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This is so true! I'm sure this has been the case in our family. Our parents retired far from family and friends and then didn't plan anything for when they would need it. Since I was out here they expected me to care for them, but I was injured and disabled and very limited in what I could do. But still they wouldn't plan.
The more I read the posts on how to get elderly parents into a "place" the more I wonder how I can more adequately prepare for my own older age, or a stroke or something at a younger age, to make sure I am not forced into something that doesn't work for me by others.
My parents have planned . . . they took out longterm care policies many years ago. They have also picked out a CCRC that they said they would want to move to "when the time comes."
I am not sure what age they envisioned that the "time would come," however. They are 84 now and more and more, their lives revolve around doctor appointments, typically several a week, either for treatment or follow up on various issues. So my Dad is doing a LOT of driving and he has always been a good driver. He seems to be doing fine (just had cataract surgery and recovered well). His vision, accuity and response time is still very good. But we do worry.
I honestly thought that by this stage, my parents would have wanted to move into the CCRC. However, there is little benefit to them as far as having a bus that takes them "to town" or to certain medical plazas . . . their doctors are spread out across a 250 miles region. They have specialists all over the state. This is not a situation that can be easily solved.
They finance their stay at Assisted Care, not a nursing home unless they are severely ill or disabled, by selling their home. The proceeds of my mom's condo + her SS and pension financed her Assisted Care for several years. When your parents begin to run out of money, they apply for Medicaid.
You will never win an argument with someone who has dementia. If they need more care than they are getting, then they probably need to be in an ALF. This is hard. It is not easy.
It's possible to gradually escalate homecare and other options, like daycare, that allow older people to remain in their home. My elderly father was very clear that he did not want to go to live in a nursing home. A sibling, recently retired and moved here, wanted our parents in a place, maybe to lessen her concerns about them. When an opportunity arose, the sibling forced our father into a nursing home where he had previously suffered serious problems due to neglect (without telling me until it was too late), he got sick, wanted to go home, but being something of a bully the sibling refused to allow it. He intentionally starved himself to death, just under two years ago, starting during the holidays.
Just something to keep in mind for those who want to force an older person to move from their home.
I can one up you on that! My sibling pushed my father to move to a nursing home, when he would have been far better off being maintained in his own home on hospice for the last few months. He had been utterly, completely impossible to reason with, but he was not yet truly demented - had always been impossible. I warned my sibs that the move to the nursing home would kill him. I told him that he did not need to do it - that we could arrange increased care to keep him in his own home for the remainder of his life. He caved in to the pressure from the "favorite" child. Within a day of arriving, he was screaming to go back home, but since he was too frail to fly back. Well, it took the nursing home exactly seven days to kill him from neglect.
I can one up you on that! My sibling pushed my father to move to a nursing home, when he would have been far better off being maintained in his own home on hospice for the last few months. He had been utterly, completely impossible to reason with, but he was not yet truly demented - had always been impossible. I warned my sibs that the move to the nursing home would kill him. I told him that he did not need to do it - that we could arrange increased care to keep him in his own home for the remainder of his life. He caved in to the pressure from the "favorite" child. Within a day of arriving, he was screaming to go back home, but since he was too frail to fly back. Well, it took the nursing home exactly seven days to kill him from neglect.
I feel for you. It took my father almost two months, but it wasn't due to nursing home neglect. I still feel bad for not having found a way to prevent what happened to him. it all moved too fast and I kept thinking that talking to my sib. would help. I probably should have talked to an attorney instead.
It's possible to gradually escalate homecare and other options, like daycare, that allow older people to remain in their home. My elderly father was very clear that he did not want to go to live in a nursing home. A sibling, recently retired and moved here, wanted our parents in a place, maybe to lessen her concerns about them. When an opportunity arose, the sibling forced our father into a nursing home where he had previously suffered serious problems due to neglect (without telling me until it was too late), he got sick, wanted to go home, but being something of a bully the sibling refused to allow it. He intentionally starved himself to death, just under two years ago, starting during the holidays.
Just something to keep in mind for those who want to force an older person to move from their home.
I think there is more than one problem with what happened to your dad. We could start with allowing a bullying sibling to have so much power in the family.
And let's get the terminology straight. Long term care facilities are what we used to call "nursing homes." Assisted care facilities or ALFs are for people who are somewhat mobile, who can go to dinner on their own and require some assistance with daily tasks. But the care levels vary greatly in any one ALF. I recognize that ALFs are not perfect, but they do serve a function. They are also expensive. For many elderly, they are a solution to care problems that cannot be easily solved. They are not the old fashioned nursing homes.
Grrrrrr, these scenarios drive me crazy because they hit so close to home.
My advice would be for them to sell their current home and move into a retirement village/ASF combo (they're out there). They can buy a smaller condo, have transportation options, have someone check in on them once or twice a day, and live close to medical facilities which they will need increasingly over the next few months and years.
CatDancer's post is right on target.
My husband and I are in our fifties and both sets of our elderly parents are alive. One set has handled things well and the other set is handling things poorly (and driving us NUTS in the process!).
