Reply to stubborn senior declaring she would rather die falling at home than go into a nursing home

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[quote=Anonymous]OP, I feel for you, because my parents also refused to make any realistic plan for their inevitable decline and now of course after a series of crises we are in a situation where I am the one having to deal with everything. They have plenty of money and resources but it still sucks. Without that it would be just a disaster.

What I tried to tell my parents, which did not work, is that by failing to plan in advance they limit their options and make it **more likely** that they will be in an unpleasant situation not of their choosing.

If an elder could just live at home unsafely and one day just hit their head and die there on the floor, that might be the preferred option. The more likely scenario is that the elder will not die and will instead be hospitalized but now unable to go home because home is not safe and there is no one there to provide care. That means a mad scramble for whatever nursing home is available, which is not going to be the best possible nursing home, but whatever one has an empty bed.

I would not want be in a nursing home either. There are certainly some good ones, like the religious nonprofits, but there are some profit based ones that are hellholes. Also it’s not the same as home. I would certainly try to stay out of one for as long as possible, and look at assisted-living or other options. If it wasn’t possible to pay for such things I would start wondering about moving closer to family that might be willing to help.

If your relative thinks that they’re just going continue on like they are at age 70 and then one day they will drop dead, that’s likely not how it’s going to be. Even if they don’t develop full on dementia, they will have age-related changes and become increasingly scattered. They will likely become increasingly unable to manage their multitude of medications, to drive, to manage their own affairs. Everyone is different of course, some people stay independent into their 90s while other people lose ground very early on.

There are in between stages between living completely independently and being in a nursing home. If your relative isn’t even considering any of those or thinking about it, that’s the kind of realistic planning I would encourage them to start thinking about.[/quote]

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