Stay Aware to Provide the Best Elder Care

Making Decisions Can Be Hard

At some point, nearly everyone has an elderly or ill parent or other relative who either resides in a nursing home or assisted living facility or receives home health care. Recognizing and handling this necessity can be stressful and tax your emotional wellness.

The difficulty in choosing the right option stems from the availability of so many elder care facilities and services vying for your dollar. They spend considerable sums to hire competent marketing firms that make their offers appealing and reassuring.

What Can Happen

Let’s look at a “typical” scenario, although no two situations are identical.

Once you arrange for care specific to your family member’s situation, sometimes on the advice of a social worker or healthcare practitioner, you feel like you can breathe for the moment. Your loved one will receive the doting and professional attention necessary for them to thrive.

The Honeymoon Starts?

You’re very busy, but your first few scheduled visits fill you with hope. The patient is playing a board game from a wheelchair, the caregiver is laughing with her, there are healthy dishes displayed on the table, and the teapot is whistling as a signal that your loved one will soon sip her favorite brew.

Time for a Check-In

You call your relative a few times to let her know she’s loved. She sounds a little tired, but that’s to be expected. She thanks you for calling and hangs up the phone. You’re surprised the call is so short, but you tell yourself that she needs her rest.

Reality Hits

One day, you get off work early and decide to give her an impromptu visit. Despite the driving distance, you miss her. You grab a few flowers on the way and hope she’ll be available for a surprise chat, a big smile, and a few hugs.

?Then the horror hits you. Your relative is still in bed at the time she would normally eat lunch or spend a little time outside in the fresh air. There’s a questionable odor in her room. She needs a new adult diaper.

First Things First: the Rescue

You rush to her side to adjust her pillow and free her from tangled sheets to turn her slightly, trying to control your anger at the condition she’s in. When she grimaces, you see she has bedsores.?

And you can’t be sure, because she seems hesitant to say anything but “Don’t worry, I’m fine,” but you’re fairly certain you detect some fresh bruises.

Promises Made, but Few Delivered

At first, you can’t get the caregiver’s attention because she is absorbed with texting while watching her favorite soap opera. But instead of apologizing to you and rushing to assist her patient, she hollers at you about interrupting and inconveniencing her. How dare you arrive without calling first!

Remain Determined

Undeterred, you end up standing guard over the aide, making sure she amends the situation, and you call the agency you hired her through to register a complaint. Your search for a replacement ensues. You’ll have to make alternate work arrangements for a couple of weeks to get your relative adjusted to the new licensed caregiver.

Regret Sets In

Your head spins with I-should-haves and why-didn't-I knows. You wonder what else has been going on that you didn’t know about. You inquire angrily about the agency’s process of vetting their practitioners, and they give you boilerplate responses that fail to satisfy you.

Then your mind begins its attack. You know the kind I’m referring to, don’t you? Your mind doesn’t want you to go through this again, so it makes you almost paralyzed with fear about making another mistake in discerning the right person to do the job.

Reassess Your Process

Take a deep breath. You must quiet your mind so you can function with maximum efficiency and avoid making yourself ill.?

To begin with, you did the best you could. Given the insurance limitations, your work schedule, multiple consultations, and genuine concern, you took the steps you thought were essential to protect your family member. Beating yourself up only amplifies your anxiety, and that can’t possibly help your loved one.

?Here’s a better idea: ask the social worker and the authorities about how to prevent something like this from reoccurring. And please—realize that incidents like this are not rare.

Elder Abuse Facts

According to the National Institutes on Aging, no demographic is spared the possibility of elder abuse. This practice straddles various age, ethnicity, gender, race, and religious groups. It’s not limited to place—home or type of facility—and it includes:

• Abuse (physical, emotional, or sexual)
• Neglect
• Financial exploitation

Most news stories focus on the physical abuse and neglect because graphic, attention-getting film footage often accompanies them. But don’t underestimate the devastating impacts of emotional abuse, such as gaslighting, or the many nuances of financial abuse.

What Constitutes Financial Abuse?

Abuse can include practices like these:

• Stealing and cashing Social Security checks
• Forgery and cashing of other checks
• Unauthorized credit card use
• Changing and forging documents such as a will or power of attorney
• Stealing veterans’ benefits
• Stealing health benefits

Be Proactive

Here are some steps you can take:

• Ask for references and talk to patients when checking facilities out.
• Insist on a thorough background check of the potential caregiver.
• Assign at least two trusted people to monitor the patient’s financial status and records. For example, one can be a close family member or neighbor and the other an accountant in good standing.
• Make unscheduled visits and thoroughly check the patient’s living conditions.
• Following legal guidelines, install hidden cameras and check the footage periodically.
• Talk to the patient out of the earshot of the facility owner or caregiver.
• If you’re concerned something is going on but can’t get there quickly to check on your relative in person, ask the local police to knock on her door to do a welfare check.
• Trust your instincts.
• Call 911 if a medical situation appears to be building and you feel panicked. It’s better to be guided over the phone and told there’s no need to freak out than to leave your loved one in a lurch.

The support and consistent monitoring done by caring families and friends is vital. Just like the recent research that proves communication and live interaction with others helps seniors sustain cognitive ability and actually prolongs their lives, it is easy to see that your efforts matter.

Help Is Available

Want more consolation? There are now more agencies than ever that provide information and resources. In other words, you don’t have to take action alone. Take advantage of services provided by advocacy groups: ?

• Local church groups that can provide a respite for caregivers
• The Adult Protective Services Association (state jurisdiction) 202-370-6292
• The National Center on Elder Abuse (855) 500-3537
• Long-term care ombudsmen (state jurisdiction) 202-332-2275

Conclusion

Do your research, get references, compare options, talk to specialists, monitor your loved one’s situation and pray for their protection, set up a support system that includes other family members and trusted neighbors who can share the load, have medical emergency and police contact numbers handy, visit when you can, trust your instincts, and don’t blame yourself if something goes wrong.

You can only do what you can, and most elderly people nowadays live a fairly full life that includes joyful moments despite their challenges.

#elderabuse #neglect #caregiver #emotionalhealth #seniorhealth

Do you want to calm your mind about caring for seniors or others in your family who require assistance? I get it, and I do one-on-one life, health, and wellness coaching and meditation sessions. Let's talk. Click on the link in my profile.

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Terise

I help black women seeking more joy, health, energy, fulfilling relationships, and personal power bust through limiting beliefs, self-doubt, and a lack of confidence.