How to cope with an adamant demanding elderly
How to cope with a demanding adamant elderly parent who wishes to stay at home despite challenges?
Home is where the heart is. Our upbringing teaches us about growing older at home until the end. Sometimes we live in multigenerational families and sometimes we do not. No solution is right or wrong. However, the changing modern times can pose a challenge, as the economic burdens outweigh personal wants and wishes. People now travel far and wide for employment, we look for instant help, instant solutions, instant everything. Many of us also have our own families to care for, raise children, and so on.
Many a time, our elderly can pose a challenge, we are seeing more of this as places become more urbanized, and even simple things like nutrition and travel pose concerns. So it is a fine line we are treading when cohabiting or living or even caring for our elderly. Some elderly can be demanding, some may not be, it is how they see their world or the values they bring or the culture they were raised into…
As seniors find themselves cognitively challenged, the demands change, and many times, families are at the crossroads of whether to pursue the direction they are on or quit their jobs to be caregivers or simply become stuck with no answers! These are real-life experiences we all may possibly face some day and if we do …
Here are ways to cope with a demanding adamant elderly parent who wishes to stay at home despite challenges: but first, we begin with understanding
- What is the cognitive status of our elderly? are they able to live with a few hours of help or not?
- What kind of care? Regular geriatric care, end of life care, post-surgical care, chronic medical care?
- How dependent are they? Can they ambulate, eat packed meals in the refrigerator, and open the door? Make a phone call? Toilet themselves? Drive? manage finances, heat up meals in the microwave?
- Do they have siblings nearby? Friends that can watch or care for them? If they needed.
- Are they fantasizing or in reality and how much do they understand the situation?
- How safe are they staying home alone? Or can they or will they be ready to stay part-time with someone who can care for them?
- Is the challenge physical, mental, emotional, or financial? Is it temporary or permanent?
- Is the home ready or safe enough for the elderly, this question will directly depend on a person’s cognitive status.
- Can minor adjustments solve the challenges or is it not possible.
- How best can we solve this caregiving? and in what time frame…depending on what type of challenges our aged are facing
There will always be many more to understand … here are some ways to solve those challenges, these are mentioned in the other blogs and will be briefly mentioned here..
- Assess your situation first before you solve elderly challenges, for there are many who have lost everything in the caregiving wheel of life, drained physically, mentally, socially, and financially.
- Get a financial advisor to sort finances first, because they are very critical. I have seen people almost become homeless in this process themselves as their age did not have the monetary funds. Plan for your own future along with your elderly’s
- Understand the aging resources and how best you can leverage them to your advantage.
- Plan ahead, get a Geriatrician’s help, and get a thorough assessment of the elderly parent.
- Involve the elderly in the discussion depending on their cognitive abilities.
- Get legal advice and file for Power of attorney… or decide on who takes care of what for their elderly parent.
- Get a home check if need be, as safety and security are always priorities.
- Find a cohort or group to find ideas or brainstorm your issue, the more diverse the opinions, the better as it will help with decisions quicker.
- Understand that aging is a process, not a disease, and make sure to take care of oneself equally as the others.
- Prepare or make a Plan B in case this does not work…If you did the above Plan B should be an easy go… for convincing the elderly to move, please visit our blogs on those…we will in the future bring more advanced thought leadership on these and many other pertinent issues.
We hope you got an answer in a nutshell. This was a humble showcase of situations like these that happen all over the world daily. It is difficult to comprehend unless one has been in a real situation, but some knowledge will help you prepare ahead of time if in case these arise.
We thank you for reading the blog, we also thank all our blog followers and we hope to highlight many more in the near future. Until then, we wish all the strength to every one of you.