By Phil Carey
Here are some things to consider if you think Mom and/or Dad might need to move from their home to an assisted-living facility.
I write this as the son of aging parents who was faced with their decreasing ability to be safe in their own home and to care for themselves without assistance. I can only provide some key things to look for that might indicate a change is needed. Your knowledge of your parents and the changes you observe in their comfort and their daily routines should be your best guide, but another person’s experience might be useful in your deliberations.
It’s essential you consider your ability, and that of other family members, to provide in-home care for aging parents. When doing so, you must assess whether or not existing family and financial resources are available to provide the level of care necessary to keep Mom and Dad safe and comfortable at home. If you are reading this, then this probably pertains to YOU. Recognize that providing in-home care is a challenging (at the very least), stressful and sometimes overwhelming task, which can cause you intense anxiety, sleepless nights, and even affect your own health. These factors, along with your Mom and Dad’s willingness to accept it, are vital components when assessing the feasibility of in-home care. If your parents aren’t on board and don’t like the idea, it probably won’t be very effective.
In my case, it was principally the gradual decline in my father’s health that resulted in a step-by-step move away from in-home care and toward assisted living. When my parents were about 80 years old, my family and I started to notice that the condition of their home was deteriorating, and there was an increased number of accidents around the house, particularly falls and unexplained floods in the bathroom, all of which served to heighten our fear that further accidents, maybe even resulting in fire, electrocution and broken bones, were a possibility.
Based on this observation, our first step was to hire someone to clean the house periodically and to install some home-safety features, such as bars in the bathroom and the shower, and a nightlight in the living room. However, as Dad’s abilities continued to decline, we saw that neither he nor Mom could realistically care for themselves any longer without daily assistance. For example, the police twice brought Dad and Mom home — once they were ten miles west of their home returning from the doctor’s office that was ten miles to the east (I never did get a satisfactory explanation from Dad on that one). We also discovered that they were hiding some of their emerging physical problems. I discovered that my mother, for example, afflicted with glaucoma for many years, had been experiencing an increased loss of vision and told no one. My father, on the other hand, had been suffering pain in his prostate and was having difficulty urinating for several months. He did not seek medical attention because he feared having to undergo the procedure needed to correct it. At this point, we decided to do two things. First, we hired a professional home-care agency to provide them the additional help they needed with daily tasks such as shopping, laundry, food preparation and cleaning. Second, we as a family began to provide assistance with their financial management, clothes shopping, medical care, doctor visits, and medication management.
Eventually, after further deterioration in Dad’s health which lead to several stays in the hospital and in a rehabilitation facility, it was apparent (I say apparent — rather than clear — because, for emotional reasons, it is very difficult to truly KNOW what is best) that they could not continue to live safely at home without more support than was possible. Even after trying to assist them personally, and employing a pill organizer, their medication management was still not working effectively. For example, tomorrow’s pills would be missing but last Tuesday’s remained comfortably in their slot. By this point, Dad and Mom had a total dependence on others for all outside-the-home necessities, such as doctor and dental visits, food and clothes shopping, laundry, haircuts, pharmacy needs, etc.
Our family decided to focus on assisted-living care, instead of a nursing home, because Dad and Mom did not require full-time nursing care, that being the central difference between the two options. Although resistant at first, Dad became convinced that assisted living was necessary after discussing the situation with his physical therapist at the rehab facility. Fortunately, Mom mainly needed assistance just with routine daily tasks, and though Dad needed some additional services, the assisted-living facility that we chose was able to provide every necessity.
Based on my experience, I think it’s very important to be proactive when considering the possibility of your parents’ moving into an assisted-living facility. The decision to move out of one’s home is never an easy one. And while the adjustment period for anyone moving into a new home is understandably gradual, my parents came to appreciate the many benefits that assisted living offered them, just as the rest of our immediate family came to recognize the well-balanced sense of care-taking, independence and normality it offered our mom and dad, and all of us.
My parents were no longer burdened with preparing their own meals, cleaning their home, dispensing their own medication or arranging transportation for their scheduled doctors’ visits. The sense of isolation they had experienced in their own home was replaced by a new social environment, the ability to create new friendships, engage in group activities (like playing bingo and shuffleboard), watch nightly films with their friends and attend weekly religious services. The assisted-living facility also organizes and hosts several holiday celebrations, to which family members are always invited.
As a result, my family has been witness to a new phase in our parents’ lives, an improved quality of life and contentment that has emerged from their increased interaction within a new community of friends and neighbors – all of which has served to increase their acceptance with their situation.
Phil Carey lives in Wading River, New York.
Tags: assisted living, benefits of assisted-living facilities, in-home care vs. assisted living, signs that my parents need assisted living, when in-home care is not enough
