Visiting Elderly Parents This Holiday Season? Aging Solutions Releases Tips For How To Assess Their Condition: Look, Listen and Pause
December 26th, 2011
San Rafael, CA (PRWEB) December 25, 2011
Terri Abelar, CEO and founder of Aging Solutions, Inc. (http://www.agingsolutions.com), a client-centered care management company for the care of elderly and disabled adults has released the Eldercare Reality Check: Look, Listen and Pause just in time for the holidays, when thousands of adult children will be visiting their parents.
Heading home for the holidays to visit their families after a long break can stir up conflicting feelings for adult children. Theres the nostalgia of the old neighborhood, traditions to relive, the touchstones of memory. But when your parents reach a certain age, going home may also bring up sadness, worry, and apprehension: Are they still okay? What will I do if theyre not?
Currently One Quarter of Adult Children Are Providing Personal and Financial Care For Their Parents*.
According to a MetLife study published earlier this year, the share of adult children providing personal care and/or financial assistance to a parent has more than tripled over the past 15 years. Currently, a quarter of adult children, mainly baby boomers, provide these types of care to a parent.
But its also true that the physical and/or mental decline of adult parents is a touchy subject. The holidays are rarely the time for taking action for children who see problems with the parents; theyll likely tell them, perhaps loudly, that its none of their business how theyre doingcasting a pall over the holidays for everyone. But concern about how and when adult childrens parents might need their help is still a legitimate one. The best way to begin is to make a quiet, but informed, assessment over the holidays. Three things to keep in mind: Look, Listen, and Pause.
According to Aging Solutions CEO and Founder Terri Abelar, “The emotional burden of aging parents is spreading wider and getting heavier. Aging Solutions offers these tips Look, Listen and Pause to help adult children access their loved ones situation in a general way and then to still take time to enjoy the holidays.”
Look
Look means looking for changes in your parents ability to carry out simple daily tasks, such as brushing their teeth, taking out the garbage, or putting away dishes. Do they do these tasks with more difficulty or less regularly? Is old food piling up in the refrigerator? Do they walk across a room freely, or are they touching furniture and walls to navigate? If so, they may be having balance problems. Observe how many medications your parents are taking and whether they are taking them in an organized way and according to directions. Medication mix-ups are an increasingly common cause of sudden changes in aging parents conditions, especially in this era of pervasive, nonstop medication marketing. Taking the wrong medication at the wrong time in the wrong dosage can lead to multiple problems that quickly snowball. When clients describe changes in a parents behavior, memory, speech patterns, or balance, our first suspect is a medication mix-up. Fortunately, when identified, the problem can be solved in a few days.
Listen
Listen means truly listening to your parents as you conversenot interrogating them because youre worried, or imposing your own expectations. Listen for vague phrases or clich
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