When ongoing health issues and old age in general began creeping up on my parents in their early seventies, they rented out the house and property "way out in the country in the middle of nowhere" where they were living and moved into a retirement community (Hot Springs Village, AR to be exact). They downsized significantly and now have no yard to keep up and a very "user friendly" newish construction home that's easy to keep up. My mother can no longer drive but my dad can. If he was sick, however, there are transportation services, meals on wheels, etc for my mom - she can even get someone to drive her to the grocery store for a small hourly fee.
My inlaws are in their 80s, both have SERIOUS medical conditions (heart trouble and rheumatoid arthritis in one and Alzheimers in the other) and they are both so feeble they can literally barely get around. They fall often so it's just a matter of time before one of them breaks a hip. They simply cannot function without the other one - in fact, when my father in law had to have open heart surgery and a three month recovery time, we had to put my MIL into an ALF for the time being - because honestly, I don't even know how my FIL takes care of her needs which are literally EVERY MINUTE OF EVERY DAY (and off and on all night - she will get up in the middle of the night, get lost in the house, try to take a bath, etc). They live way out in the country - a thirty minute drive from our house and an hour from any major hospital or medical hub. IT IS A RIDICULOUS SITUATION and getting worse by the minute.
Five years ago when they were both in much better shape, the whole family begged them to downsize and move to a retirement community but they got horsey about it and refused flat out. Now they expect everyone to pick up where they can't function and it's maddening. And still, they refuse to move, even though we've offered to help them 100 percent. All they'd have to do would be to let us drive them to a few centers and let them pick out the floorplan. But no. GRRRR!
When my stubborn nutty father would not accept help with managing his medical issues, I had to accept that I couldn't do anything about it. Very painful, but there was nothing I could do except keep trying, which didn't work. When he made stupid decisions about money, again, I could do nothing because he wasn't yet truly incompetent. When a sibling decided that she needed to lure him into an inadequate nursing home near her, instead of our agreeing to maintain him in his own home with round the clock care on hospice, for which he had the money, all I could do was warn everyone, including him, what would happen, which quickly did. But since he was still lucid, and no crazier than he'd always been, I couldn't stop it. So he died a little earlier than he should have, miserable and alone in a nursing home room, of medical neglect, despite my best efforts to intervene. And I had to accept it.
My point is, if your parents are stubborn fools, but not demented, who will not listen to reason, there is NOTHING you can do about it. Unless they are truly demented, in which case you can get guardianship and have them transferred to an appropriate care facility, there's NOTHING you can do. Accept that it is their right to choose not to face and plan for eventual infirmity and death. As it is your right to choose not to sacrifice your own life caring for them in a remote and inappropriate setting.
The thing i noticed in my mom's decline, is that her judgement went south shortly before we noticed her memory going. She didn't go back to get her second cataract operated on, for instance, and did not get dentures when she should have.
There were some other things too. She spent money recklessly, but didn't dip into her savings, thank heavens.
I really think that elderly people should be protected from themselves, but I also understand that this is not always possible. Often I think a crisis forces people to act, but the resistance to change by everyone including the elder postpones the time of action. It should not take a crisis to force everyone to act, but usually it does, IMO.
When mom or dad can't reason properly, they can make calamitous mistakes, But an over eager child who wants POA for his or her own purposes, is also a threat. I don't know how to prevent mistakes. But I do know that you cannot argue with someone in dementia, even if that person is only slightly ill with dementia. And older people do not want change or discomfort. So a responsible family member should push for change if it seems better. But many times stubborn elders resist and resist and resist.
My parents have planned . . . they took out longterm care policies many years ago. They have also picked out a CCRC that they said they would want to move to "when the time comes."
I am not sure what age they envisioned that the "time would come," however. They are 84 now and more and more, their lives revolve around doctor appointments, typically several a week, either for treatment or follow up on various issues. So my Dad is doing a LOT of driving and he has always been a good driver. He seems to be doing fine (just had cataract surgery and recovered well). His vision, accuity and response time is still very good. But we do worry.
I honestly thought that by this stage, my parents would have wanted to move into the CCRC. However, there is little benefit to them as far as having a bus that takes them "to town" or to certain medical plazas . . . their doctors are spread out across a 250 miles region. They have specialists all over the state. This is not a situation that can be easily solved.
The CCRC issue may resolve itself because many CCRCs won't take people over a certain age (they figure older people are going to become too expensive too quickly).
BTW - where can I find a pair of those mules? Sounds like they'd be really useful as I get older .
And jambo - where in Florida do your folks live? I'm here in NE Florida - and know about some local resources your folks might find useful if and when they agree to get any help. Robyn
We (my sister and I) just moved my mother into a nursing home. She is 88 with some complex nursing needs.
We tried to keep her in her own home as long as we could using visiting carers to make sure she got her meals, meds and showered. In retrospect, that was a big mistake. In the last two years she has had issues with falling, Parkinsons and in the last year several UTIs. Add to that increasing social isolation and her general state has declined quite fast.
My view now is that, had we moved her into the nursing home two years ago, the general decline would have been slower. But she was fiercely independent and we respected that. That was a mistake. There comes a time when you really need to take charge. I ended up doing that but it should have come earlier. Interestingly, when I told my mother that she would not be going home (she was in hospital) she accepted without a murmur. I think that part of the problem is that we 'kids' often lack the courage to confront our parents with an uncomfortable reality.
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s ago. They have also picked out a CCRC that they said they would want to move to "when the time comes." 
