How To Care For Your Aging Parents At Home

If your parents have been showing signs that they can no longer function by themselves then you might decide to invite them to live with you. This can make you feel much more content that they are safe and healthy while under your supervision, however, do you know how to properly care for them? Here are the ways in which you can support your aging parents at home.

Define What Care They Need

To understand how you can help, you will need to know what tasks you need to assist with. Schedule a conversation with your parents to find out what daily tasks they are struggling with so that you can put together a list and possibly speak to a Senior Living Developer. Some things that they might need help with are meal preparation, social interaction, personal hygiene, mobility, and many more. Once you have discovered how many things you will need to help with you can then decide if it is possible for you and your family to manage by yourselves or you will need to outsource a caregiver that can stop by to help with some of these tasks. If the support they need is only with meal preparation and mobility, you will be able to manage by cooking extra food and offering a hand when they need to move around the house, which can be done fairly simply, although this isn’t always the case.

Include Their Opinion

Now that your parent or parents are living with you, they might feel as if they’ve given up some control of their lives, however, you can help to make them feel included by asking their opinion on household affairs and decisions surrounding their care. Without this, their mental health may begin to suffer as they feel like they are no longer in control of making changes in their life and might also begin to view you as a meddler. Offer your advice and opinions as kindly as possible and ask for a response with every suggestion to see how they feel before acting on anything to do with their care.

Manage The Finances

Having one or two extra people in your home will incur additional costs for you and your family, so it is a good idea to estimate the future costs before they move in to see if it is a feasible idea. Nevertheless, caring for them by yourself should be less costly and more personal than sending them to an assisted living facility or nursing home. Bear in mind that you might also need some additional equipment in your home after defining what care they need, which can add to the cost of care. You can find equipment to rent at Bosshard Medical so that you don’t need to invest in a new piece of kit that you won’t necessarily need forever. 

The most important step in managing your parent’s care in your own home is to treat them with respect and allow them to be part of every step in the decision-making process; they need you to be a partner in their care rather than a control freak.