Tuesday, January 30, 2018

WEEKLY COMMENTARY: Learning To Be A Care-Giver For Aging Parents



If you have raised children, you might think that taking care of children and taking care of parents are vastly different.  The first involves gradually introducing someone to the larger world.  The second, helping someone disengage from the world.  With children, we expect it will take time to care for them.  With parents, we are surprised by how much time it may take.

Also, the challenges seem almost reversed.   Parents of children are badgered not to be "helicopter parents," hovering over their kids and not allowing them to make mistakes.  But the children of aging parents are told to hover more ---- step up, provide support, offer distraction.  Hounded not to be "helicopter parents" to our kids, we're now challenged to be "tugboat children" to our parents, steering them through narrowing waters.

Perhaps the most basic thing we do for both our kids and our parents, is to keep them safe.  For example, it is important to consider interviewing at the end of their shifts other care-givers who help the family.  Many day-to-day responsibilities involve simply the repetitive tasks of getting the "patient" dressed, fed, medicated and bathed.  But a daily brief review with care-givers may catch a physical health problem while it can be easily managed.

However, sometimes protecting parents means not telling them everything.  The single hardest thing for Alzheimer's care-givers to learn may be that they cannot always be honest with the patient.  When they tell you something you know to be false, your instinct is to correct them.  "Sorry, Mom, Dad has been dead for 20 years."  But care-givers learn that the only way to handle these moments probably is to conform to the patient's understanding of the world.  "Yes, Mom, Dad must have enjoyed that visit with the grand kids."

Another issue is that both children and older parents need help managing money.  Careful review of a parent's bills may reveal savings they overlooked because they perpetuated spending habits of earlier days, which are no longer necessary.  Of course, this can also lead to some awkward conversations, while we gently make the case that they no longer need to be purchasing certain items.  Someone suggested a "financial driver's license" for older Americans to prove their financial competence.  In effect, one is saying, "You are allowed to drive your own decisions, Mom and Dad, but only if one of your kids is with you in the car."

Help in managing money often starts in the area of regularly paying the bills, making timely bank deposits of interest and dividend checks, and generally keeping complete and accurate checkbook records.  It is normal for aging parents to become forgetful.  Care-givers need to find a way to monitor these important, but routine, tasks without offending the senior citizen involved ---- a person who probably had successfully managed such things for decades.  Find ways to monitor bank balances without second-guessing every transaction, and do it regularly.  The penalties for financial "drift" can be painful.

"I'm bored."  When I was young, I was expected to have hobbies and sports, and thus to be able to entertain myself.  Now, parents ask us to entertain them.  As people age, generally their social circles shrink, and while this allows older people to focus more on those they really care about, it also increases the burden on their children.  Anyone who cares for parents is constantly sending along recommendations for entertainment, just as we do with kids.  "I think you would like this book."  "Should we play a game of cards?"  Happily, these activity suggestions may help.  Studies show that learning new skills, being creative, or even reminiscing, makes "patients" happier ---- and often makes their care-giver happier, too.

For some aging parents, various forms of art activities might become a passion that is discovered only later in life.  For seniors whose worlds are often shrinking, the arts may cause new worlds to open.  Just attempting something creative with an oil, acrylic or watercolor paint brush, or simply drawing, can bring increased self-esteem and feelings of accomplishment.

Some seniors have dedicated many decades of their earlier life to earning a living, and never felt they could afford to explore non-remunerative creative outlets.  Now, they can be encouraged to embrace new and positive aspects of their personal identity, for fun ---- not worrying about profit.

One of the most important safety tasks is to fully understand the instructions of the aging parent's doctor, and then ensure that those instructions are carried out timely, accurately and fully.  Forgetful, aging parents will forget to take their evening pills, or will eat foods that disagree with them.  However, there are low-key ways to monitor this.  For example, a pill box with compartments for each day (or morning, noon and night) show immediately if prescribed pills have indeed been taken while the care-giver may have been otherwise occupied.

Those families and friends who are caring for aging parents understand the upside-down emotions of taking care of someone who once took care of them.  We may mistakenly think that lives move in only one direction at a time ---- from dependence to independence and then the reverse.  We might also expect that our parent will move in a single direction, too ---- eventually from adulthood to childhood.  But, separating these two progressions is wrong.  The teaching and learning in life always move in two directions at once, because all along a great amount of what parents learn has been taught by their children, whether the children be youth or adults, and at best the children will be continuously learning from and engaged with their parents.
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These thoughts are brought to you by CPC's Adult Spiritual Development Team, hoping to encourage you to pursue some personal spiritual growth this winter at CPC.
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