When parents are across the country

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:i let my parents live in their unsuitable house until things came to a head with worsening dementia. The local agency on aging/adult protective services got called by neighbors, they were taken in for an evaluation, and the state decided they couldn't live on their own anymore.

once extracted from their house, it took me six months to get rid of the worst of the hoarding and put it on the market. closed in 40 days, and then I relocated them to a better private pay facility close to me. dad's passed, and i have enough proceeds left to cover mom for another year before I have to move her to a medicaid facility.

believe me, i tried to get them to understand that they needed to downsize before the dementia got too bad, but there was no convincing them. they had to do it the hard way.

intervening things you can do: set up unobtrusive cameras around the property (i used blink). I also set up my dad's phone to auto-answer after 15 seconds, which meant that phone calls went to voicemail normally but facetime would answer if even if he couldnt hear the phone. I put an airtag in his car. I set up an echo show and used the camera/drop-in feature to check on them. I put most of their bills on auto-pay and checked on the bank account every so often. we registered the DPoA paperwork at their bank.

[Anonymous]

Can you explain in a little more detail what you did for the bolded?

Anonymous wrote:

intervening things you can do: set up unobtrusive cameras around the property (i used blink). I also set up my dad's phone to auto-answer after 15 seconds, which meant that phone calls went to voicemail normally but facetime would answer if even if he couldnt hear the phone. I put an airtag in his car. I set up an echo show and used the camera/drop-in feature to check on them. I put most of their bills on auto-pay and checked on the bank account every so often. we registered the DPoA paperwork at their bank.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can you explain in a little more detail what you did for the bolded?

Anonymous wrote:

intervening things you can do: set up unobtrusive cameras around the property (i used blink). I also set up my dad's phone to auto-answer after 15 seconds, which meant that phone calls went to voicemail normally but facetime would answer if even if he couldnt hear the phone. I put an airtag in his car. I set up an echo show and used the camera/drop-in feature to check on them. I put most of their bills on auto-pay and checked on the bank account every so often. we registered the DPoA paperwork at their bank.

all of these require setting up in person, but helped me help them from a distance.

blink cameras can run on lithium batteries or plug in usb, and require a wifi connection. they can record to the cloud and have two-way audio. i placed them under furniture, on the porch/facing driveway, or next to the tv, basically anywhere i could find that was visually unobtrusive. i would set them up to record on motion but not super-long clips. but this way i could get a general sense of where they were in the house/if they were eating, and the cameras have a live drop-in feature.

auto-answer on the iphone is an accessibility feature. the long ring time of 15 seconds means that it generally would only auto-answer facetime video or audio calls, so normal phone calls just went to voicemail like usual.

if you set up an amazon echo show for them and have access to the account that owns it, you have the option in the app to "drop in" (calls the echo show like a normal video call) or just access the camera which will silently open the audio and video. i set it up to basically just be a digital photo frame with photos of the grandkids in their room, they were past the point of interacting with it but earlier stage parents might be able to do things like "alexa, play some music", "alexa what time is it?" etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My practical advice is to start small. If she’s not use to help, get her a weekly cleaning service. That may turn into more frequent helpers-with shopping, cooking, help around the house. But since healthy people have cleaners too, it can be a start.

Then, when you can visit, start touring assisted living options, just to see them. Also start working on organizing important documents or cleaning one room of the house. Each trip have one specific goal. Anything you can do to prepare will help later.

Ugh. That’s the thing. Even the two items you mention involve trips across the country. This poor woman is going to spend $1000 to get on 1-2 flights to clean a room for a weekend and probably get scolded. And then repeat it how many times and how often? Every month for a year?

The last thing I want to do after working all week is to go straight to the airport, fly across the country, get in a rental car
at midnight and clean/get yelled at for a weekend and then go straight back to work on Monday.

This.

OP I’ve been dealing with this same issue now since my father had a stroke six years ago. Even though they are out of cash and are sitting on a gold mine of a very sellable home that’s paid off, they STILL will not make a change. Even though both can barely walk, neither can drive, are partially incontinent, and confuse their pills all the time. What they want is for me to go live 3000 miles away from my family to do their bidding. Nope.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My practical advice is to start small. If she’s not use to help, get her a weekly cleaning service. That may turn into more frequent helpers-with shopping, cooking, help around the house. But since healthy people have cleaners too, it can be a start.

Then, when you can visit, start touring assisted living options, just to see them. Also start working on organizing important documents or cleaning one room of the house. Each trip have one specific goal. Anything you can do to prepare will help later.

Ugh. That’s the thing. Even the two items you mention involve trips across the country. This poor woman is going to spend $1000 to get on 1-2 flights to clean a room for a weekend and probably get scolded. And then repeat it how many times and how often? Every month for a year?

The last thing I want to do after working all week is to go straight to the airport, fly across the country, get in a rental car
at midnight and clean/get yelled at for a weekend and then go straight back to work on Monday.

I agree with this - I know I have a moral obligation to help my aging parents, but when my mom refuses to take any advice, makes bad choices, fails to face reality, then things go badly and she expects me to swoop in and clean it up? And then calls me a bulldozer for trying to help her solve obvious problems? And implies I don't respect her? This is like beating my head against a wall and reliving what it has been like to be her daughter. Seems like a tall order.

As for moving away from your parents, isn't that what we want to encourage our children to do? Move away (if they want) and follow their own path/dreams? As the parent of adult children, I believe it is on me to move near my kids as I age if I expect to have their help. I have offered to move my parents close to me, and they have said no - literally calling me selfish for suggesting it.

So where do I go from here? I'm going to detach a little and wait for a crisis. Then I will solve it like the bulldozer I apparently am.

You are under moral obligation to call once per week and check in. You are NOT under moral obligation to help someone who does not want to be helped. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Another thing you can try is hiring an aging care professional to work with her-check on her every few months, eventually every month then every week to assess need and hire out accordingly. It helps to remove you from the equation. These people are trained to talk to the elderly in a way that feels empowering and they can assess need. Also, too often our elders feel entitled to treat us poorly and take advantage. When it's a paid professional they shape up or they fire the person.

You try all sorts of things and then if she is determined to make self-destructive decisions and is cognitively able you let it go and can have some peace if her decisions lead to her own suffering because she did what SHE wanted.

I love this sort of advice by people who have money to burn and don’t even consider whether or not OP does as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:i let my parents live in their unsuitable house until things came to a head with worsening dementia. The local agency on aging/adult protective services got called by neighbors, they were taken in for an evaluation, and the state decided they couldn't live on their own anymore.

once extracted from their house, it took me six months to get rid of the worst of the hoarding and put it on the market. closed in 40 days, and then I relocated them to a better private pay facility close to me. dad's passed, and i have enough proceeds left to cover mom for another year before I have to move her to a medicaid facility.

believe me, i tried to get them to understand that they needed to downsize before the dementia got too bad, but there was no convincing them. they had to do it the hard way.

This will be my parents with the added fact that my sister will probably not vacate the house because she can’t afford to live on her own, forcing my parents into a Medicaid facility instead of allowing them to use the asset they paid for, for their own care