The phrase “aging in place” refers to helping your elderly family member to continue to live in her own home for as long as she’s able to do so. This goal may be easily achievable, or your senior may need more help than she expects to make this happen.
Find Out What Your Senior Needs Now and Will Need Later
In order to keep your senior at home, where she wants to stay, you’re going to have to make sure she’s supported in that goal. The best way to start out doing that is to figure out what she needs right now to make that happen. Her doctor can help you to assess what will help in the beginning and later. Because you can’t stop with now. There are going to be needs down the line, and it’s important to prepare for those now, if possible.
Determine How Many of Those Needs You Can Meet
There’s a certain percentage of your elderly family member’s needs that you’re going to be able to meet. Talking to her doctor for her, making sure she’s eating well, and helping her to handle regular daily tasks may all be needs that you can help her to meet. There may be other ways you can assist, too. It’s important for you to make sure you understand and honor your own limitations. If you don’t, that puts your own mental and physical health at risk down the line.
Look for Ways to Fill the Gap Between the Two
Once you have a greater understanding of what your senior’s needs are and will be, you can take a closer look at where any gaps exist between those and what you’re able to do. Between you and other family members, you may be able to cover quite a bit of what needs to be taken care of. But there may be other situations that are out of your range of experience. That’s when in-home care providers can be incredibly helpful, both to you and to your senior.
Keep an Eye on the Situation
It’s tempting to believe that once you solve the situation you’re facing right now, it’s going to stay solved. But that’s not how all of this works, unfortunately. You’re likely going to have to keep an eye on what works and what doesn’t, making changes as necessary to account for changes in your senior’s needs. That’s a lot easier to do with help in place, and in-home care providers can help you to make those adjustments.
Your elderly family member might do all the right things and still not be able to age in place. It’s not a failure on her part or on yours to need to move at some point. It would simply mean you’re doing everything possible to meet your senior’s needs.