Affordable Elder Assistance When Living With Your Aging Parent
The Reality Of Living Together
The amount of hours and responsibility that come with welcoming an elderly parent into your home are all too often a surprise. Statistics show that when an elderly parent moves into the home of one of his or her adult children, the child usually ends up providing approximately 80% of the parent’s care. If you are facing this kind of scenario, having a plan to recruit elder assistance in the form of a private nurse or volunteers from a local elder support organization can make a big difference. Getting elder assistance from trained outsiders is an important part of creating a sustainable care plan for an aging parent in your home.
It Is Okay To Ask For Help
Many people find that the most difficult part of sharing your household with an elderly parent is that it can be difficult to draw boundaries around your responsibility. You may feel guilty or neglectful if you aren’t always available for your parent. However, caring for an aging mother or father around the clock will leave you exhausted and frustrated, and isn’t a sustainable plan. Ask for help in the form of elder assistance. After all, to stay energized enough to care for your parent, you need to take time for yourself. Set up a plan where you can take a break to read, exercise, or even just watch television. These recharging hours will help you feel strong and ready to handle your responsibility. Likewise, don’t deny yourself the time you deserve to enjoy the rest of your family and your social circle. You deserve to spend time alone with the other important people in your life. By getting outside elder assistance, you will be free to spend precious, unburdened hours with your significant other, children, and friends.
Types Of Assistance
Having a private nurse visit for even a few hours every week can give you a block of time where you can relax without the responsibility of elder assistance. A private nurse can be costly, but volunteers from organizations like Little Brothers, or a similar “Friendly Visitors” type of program, are free, and the support they provide is priceless. Making use of these organizations is often an important step in making sure that having your elderly parent living in home is good for both your parent, and for yourself.
Independence Is Good For Both Of You
Welcoming an elderly parent into your household is a decision that is usually made with the aim of being able to offer the parent the highest quality of life. This means allowing your parent some independence while providing an adequate level of medical attention and elder assistance. Just as you sometimes need a break from providing care, your parent will sometimes want a break from relying on you. Having a visitor who provides elder assistance will help your parent fight feelings of isolation and dependence, which means living together will be a happier situation for everyone involved.
Finding Solutions Together
One of the most important things that you can do when planning elder assistance is to involve your elderly parent at every step of the decision making process. Many young people plan care for their parents without fully involving their parents in the decision, which can lead to problems down the road. If your parent suffers from some level of mental disability, it may only be practical to involve them in a limited part of the planning process, but even so, an elderly parent who has been allowed to make some choices, such as which private nurse to hire, or whether or not to continue contact with a particular volunteer, will be more likely to feel pleased with the resulting plan. Some parents would prefer that you are in charge of certain kinds of tasks that they would be embarrassed to have an outside provide help with, like bathing or eating, while other parents would rather have a trained professional help them navigate these tasks. Getting the right kind of elder assistance can help make your day brighter, and your parent’s day brighter as well, as long as you are both in agreement about what needs it can, and can’t fill.
