My Parents Got Old! Now What Do I Do?: A Practical Guide to Caring for Your Aging Parents

By Janine Brown

An aging population means an increasing number of children take care of their parents. While adult children have been their elderly parents caregivers for generations, those in that role today face challenges others have not. Its no wonder many feel overwhelmed and stressed when they first take responsibility for those who once took care of them.

Author Janine Browns My Parents Got Old! What Do I Do? A Practical Guide to Caring for Your Aging Parents helps you face and get through the issues surrounding your role as adult child and parental caregiver. Brown is not a lawyer, accountant, or doctor. She writes from the personal experiencehers and othersof caring for aging parents. She shares information to help caregivers and potential caregivers assess needs and skills necessary to providing their parents with the best possible care. Through her experiences, youll gain an understanding of what happens in real life; Brown takes caregiving beyond the theoretical to the practical. Checklists help you stay organized, which can be very helpful in situations with heightened emotions. Youll appreciate the authors holistic approach to the adult caregiving, including chapters on family ties and the emotional reality of what is to come.

Theres no doubt caring for an elderly parent can be difficult and trying. With My Parents Got Old! Now What Do I Do? A Practical Guide to Caring for Your Aging Parents, you wont be alone on this journey. Youll have the benefit of others who have been there.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Nov 6, 2015
• ISBN: 9781480822986

Janine Brown

Janine Brown, originally from northern Wisconsin, began her professional career as a teacher. She then began a business career as a project manager before working with people caring for aging parents. She gave classes on caregiving and spoke at numerous organizations about aging parent care. She lives with her husband.

Book preview

Copyright © 2015 Janine Brown.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Archway Publishing

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.archwaypublishing.com

1 [phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4808-2297-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-2298-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015916263

Archway Publishing rev. date: 11/6/2015

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1 The Beginning

Chapter 2 Health

Chapter 3 Daily Living

Chapter 4 Finances

Chapter 5 Legal Information

Chapter 6 Dementia

Chapter 7 How to Keep Focused

Chapter 8 Planning

Chapter 9 The End

This book is

dedicated to my two sisters, who paved the way for me to learn as much as I could regarding caring for parents.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to acknowledge several groups of people, including the Writer’s Group, who helped marshal this book to fruition. Also, I would like to thank so many friends and colleagues who encouraged me to write this book, and the Alzheimer’s and dementia organizations for allowing me to volunteer at their health fairs.

INTRODUCTION

I’ve been a caregiver. I learned a lot, and I want to share it. There is no sense in you struggling to learn what I already know. That would be silly. When we as a family went through this, I talked with a lot of people who were facing similar circumstances. None of us knew a lot, but everyone knew a little bit. Leverage existing knowledge. It’ll save you time, money, and stress—I promise.

This book is geared to those who are caregivers for an elderly person. The references, examples, and perspectives are all about caring for a parent. However, I realize that not all caregiving is for a parent. So though I use the word parent in this book, the advice applies to whomever you are supporting, but it is not for those of you caregiving for a young person.

I’ve included real examples but have changed the parameters of the incidents to protect the privacy of the individuals.

After my father died, I took a while to process all that had happened. It had happened over several years. I began to think that caregiving for an elderly parent was a project. Being a project manager, that insight clarified for me how to approach the issue. For me, it gave a structured process to handle these difficult issues. My sisters were the heavy-lifters for my parents. My husband and I were the caregivers for his parents.

All projects have beginnings, ends, and constraints. Constraints include time, money, geography, resources, data, and information. Projects have critical paths, unexpected happenings, contingencies, drama, resolutions, and stress. And someone needs to manage it. Maybe it’s you, maybe it’s another sibling, or maybe you hire someone to manage it. You are one of the resources for this project, so the more you know, the more you can help or support.

In each chapter, I discuss the details of the topic not from a professional perspective (like a doctor or lawyer) but from a caregiver perspective. That perspective is different. I discuss the costs, time, and money. I also guide you to available resources. I give examples of things that have happened—and all examples are real. I helped a few people with the issues mentioned within this book as they were going through them. This book is a compilation of what I learned from dealing with those issues, the approaches I used, and the knowledge needed.

In chapters 2, 4, and 5, I lay out the essential items for you to know about health care for parents and the legal and financial concerns. This doesn’t mean you have to become a health care professional or a lawyer, but you do need to know some stuff. A lot of the crises caregivers face stem from the health area, and a lot of unnecessary problems come from the legal and financial realms.

Chapter 3 is about the daily life of your parents. It covers quite a few topics about this other area from which crises emanate. By the end of your caregiving, you will know so much about your parents, so much that you never thought about or dreamed you would know. Some of it, you may not want to know. This chapter walks you through your parents’ lives and what you need to notice so you can intervene when necessary.

