The lifetime probability of becoming disabled in at least two activities of daily living or of being cognitively impaired is 68% for people age 65 and older. What this implies is that a very large number of seniors will need some degree of caregiving support. A portion of these people are receiving this care via informal caregivers in the home. In fact, over 70 million informal and family caregivers provide care to someone who is ill, disabled, or aged in the US.
However, this is a new role, and one these households are not trained for. The following tips are meant to help with some of the basic challenges in the hopes that you do not have to learn about these the hard way.
Tips:
- Create a Secure Home
- Have a safety assessment done. Hire a carpenter to install rails, ramps, or other items that help your loved one maintain their balance. Remove anything on the floor they can trip or get caught upon.
- Install Monitoring Systems
- There are many home monitoring options out there that are easy to install and use. These can be lifesavers when you can’t be at your loved one’s home right away and want to know everything is OK.
- Support Mobility – Prevent Falls
- It’s proven that practice with balance can help prevent falls as we age. Taking your loved one to a fall prevention class can do wonders for their balance and prevent life-threatening injury.
- Give the Right Medications at the Right Times
- If your loved one is forgetful, you’ll need to pre-load their medications and either call or visit them to make sure they take them. If you can’t be around to give your loved one their medications, and you know they will not remember consistently, you will need to find licensed professional support to come to the home and make sure they are taking them as prescribed. Depending on the need, home health agencies can arrange for medication visits by licensed nurses or certified nursing assistants.
- Support Overall Fitness and Well-Being
- Walking or gentle exercise will do more than help prevent falls. Activity is good for our muscles, hearts, and minds. Encourage your loved one to move as much as they are able. Find seniors exercise classes they can easily get to, or drive them there.
- Monitor (and Support) Hygiene
- Is your loved one’s body odor becoming more pronounced when you visit? Are they keeping their home as clean as they once did? If you notice significant changes, it’s time to gently introduce support for better hygiene. It may start with doing the laundry or housework, or hiring an aide to help with these chores.
- Check Vision Regularly
- Loss of vision can lead to accidents. Not being able to see correctly can also lead to feelings of anxiety or depression. Make sure your loved one sees an eye doctor yearly and gets re-fitted for glasses every time their prescription changes. Make sure they get checked for glaucoma and macular degeneration every year. If they already have these eye diseases, it’s critical that they take prescribed medications and get injections on a regular basis to prevent their vision from deteriorating further.
- Assess Driving Skills / Coordinate Transportation
- If your elderly loved one is still behind the wheel, make sure he or she is still a capable driver. Taking away a parent’s keys is tough, but necessary if they’re no longer able to safely navigate the road. If they no longer drive, help them find a senior transportation program or bus that serves the places they want to go to. Get to know the routes and the drivers. Ask your loved one to tell you when they are going out, and where. Ask them to call you when they get home.
- Support Medical Needs
- Get to know your elderly parents’ or relatives’ primary care physicians. Accompany them on visits and talk to their doctors. If your elderly loved one is not capable of understanding their doctors or making decisions, engage an attorney, and get your loved one’s written approval to become their health care proxy. This will enable you to make medical decisions on your loved ones’ behalf, choose or change doctors, or select health care facilities.
- Keep Communication Open
- Whether you have a professional home caregiver helping out or whether you’re going it alone, caregiving for an elderly loved one is stressful. You may be dealing with siblings who disagree with how things should be done. One sibling may feel like they’re doing all the work and aren’t getting support. Others may not want to bring in professional home care. These are very common scenarios, and there is no one right answer. In my experience, keeping the lines of communication open, no matter how stressed we are or how “taboo” the subject may seem, is, in the end, the best course of action.
Again, it is our hope that these tips help you smooth out some of the rough spots. In the end, most families, though well-intended out of love, and economics will have to surrender their loved one to a professional long term care facility at some point, where the needs for care are beyond their capacity and/or capabilities
About Us - Cielito Lindo Senior Living
Thanks for visiting our site and letting us share this content with you.
We are Cielito Lindo – a senior care facility in beautiful San Miguel de Allende and we serve as the assisted living and memory care component of Rancho los Labradores, which is a truly incredible one-of-a-kind country club resort-like gated community. Rancho los Labradores consists of individual villas, man made lakes, cobblestone streets, and a rich array of wonderful amenities (e.g., tennis, club house, pools, cafe, long and short term hotel suites, theater, Cielito Lindo, a la carte assisted living services).
What makes this place so amazing is not only the beauty and sense of community, but also the fact that you can have the lifestyle you desire with the care that you need as those needs arise… and all of this at a cost of living that is less than half of what it would cost comparably in the US.
Learn more here.
Download the Expatriate Guide for Senior Living in Mexico – For your convenience, the entire 50-page guide is available for download as a PDF. Send us an email us at information.cielitolindo@gmail.com or give us a call for any other information you might want
English speaking: 1.888.406.7990 (in US & CDN) 00.1.881.406.7990 (in MX)
Spanish speaking: 1.52.415.155.9547 (in US & CDN) 1.415.155.9547 (in MX)
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