Boomers: Great Ideas for Taking Care of Your Elderly Parents
I’ve been quietly collecting a whole bunch of great information about taking care of your elderly parents. As for me, I will never face this problem as both of my parents died when I was young, but I have many friends and acquaintances who are dealing mightily with this issue. Here we go:
How to Get Ready to Downsize
From The Gilbert Guide, by Margit Novack, a senior moving specialist (who knew there was such a job title?)How Assistive Technology can help your parent stay in their own home
What You Need to Know About Longterm Care
This piece was written by Ronni Bennett of Time Goes By: What It’s Really Like to Get OlderHow to Get Seniors Ready to Move
This is a great piece from Lisa Dunn at Real Sage Advice. She’s an expert in senior housing and aging.
March 21st, 2007 at 12:37 pm
Thanks for all this info I’ll pass it on to my two boys!
March 21st, 2007 at 12:58 pm
Akelamalu: You make me laugh.
March 21st, 2007 at 3:51 pm
A lot of good info here Rhea.
March 21st, 2007 at 6:12 pm
Bice: Glad you think so!
March 21st, 2007 at 6:39 pm
I was recently in a continuing ed class where the topic of elder care came up. The instructor was talking about people who are in their 90’s and have “outlived” their money and have difficulty caring for themselves. Their children are in their 60’s or 70’s and are dealing with their own aging and money issues. The 90-something parent has to be placed in a nursing home, which is very expensive and Medicare only pays a certain percentage of the cost. This is all somewhat depressing.
March 21st, 2007 at 7:29 pm
My husband told me last night to call my parents, have them sell their house and move in with us. It’s nice of him to offer but I’m not ready for that yet (and neither are my parents or my husband for that matter.)
March 21st, 2007 at 11:36 pm
My husband and I have been through it and then some with his mother. We have not put her in long term care although she is totally helpless, because we know she would not survive the experience for more than a few months. She is as fragile as a bird. If someone forgot her meds she would be a goner in no time.
Although 97 years old, she has not had to suffer the experience of being warehoused. It has not been easy on my husband and me, but we have found wonderful help. We do not have to be the primary caregivers, which is good, because we are in our 60’s. I, especially am very tired of taking care of others after a lifetime of it and am very happy that we can do right by my mother in law without my having to give direct care. My husband would not be able to give such care at all, but he is very good to her.
For me the care is the stickler. I wonder if that is true of other women who have given a lot of physical care to others over their lifetimes and are just very tired of it.
But that’s kind of changing the subject, except that it does relate to caregiver burnout.
March 22nd, 2007 at 6:26 am
Thank you for the mention. Senior Move Managers are a new and quickly growing industry. In 2002, I founded the National Association of Senior Move Managers (NASMM) and was the orgaization’s Founding President. Today the oprganization has over 200 members; we expect it will have 500 members within 2 years.
As an industry pioneer, and also trying to be visionary, I realized that the industry is changing dramaticall. In the future I expect that referrlas will be channeled. In 2005 we started the Moving Solutions Franchise, a low cost, home-based franchise. All 6 franchisees are boomer-aged women, who want to be their own boss, build equity and make a difference.
Margit Novack
March 22nd, 2007 at 8:16 am
Rhea, I’ve been doing the same thing…scouring the web for resources for people. Like the rest of the internet, there are some good, some not-so-good. Thanks for the link, and thank you for the other resources above, I’ll add them to my lists!
March 22nd, 2007 at 11:25 am
Thanks to those who wrote in with their personal experiences with this issue. Hattie, I know that women are nearly always the ones whom elder falls on. I am certain that others like you who have raised families are just tired. Caretaker burnout is very real.
Margit: Interesting line of work and very needed.
Lisa: Welcome!
March 22nd, 2007 at 2:06 pm
Ahh, thankfully, my dear dad has a much younger wife. Hopefully, she sticks around and takes care of him!!
March 22nd, 2007 at 4:49 pm
One of our neighbors has gone the younger wife route. Needless to say, this ploy does not work for women.
March 25th, 2007 at 9:38 am
Yeah, thanks for the info!! I know that soon I will have to deal with this as well…
April 17th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
Hello Rhea,
Thank you for posting my blog, Assistive Technology to Promote Aging in Place. Assistive technology is still new to a lot of people, but I see the potential for it to help elderly people stay in their homes longer and more safely. I hope the information is useful to your readers!
Lori Deschene
June 20th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
My 78 hear old father-in-law moved in with us 8 years ago. He sold a house that was paid for, has 3 bank accounts with 20K, 30K and 190K in them. He paid us a portion ($23.000) of what it cost to make an apartment addition on the house for him, but he has not paid any rent. When we brought it up to him, he stopped using lights in his “apartment”, started talking to all the neighbors about how he paid for the aprtment, told us directly that the arangement we had was to start paying rent in 3 years (it was accually 2 and that is when we brought it up), and since then has taken any caring thing I say about wanting him to be aable to live at home till he is called home to mean that he doesnt have to pay rent. He loves to eat out- we can’t afford to eat out, dont really care to eat out, butr eat out w/ him because it is the only thing he wants to do with us. My husband says that in Dad’s mind this is his reimbursment to us-paying for a diner dinner every once or twice a month. We have 3 daughters in college and I am feeling the pinch of college debt, home equity loan…. Am I expecting too much when I feel that he ought to be contributing to the household financially?