What are your plans to help your parents out as they age? Are you waiting until you see they need care or are you waiting for them to ask? Advanced preparation should be your first steps as a family. If you haven’t prepared in advance, you’re making a mistake.
What Steps Should Your Family Take?
For advanced preparation, you need to look at finances and healthcare issues. Talk to an elder law attorney about a will, powers of attorney for finances and healthcare, advance directives, and DNR orders. If your parents don’t have those in place, they should. You should consider it for yourself at the same time.
Come up with a care plan that covers the essentials. If they were to become chronically ill or disabled, what do they want? Would they want you helping them bathe and shower? They may feel more comfortable having a professional caregiver helping them, but they want you handling the bills and financial decisions.
Talk about what they’d want you to do if their eye doctor or general practitioner says it’s unsafe for them to drive. Would they want a grandchild or child to have their car? Would they want to sell their car? Would they want the car to remain at the home for others to use when providing their care?
Plans Are Made in Advance
By talking about home care and advanced planning, you also have a plan in place for yourself. Many family caregivers have to balance jobs, responsibilities for their children and spouse/partner, and their parents’ needs. Finding the right balance takes time and adds to your daily stress.
When you’ve discussed different situations and have made plans that consider the present and future, you avoid a lot of time off work and stress. You and your siblings or other close family members have time to come up with schedules to work with, so you can spend time looking at the times or days when there would be a gap that caregivers need to fill.
You also have time to look into the ways to pay for home care. You may want to research long-term care insurance or start setting aside extra cash to pay for caregivers. You also have time to look into grants and VA funding for military members.
Now is the perfect time to talk about home care. You can start your parents out with a small selection of services so that they get used to having help. As their needs change, they’re already acquainted with home care services and what to expect. With advanced planning, your family avoids the last-minute rush arranging and adjusting to home care services.
If you or an aging loved one is considering home care in Park City, MT, please contact the caring staff at SYNERGY HomeCare Billings today at 406-839-2390.
