Dad’s vision is failing, we notice he has lost weight since Mom died last year and he just doesn’t have much interest in maintaining the family home. He doesn’t want to move because we all grew up in that house. The neighborhood has changed and all his old friends have died or moved to retirement living.
He could be grieving or depressed but his children also mention that Mom was trying to get him to move to a new Assisted Living community closer to us kids before she got sick. Mom had become concerned with his memory and vision loss and thought it would be good for both of them because Dad has always been so outgoing and so many of their old friends had died.
Since, in this case, the wife had already picked out a community she thought would meet their needs and values, the adult children don’t have to pick out a community they just need to convince Dad.
It is sometimes good to enlist the help of the family physician in prescribing a “move”. But, what works best is to have a family meeting and express your concerns as “I” messages. Such as, “I worry about your weight loss, Dad.” Or, “It is hard to maintain a big yard and I worry about you falling when trying to keep it up”. Then as a family or child of an aging parent, you ask them to try “Assisted Living” for a few months – usually three.
It is important for the adult children to pull back somewhat and let relationships blossom in the new community so that at that 3 month mark Dad says, “I like it here I think I’ll stay”. And if his memory is impaired the 3 months don’t have to be calendar months – but you, as a family, say he can move back home when the doctor gives the “go”.
Geriatric Care Managers specialize in working with families that need to have a strategy to get mom or dad the care they need.