6 Tips for Caring for Elderly Parents with Joy

How can you care for elderly parents? As parents enter their golden years, it becomes the turn of their children to take responsibility for their care. Siblings in a family may have different views on how best to care for their parents. This situation is quite common and happens often.

Elderly parents certainly need their children's help with their care. For children, this may not be easy, especially since they may be busy with work and have families of their own to support. This phenomenon is popularly known as the sandwich generation, where a person is caught between two major responsibilities, like the filling of a sandwich.

One option that many families choose is placing elderly parents in a nursing home. This option is still considered taboo among Indonesian society. So, what is the right way to care for elderly parents?

Every problem has a solution, and so does the matter of caring for parents in their later years. Caring for parents is directly connected to the parents themselves, so it is not enough to hear only the children's opinions. To offer practical answers, here are six tips for caring for elderly parents with joy:

1. Start by Building Communication with Your Parents

Before anything goes wrong, take time to sit down with your parents and your other children. Discuss what your parents want. Everyone must communicate openly, especially the parents. Parents who do not communicate, particularly about financial plans, can cause disputes among the children or family members left behind after they pass away.

Communicating with parents is also a way to understand their needs. If you want to make your parents happy in their later years, you as a child must know what needs and help they require. Everyone has different needs depending on their own condition.

Why should communication begin early? According to the WHO, biological aging results from the accumulation of molecular and cellular damage over time. Gradually but surely, this condition can reduce mental and physical capacity, along with a rising risk of illness or death.

Many elderly people also experience hearing and vision impairment, joint inflammation, depression, chronic disease, and dementia, which affect each person quite differently. Some parents appear physically healthy, but many need intensive care.

According to the WHO, caring for elderly parents through health services should not only repair factors that have been damaged or lost due to aging. Good health care should also help parents adapt, strengthen recovery, and support psychosocial well-being.

2. Make a Will

Knowing your parents' wishes also relates to their hopes about how their property should be divided. If parents know their assets will be distributed according to their wishes, and all the children have no issues with the decisions made, they will surely be very happy in their later years.

Therefore, before anything goes wrong, make sure your parents have prepared a will as well as a power of attorney. Once your parents have prepared these documents, make sure all family members know the reasons behind the decisions and where the documents are kept.

Openness is essential here to avoid misinterpreting your parents' intentions in making their will. Every child should also be willing to accept the outcome graciously so that the parents remain happy in their golden years.
It is also helpful to involve a neutral party in this process. A neutral party can act as a mediator, such as a trusted person of the parents or a relative who has no interest whatsoever in the family's assets.

3. Discuss Everything Openly

Another way to care for elderly parents is to discuss everything openly. This also applies to decisions about inheritance. If a child receives a larger share of the inheritance than they should because they have kindly cared for their parents in retirement, this must be communicated well in advance while the parents are still alive.

For the child or relative responsible for caring for and looking after the parents, there is also a duty to keep the other children updated on the parents' condition. Technology today is very advanced. Staying in touch has become easier with chat apps that let you send text messages, voice messages, or photos and videos.

If caring for the parents costs money, this should also be communicated, especially if parental savings or the children's shared contributions are being used. This helps avoid disputes arising from suspected financial mismanagement.

4. Hire a Professional Caregiver

The next tip for caring for elderly parents with joy is to hire a professional caregiver. Parents will certainly be happier living in their own comfortable home. The reason is simple: they know where everything is, and they have a better chance of spending time with family more often. Besides, it is not easy for elderly parents to adapt to a new environment.

If all the children are busy with work, there is nothing wrong with hiring a professional caregiver to look after your parents. Professional caregivers usually keep a notebook recording everything your parents do, including daily activities, foods they may and may not eat, doctor visit schedules, and more.

5. Make Sure the Home Is Safe for the Elderly

If you are caring for elderly parents at home, make sure the home environment is safe. Older adults are quite prone to tripping and falling, which can lead to injury. Not a few falls have fatal consequences.
Therefore, make sure the home is safe and comfortable. This tip requires you to do the following:

• Make sure floor surfaces are free of clutter.
• Make sure every room has adequate lighting and light switches are easy to reach.
• Make sure items your parents need are placed where they can be easily picked up.
• Install grab bars in the bathroom and railings on the stairs.
• Avoid having your parents bend down too low or stoop when reaching for things.

6. Complete Your Knowledge of Elderly Care

The next way to care for elderly parents is to build your knowledge about elderly care. You can consult a geriatric doctor at a nearby hospital about caring for older adults. This is especially important if you decide to live with your parents and care for them yourself.

Family support keeps elderly parents motivated and healthy. That is why it is important to provide the best care for parents in their later years. Each child can support one another so they can encourage and comfort each other. That is the essence of caring for elderly parents.

Kamboja stands by you in providing emotional support and financial planning through funeral protection plans and professional funeral services for you and your beloved family.