be the one to deal with this?
• Sadness-Aging parents declining health naturally leaves us feeling sad
• Guilt-All the "shoulds" we tell ourselves. I should have done something sooner.
• Relief-Asking for help means you don't have to do it alone.  AND finally tackling the white elephant in the room while difficult, does provide some relief.
• More Guilt-as a result of feeling some relief.
• Vulnerable-I shouldn't have to ask for help with this.
• Shame-I waited too long to ask for help, now things are harder than they would have been had I asked for help earlier.
• Stress-How will I find time to deal with all of this?
• Overwhelmed-Now during a time of crisis you find yourself needing to learn about senior housing and senior services. This is a kin to trying to learn a foreign language during a tornado.
• Confused-Our parents role has always been the one to protect us. All of a sudden, that isn't true anymore. What happened?

And that's just the first day!

There's no "right" way to deal with issues of our aging parents.  Once you get past that fear of being vulnerable and reaching out to ask for help, you'll start to see people nod their heads as you talk about struggling with your aging parents.  You'll start to hear "that's normal."

You'll start to feel less crazy, less guilty, and less alone.

Report on Caregiving

Minnesota has the highest rate of volunteer in-home caregivers in the nation. No where else are there as many people caring for their loved ones as there are in our own backyard. As our population ages and there are fewer of us to available to volunteer to take care of our elderly, this has huge implications for both our work force, health care resources, and availability of senior services.

Here's one of the best reports I've seen from the National Alliance for Caregiving and Evercare. One result of the survey is surprising. Caregivers who co-habit with the one they are caring for spend more on caregiving than those that do not live with the one they are caring for.

This is an important consideration...in addition to providing volunteer time and services, just how much of elderly care is being absorbed by our volunteer force by volunteer time and monetary donations?

How much more will the boomer generation spend on senior services than their parents as a result of fewer volunteers? And, will boomers end up actually leaving their homes earlier as a result of not having the same volunteer force their parents had?

CaringBridge - resource for caregivers

I'm a little behind on my blogging.

My Mother-In-Law has been in the hospital after suffering an aneurysm. The prognosis is good, she has a close-knit family that is pulling together to make sure she has everything she needs. It's times like these I'm reminded first-hand of how taxing care-giving can be. It's a full-time job just communicating with the health care team, and translating the information to the family and friends who want constant updates.

Please share this resource if there's someone in your life who is dealing with a loved one with a sickness. This resource is just right for you bloggers to communicate updates on your loved-ones health!

CaringBridge® (www.caringbridge.org) is a free, nonprofit web service that connects family and friends  to share information, love and support during a health crisis, treatment and recovery. Updates can be posted to update everyone on your loved one's progress, and there's a place for family and friends to send well-wishes.   It takes just a few moments for you to create your own personal and private CaringBridge website.