Reply to To those that believe the elderly should always make their own decisions

Forum Index » Eldercare

Reply to "To those that believe the elderly should always make their own decisions"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]

OP - I see that you are accomplishing little by planning on going for months at a time.  Since you are out there now, have you done a "clear head" assessment of the situation with both parents in terms of:  What their basic health conditions are?  Ways that they could be managed locally? What their monthly income is versus what their basic monthly expenses are? What exactly is your sister able to do -- to handle her own life?  to help handle your parents' affairs?

Between you and your brother, try and get your sister to support the best decision that might be made between the three of you to see who might have Power of Attorney over legal affairs, Health Care Proxy in helping parent make health care decisions or doing so as needed. Can divide up the tasks that might be done to help out from afar and those needing local attention, then perhaps you will find a better balance.  Your own children and husband (unless young adults themselves) really need your primary attention.

Then, have you taken the time to see what services they might qualify for in their community - using them is an entirely different questions, but learning what exists could be a start.  If they are both really at-risk, then see if they could qualify for a social worker to help guide them through services or could you and your sane brother "together" find a local "care coordinator" with an agency that you would pay to do certain things even if it was just a monthly wellness check to alert you to any serious downturn.  If you and your brother could get the parents' OK to take on some basic services, such as one of you taking over their financial affairs at least as far as having access to being able to pay their bills and seeing they are paid.   The other might consider getting them set up with meals on wheels, or other area food pantry programs if your sister with OCD could manage to go there for them or just trying two work with the three of them to order food from a local store with delivery so again you have a basic idea of what they are eating and staying within a budget or not.
If the house is not being kept up, then covering the cost of a cleaning person once a month and individual (rather than an expensive lawn service) to do the yard work every so often.

It really sounds as if you may have three persons with issues in the one house as I have seen it happen that parents will not want to leave the home for care they need elsewhere because they fear what will happen to their dependent adult child.  So, maybe start asking about services for her, too, if she is limited by her mental health issues.  You do have a lot on your plate, but your prolonged presence may not be the needed change agent.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics