Supporting Aging Parents: Practical Advice for Families

*Collaborative Post

Aging is a fact of life, and not the most thrilling fact to face. While there are personal reasons to reject the ever-quickening passage of time, from expanding crows’ feet to receding hairlines, the most significant impact aging will ever have on our lives is often through our parents. Watching them age can be especially difficult, particularly as certain faculties start to grow dimmer and dimmer in the people you once loved more than anything in the world.

There are emotional difficulties galore in engaging with your parents as they grow older, but there are also significant logistical challenges – challenges you, as their child, must be ready to meet. So, with a pragmatic hat on, how can you properly support your parents as they enter later life?

1. Assessing Care Needs

First, you should start off by evaluating your parents’ physical and mental health statuses. This is simply to determine the level of support they may currently require, or require in the near future. You could do this by having a frank conversation with each of them, but you may also benefit from consulting with healthcare professionals, and taking a more objective view through the conducting of a home safety assessment. This is how you learn what you need to plan for in the coming months and years, and where money may need to be placed.

2. Navigating Legal and Financial Planning

Speaking of which, there are some significant legal and financial considerations you need to make sooner rather than later – particularly if there are cognitive issues starting to develop. Lasting power of attorney is one key consideration, which gives you the ability to make decisions on your parents’ behalf in the event they lose the ability to make decisions for themselves.

Morbid as it may seem to bring up, but it is also essential that your parents are both set up with a will at the earliest opportunity – even if just to ensure that the value of their estate can properly go towards living costs elsewhere if one of them passes first. Engaging with will writing solicitors can ensure you are provided with professional assistance in drafting legally sound documents, that reflect your parents’ wishes and enshrine their estate.

3. Exploring Care Options

It is highly likely that your parents will need some form of assistive care later in life, whether due to physical health issues or cognitive decline. There are various ways in which this care can be presented, though, from in-home care services to assisted living facilities, and even residential care homes.

The most suitable option for your parents’ needs will depend heavily on the nature of their disability, as well as their personal preferences. It may also be the case that such car is financially inaccessible to you – but in cases such as these, there may be care services available to you through the NHS.

*This is a collaborative post. For further information please refer to my disclosure page.

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