About one in five Americans provides a parent or other aging loved one with unpaid senior care. While this is kind and noble, it’s also not usually sustainable. Career demands and strained familial relationships make senior living communities essential.
Here, we’ll discuss some questions to ask your parents when it’s time to transition to an eldercare community in Louisiana. Read on for some tips for navigating family care conversations in Slidell.
Do You Have Any Safety Concerns While Living at Home?
AARP reports that about 77% of older Americans want to age in place. This means staying at home and living on their own rather than moving into a senior living community.
Unfortunately, this is unrealistic for many families. About seven in ten seniors will eventually need long-term care to have their basic needs met.
Families frequently work, and being a familial caregiver is a time-consuming and physically demanding task. Plus, most homes are not accessible for people with mobility or memory issues. Costly upgrades are a must in these cases, and relationships between families and their aging loved ones will likely be strained under the pressures of caregiving.
Regularly asking your parents if they have at-home safety concerns can help you decide when it’s time to transition into assisted living.
Ask about:
- What specific tasks are challenging
- Whether there are any potential safety concerns in the house that the senior would like to address
- How worried they are each day about completing household chores
- Whether caring for their hygiene or personal needs is challenging
- Whether your loved one feels the need for more social interaction than they currently have
- What financial worries your aging loved one may have while aging in place
This doesn’t just let you gauge when to begin discussing senior care. It also gives you an idea of what to talk about when you discuss transitioning into an assisted living community.
For example, if your loved one feels lonely, you can stress that a senior community offers guaranteed companionship. If they’re worried about inaccessible home features, the accessibility of senior living communities can make an appearance during family care conversations.
Do You Have a Long-Term Care Plan?
This is one of the first questions to ask your parents when you suspect that it’s time to start transitioning into assisted living.
If your parent says yes, ask them what the plan is. Consider what they have to say and listen actively. Collaboration is key to healthy and effective planning with aging parents.
Parents who have realistic plans that involve senior living communities will find it easier to talk about. You can quickly begin discussing the benefits of senior living and comparing different communities.
However, other parents will have an unrealistic plan. Some may have no plan at all. This is normal – no one likes to think about a day when they can no longer care for themselves.
But if that day is approaching, you should:
- Point out challenges they’re currently facing and ask how they plan to independently navigate these challenges
- Ask what happens when their care needs change
- What they think would happen if they were to sustain an injury (and how they would deal with a fall)
This can provide a starting point for conversations about eldercare decisions.
When Would You Consider Transitioning to Senior Community Life?
Though many seniors want to age in place, many of them are also realistic. Your parents may already have an idea of what situations would make them consider moving into a community.
Some circumstances in which your parents might be willing to move include:
- Feeling socially isolated
- Being unable to drive while lacking adequate public transportation
- Strained relationships with you and siblings because of the demands of being a caregiver
- An inability to get around the house and its floor plan due to mobility challenges
- Being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or dementia
- Suffering a fall or other injury that changes their care needs
This will give you an idea of when to begin talking seriously about moving into assisted living or memory care.
If your parents already seem to need eldercare, talk frankly about their situation. Try to relate it to one of the circumstances in which they would be willing to move. This may be an eye-opening discussion for everyone that leads to looking into quality senior care.
Would You Think About an Independent Living Community?
Some seniors don’t want to move into assisted living because they are truly able to live independently. In these situations, they may be content to age in place with minimal help.
However, aging in place comes with isolation-related issues. Seniors are at a high risk of loneliness as they lose friends and siblings. If one of your parents survives the other, grieving the loss of a spouse puts the surviving parent at risk of depression.
Ask them what they would think about moving into an independent living community. Those in independent living:
- Create their own daily routines
- Set their own schedules
- Independently choose daily activities
- Choose when to spend time in community amenities
- Leave community walls alone or with friends
- Can bring pets along and enjoy the companionship of four-legged family members (just as those in assisted living and memory care can)
They simply unlock additional services like:
- Housekeeping assistance
- Laundry services
- Meal planning and preparation
Show your parents these benefits and let them browse SummerHouse Park Provence’s amenities. They may connect with the safe, calming community amenities or develop an interest in our activities and events.
Beyond Questions to Ask Your Parents About Senior Living
Now that you know some questions to ask your parents about eldercare as they age, it’s time to learn more assisted living transition tips.
SummerHouse Park Provence is committed to answering questions and addressing concerns from new residents and families. Our team is also excited to show you our amenities and help you understand what sets us apart from other Louisiana senior communities.
Contact our caregivers and schedule a tour to learn more about what we have to offer!
