Ageing is inevitable; a natural progression that we will all face. Having ageing parents at home requires planning and consideration to ensure the best care is provided while still managing day-to-day family matters, especially when you have young children. This often makes having to balance between caring for the young and elderly rather challenging at times. However, with just a bit of planning, having all generations under one roof can have its advantages.
Here are some tips that could help you if you find yourself sandwiched between generations and having aging parents at home.
Accessing their needs
Knowing their needs will help you plan what additional resources are required to provide them with a level of independence whilst at the same time, offering support for areas that they are less independent in. For instance, meal preparation. A good planning technique for meal prep is to come up with ideas and ingredients needed during your free time at work. Of course, there is also the option to use food delivery services. There are many services nowadays that make meal-prep much more convenient – there’s also services that cater towards different dietary requirements!
Another example would be medication. If your elderly parent (or parents) no longer have the ability to identify their medication required then pre-packing the medication with the correct dosage will help – it’s the small things that can really help sometimes!
By reviewing their overall daily needs, you will be able to make the suitable arrangements. This will ease their challenges while you are not and also provides you with some peace of mind, knowing that their needs are met during your absence.
Source for help early on
Caregiving is not only a huge responsibility but it is also daunting. It gets increasingly harder as your parents age since their needs will grow proportionally as time goes by. We tend to feel we can do it all by ourselves but waiting until a crisis happens makes it difficult to figure out what exactly is needed, how frequently, who’s best at providing it, etc.
It is advisable to get the entire immediate family involved. Whether it’s providing interval care on scheduled days or times of the year, financial contribution to support professional in-home care providers when needed, or someone to come to clean the house, etc.
You don’t want to wear yourself out if you take it all on yourself. It is alright to seek help when it is needed.
Finding care/service providers
The fact of the matter is – you won’t be able to be there all the time. There are times when additional help will be required such as;
- Driving
- Meal preparation
- Extra help around the house
- Laundry or errand running
- Unplanned doctor visit
These daily tasks can be sourced from various options that are available when you simply can’t cater for while you are not home. Working with home care agencies and other service providers ahead of time gives you the ability to have interval care ready when you need it.
Look after yourself
As the saying goes – if you can’t take care of yourself how are you going to take care of others?
The responsibilities will mount and the only way is to always focus on finding ways to nourish your body and spirit to keep your energy levels high. Apart from keeping a healthy lifestyle, it is good to reach out to support groups or friends that you can depend on.
Keep your parent occupied/engaged
Depending on the level of independence that your parents have, it is important to keep them busy. While they may not be able to retreat to their former lifestyle that doesn’t mean that they should be sat around all day doing nothing.
There are social groups, clubs and activities that are available and that cater to seniors. This allows them to engage with others. If this is not an option, perhaps subscribing to Netflix could be a good way to keep them entertained. Teaching them to use simple mobile technology so they can communicate with their peers via social media or learning to use the internet to access to news and keep abreast with current world affairs.
It is never too late to learn and it may take them sometime but these little engagements will give them a sense of purpose and bring new meaning.
Home safety and security
As you keep your home safe for young children, the same has to be done with the elderly. As your parents get older, mobility may be restricted. It is important to ensure that safety or accessibility at home is looked into to avoid injuries.
Modifications can be done to make your home safe and accessible with considerations of their mobility and capabilities. Hand rails and non-slip flooring for example require minimum DYI skills and a set of helpful hands.
Do have emergency numbers and instructions clearly visible so in the event they need to call out for help they are able to do so easily.
Financial obligations
Caring for a parent brings many uncertainties. Early planning will help you asses your financial obligations of the available funds required. Seek assistance from early on so that you are able to budget the necessary expenses and not feel overwhelmed when the time comes.
Unfortunately, there is not one ideal solution when it comes to caring for the elderly. Do what is good for the individual. An important tip though, is to know your current capacity and what it takes to ensure resources are available and what steps are needed to sustain.
Seek advice and discuss with family members so these obligations can be shared out and better managed as a family.
Home medical consultations
Getting medical consultation and treatment is important to ensure that your parents’ health is consistently monitored. As they age, it is normal that they will not like the hassle of going to hospitals or clinics.
There are various on-demand medical and health services that caters to home visits. This option may be ideal especially when mobility is restricted and it also reduces the time spent driving and waiting at clinics or hospitals which can be stressful. These services vary from blood test, physio therapy to wound dressing are now widely available and brings convenience.
Caring for aging parents is a labour of love
Finding the balance of caring for your ageing parents while having a busy lifestyle and family is not something that can be done in an instant. There are a starting point and a lot of fine-tuning and adjustments needed as you progress along. You will need help and resources along the way and that is perfectly alright to seek for them.
Caring for our parents is a true labour of love which we do for our parents and one day it will be our children doing the same for us.
