It Might Be Time to Step In...

As a child of aging parents, it can be difficult to know when your parents can no longer manage on their own.  Your mother or father will become very adept at keeping it looking good.  You will become very good at looking the other way.  It is not easy to look at your parent as someone who needs help with their activities of daily living.  Parents are the people you turn to for support, advice and strength - not the other way around.  On top of that, your parent will most likely become upset with you if you even suggest that they cannot manage on their own anymore.  No one enjoys confrontation, especially with our parents.

Some of the sure signs that someone may need to step in are easy to spot, if you are looking for them.

• Things in the house are out of order from the normal (laundry piling up, dirty dishes, messy floors, etc.)

• Mail piling up and bills not being paid

• Body odor/ Poor hygiene

• Frequently losing or misplacing things

• Forgetting to go to appointments

• Spoiled foods in the refrigerator

If you notice some of these signs, you need to take a closer look.  There are numerous reason that these things could be occurring.  Pain, fatigue, or memory loss just to name a few.   As uncomfortable as this discussion may be, it needs to be done.  Avoiding it until the situation becomes a crisis will decrease your family's control of the decisions that need to be made.

If you have siblings, you need to involve them in these discussions.  This is a family matter; it should not completely fall on the shoulders of one child.  Typically one child will become the primary care taker for your parents but that does not mean that all the decisions fall to you. 

If you are an only child, seek advice and guidance from other family members.  If you feel like you have no one to help you with this problem, you can look for support online, your parent's physician, your pastor or your local Area Office of Aging. 

Expect confrontation when you approach your parent about these concerns.  Try to keep your cool.  Continue to talk with them calmly and respectfully.  It may need to be brought up more than once until you are able to have on honest conversation with them about the changes that you are seeing.

Knowing when to step in aides older adults' ability to experience Aging with Ease!

Choose Your Battles Wisely

When you are the caregiver for someone, it is essential that you choose your battles wisely.  Caring for someone suffering from dementia, brings times when you will find yourself having the same frustrations with them over and over again.  This is not something they can change.  This is something you must change about yourself and how you handle the situation.

For example, a frequent concern my client's families come to me about is their loved one's refusal to bathe.  Most of us probably shower on a daily basis.  Prior to their diagnosis of dementia, so did your loved one.  It comes as a shock that this very basic activity of daily living is something that they no longer want to or are able to do. 

This can be very frustrating for some caregivers.  I try to help the caregiver realize that this is an issue they have to get over.  If you look at your loved one's current level of activity, it is probably significantly less than it once was so a bath every day is really not necessary.  They probably hardly ever break a sweat.  Unless there are incontinence problems, they have an odor or they have sores, the need for daily bathing is a routine that can be changed.  This is a daily argument or frustration that you could avoid.  Another thing to consider is home health care; in my experience, people are more likely to listen to a stranger that they recognize as a care taker than their own family when it comes to personal hygiene.  If you try to look at it from the patients point of view, it would feel degrading to some degree to need help from your spouse or your children to bathe. 

Another example, which is also a chronic problem that I hear, is difficulty having your loved one with dementia change their clothes.  How many of us wear the same outfit two days in a row?  Not anyone that I know.   So why do so many dementia patients develop this habit?  I don't have the answer to that question but it occurs none the less.

Rather than arguing with them about having worn that outfit yesterday or repeatedly trying to explain that their clothes need to be washed, a simpler solution might be to just remove the clothes they had on that day from their site when they get ready for bed at night and to lay out a new outfit for the next day the night before.  Seems like an obvious solution but you would be surprised at how many caregivers have never thought to do that.  Especially if it is a husband and wife dealing with this situation, they have lifelong habits and routines that have always worked for them and because of the progression of dementia those routines must all change.   Again this is also an area where home health care could offer relief for you in the daily care of your loved one.

I could go on and on with examples of ways that you could try different approaches to the ever-changing challenges of dementia.  The point I want to make the most is that you choose you battles wisely.   Attempting to argue with someone with dementia or trying to make them understand something that they are no longer able to understand or remember is a losing battle that will only make you, the caregiver, feel bad in the end.  The progression of dementia cannot be stopped or controlled not matter how hard you try.  Remember to try to enjoy each moment that you can no matter how brief they may be.  Spending your time trying to get them to understand something when they are no longer able to is a waste of your precious energy.


Choosing you battles wisely promotes Aging  with Ease!