Suggestions for Senior Dilemmas

Here's a scenario to consider:  Your dyed-in-the-wool New England Yankee parent or grandparent is still living alone in the old Cape or Colonial they've been in since the Eisenhower administration, but they're no longer able to safely navigate the steep staircase, to make healthy meals for themselves (or to turn off the stove), to reliably monitor their medications, and perhaps also to take care of their personal needs.  The trouble is, they don't see it that way and it would take a SWAT team to overcome their resistance to any changes you suggest.

Unfortunately, this isn't a horror movie plot, but a very common occurrence these days.  Modern medical science has people often outliving their capabilities, and quite understandably they don't want to give up their independence.  So, what to do?  There's no one answer and sometimes no good answer at all.  Still, we have to try to help and here are a few suggestions that may be worth the attempt.

For one thing, you may need someone else to intercede for you.  You may be in your 50's or 60's, but you're still the child or grandchild they raised, and they don't think you know any more than you did in elementary school.  So, enlist a trusted friend if they have one, someone who can talk to them as a peer and may have already faced and dealt successfully with these issues.  Maybe the friend can share his or her story and get your senior partner to follow in those footsteps.  

Or, maybe a long-time primary care physician can approach the situation from a healthcare perspective and, if all else fails, lay out the dire consequences of a bad fall, poor dietary habits or a medication failure.  Any of those could take away remaining control or independence in a matter of moments, and the physician probably has the real-life stories to back up what she's saying.

Another possibility is one I'll refer to as the "baby step" approach.  No one likes to think of a drastic change in their familiar routine, so don't approach it that way.  Perhaps your family member can remain in their home for now with some outside services to assist with the necessary functions.  I've written about available providers before and there's undoubtedly more help available now than there was then.  One such option might be a professional "care manager" through an organization like the Aging Life Care Association.   

But if staying at home just isn't an option any longer, no matter what services may be available, then another baby step may be to arrange a short trial visit to a prospective facility, with no strings attached and a promise to come back home if it doesn't work out.  Having a friend there would greatly improve the odds and the facility would surely want to do its best to put a good foot forward.  Then, if the first weekend or week or month goes well, perhaps the ice will have been broken and the move can be confirmed.

Sometimes, of course, none of this will make a difference and the Yankee just won't budge.  Those are clearly the toughest cases and it may just take more time to make the point more clearly.  One thing we can all do, though, is to commit ourselves not to be that Yankee for our own families when the time comes for us to need their help.  Fierce independence is an admirable trait, but we might all keep in mind what we went through with our elders and vow to leave our families with happy memories of us, not tales of the nightmares we put them through.

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