Take a Compassionate Yet Practical Approach to Your Parents’ Nursing Home Care Anxiety
You can find other helpful advice and articles like this one at Free Fundamentals.
Confronting the realization that you need to move a parent into a nursing home can hit hard — but it will hit your other parent (who does not require nursing home care) even harder. They have likely been grappling with the likelihood of facing intense loneliness in an empty house and feeling defeated that they are no longer able to provide the care their spouse needs. They may also be concerned about finances — paying for nursing home care is not cheap, and the remaining spouse may have several years of independence left.
For these reasons, it’s important that you exude compassion to both your parents during this difficult time, even while having honest discussions about the practical concerns.
Keep the selection a family team effort
If your parents have thought ahead and already stated a preference for what nursing home they’d like to enter when necessary, that makes your role easier. You can verify with their health care team as to whether or not that stated preference is adequate for your parent’s needs, and if not, they may be able to recommend other options in your area.
If you are still in the selection process, be sure to involve your parents in the process. Look at the amenities of each home, talk to friends and neighbors in the area who may have experience with different homes, and look at the U.S. Health & Human Services performance reviews. It’s also important that you visit the homes on your list, preferably twice.
Take your parents with you on your visits — both, if possible, but if not, at least your healthy parent. The visits and meeting the staff can remove a lot of anxiety for everyone. Point out the desirable amenities, as well as other benefits, such as whether they’ll be allowed to bring a small pet with them or if they can be brought in during visits. This is becoming an increasingly popular feature as the benefits of pets on senior quality of life — both mentally and physically — have been demonstrated.
Allaying concerns of your other parent
Through all of this, your focus is likely on the parent who is entering assisted care, and understandably so. Even though it’s also emotionally taxing for you, take time to let your healthy parent know that you understand the difficulties of this process and their transition. Listen to their concerns and offer concrete suggestions, leaving the final decision up to them. For example, if they are concerned about having too much idle time on their hands, you can suggest that they volunteer a few hours a week.
Your healthy parent is likely also worried about finances, both for the nursing home and for their own needs. If your plan is to apply for Medicaid, be aware that there are income and asset requirements to consider, and it could affect what nursing home you can choose. Even with income and asset protections in place for your healthy parent, their spending habits may need to change drastically, which can be a difficult shift for them at this stage in life.
One option to discuss is selling your parents’ home to help pay the nursing home costs. The merits of this largely depend on the home’s value and how much equity is in it. To determine that, you need to look at the market value of the property by comparing it to other homes in the area. You can do this online or talk to a real estate professional. This lets you know how much the home is likely to sell in the current market. Then, if your parents still have a mortgage balance on the home, deduct that amount from the market value — the remaining amount is the equity. For example, if the home’s value is $450,000 and the remaining mortgage balance is $100,000, you have $350,000 in equity.
Another advantage to selling your parents’ home is that your healthy parent can downsize and find a smaller and more manageable place to live in. When approaching this topic, mention that you can look for a place that is closer to the nursing home for easier and more frequent visits. You may even be able to find a condominium in a retirement community that allows them to continue to live independently — one that provides amenities and social activities.
A new chapter for everyone
Even though the reality of needing senior care is inevitable, dealing with the realities of it is still difficult for most families. While you have been away from your parents and living with your own family for several years, your parents have had a continuity that is now disrupted. Your understanding of that difficult disruption will go a long way to helping them with this late-life transition.
Article by Annabelle Harris of elders.center
Annabelle Harris is a writer, wife, mother, and grandmother. She started blogging nearly a decade ago when she was still facing the prospect of retirement and old age. She was terrified and needed an outlet for her thoughts, fears, and uncertainties. It was through her first blog that she found the support of a community that truly helped her through the process of aging.
Photo by Pietro Schellino on Unsplash