Chapter 6 is about dementia. I talk about the feelings that come with it, offer some helpful hints, and describe what you can and cannot do for someone with dementia. My mother had dementia, and so did my mother-in-law. I also volunteered for an Alzheimer’s organization. I learned a lot about what the disease is, how you handle it, and what it means to a family. I also talked to a lot of people faced with this aspect of caregiving as I worked at health fairs.

In chapter 7, I talk about how you keep on track and focused, and chapter 8 is on planning. I try in this chapter to help you put all of it together.

Chapter 9 is about the end, what you need to prepare for and what happens. There’s more work here than you may anticipate.

We also discuss what happens if you do not do something. In all cases, you choose what you can or cannot do based on the facts and resources you have at the time. Most of this stuff just is—and you need to deal with what is.

If you are still deciding whether you want to buy this book, turn to page x. It’s a beginning checklist of things that you have to have and know, at a minimum, to be the caregiver resource. If you have all those things covered, you may not need this book, because you’re already organized and informed. If not, this book will definitely help you.

Interspersed between chapters are essays, musings, and venting. These sections are about the emotions that occur during this process. At the end of the chapters, there are pages for you to write down what is pertinent for you. It may be what you have to figure out, information you need, or names and numbers of people you might have to contact. Use the notes pages at the end of chapters to keep track of what you need to find out, what you know, or what you need to do or to vent.

If this is the start of your caregiving duties, don’t be overwhelmed. While there is a lot to learn and adjust to, there is time. If you have had your first crisis and are lost, this book will help you focus and get organized. The more knowledge you have, the better resource you will be to your parents and to your family. Good luck! And you will survive.

Checklist

CHAPTER 1

The Beginning

As Glinda, the good witch of the North from The Wizard of Oz, states, It is always best to start at the beginning.

So now is the beginning. You have started caregiving. You may be surprised to recognize that your parents have aged. I hope they are in relatively good shape, but now you are asking yourself a few questions: What do I do now? Is there anything I can do? How do I go about this?

You have to find out what needs to be done for your parents and either do it or coordinate it. This has nothing to do with how good or bad your relationship with your parents is. It’s about responsibility. You have legs. (Maybe their legs aren’t so good anymore). This book can help you find out what you need to do with them.

You do not have to do it all. Some natural caregivers think that they need to do it all or begin to believe that. These people are not good delegators, and caregivers need to delegate; it’s too much to do and handle by yourself. There is plenty of help available. What you need to decide is when you need help, how much help you need, and what you can afford in money, time, and involvement for this feat. If you are not the major caregiver in your family, one of your jobs is to keep the major caregiver going. Support, chip in, volunteer, document information, or do the taxes—and call.

Definitions

Caregiving (my definition) is any assistance, direction, and facilitation in support of your elderly parents. For example, you may hire a home-helper to assist your parent in getting up in the morning. You may be working and unable to take time off every morning. So you coordinate the hiring of someone to help.

The major caregiver is the spokesperson for the elderly parents and the first in line to be called when crises hit. He or she is the one who makes the decisions and coordinates the effort. (Tasks can be delegated). The major caregiver is a dictator. He or she is responsible for informing other caregivers what is needed and what the status is. The major caregiver will seek out opinions about what needs to be done but has the final say-so.

The term afford refers to the amount of money, time, and involvement you can spend.

Caregiving is a continuum (see graph 1). Graph 1 is merely an illustration of intensity. Yes, it has a beginning and an end, and it has highs and lows. Eventually it ends—but not necessarily when you think it will. That’s for the last chapter. For now, we’re looking at the beginning.

image001.jpg

The caregiving continuum can be a multiyear project, and the intensity builds with each new crisis. When a crisis is relieved or resolved, the intensity decreases slightly, but it never goes back to its original level while the person lives.

Caregiving doesn’t end when the individual dies. Surprise! Caregiving continues until all issues are dealt with relative to the individual who has died.

Our caregiving duties began in 1999. My sister started it by holding a sibling meeting. We sat down and discussed what we were willing and able to do. And we were honest. The willingness was there but not much knowledge—not then. We knew so little, but we learned.

Conducting a sibling meeting is a good first step in establishing the lines of communication needed for this journey. It can get issues out before they become insurmountable during a crisis and can help get your family organized. The meeting doesn’t have to be in person; it can be over the phone or the Internet. And there can be more than one. You don’t have to cover everything in one sitting. Holidays sometimes provide an opportunity to sit down together.

We spent thirteen years caregiving. You learn a few things when it’s extended that long. As you embed yourself more and more into your parents’ lives, your involvement becomes a full-time job. This fact may sneak up on you, and one day, you’ll realize you aren’t doing the things you used to do. I cancelled many get-togethers with friends. Eventually I stopped accepting or planning to meet up with them. I had no choice. That was just how it worked out. You will find yourself talking about your caregiving activities to