Elder Care & Potential Healthcare Costs – Mobility Aids For Aging Parents & Seniors

Eye To Eye: Quality Elder Care At Less Cost

Our care giving dilemma derives many of its frustrations and heartaches from our parents’ and society’s centuries-old expectations that care giving for the elderly “is the children’s job.” This assumption is still the status quo even though you have no medical or gerontological training. It assumes that you will know the following:

-when, how and how much to intervene

-how to manage insurance benefits

-how to evaluate a nursing home

-how to cope Alzheimer’s disease

-how to resolve a host of other new and life altering care giving dilemmas.

The assumption also holds that you will find time to continue: -nurturing your children -being a good partner -working in your career -maintaining your own personal time and space The fact is that the world is a much different place than when our parents cared for their parents. They probably lived closer together, the women did not work outside the home and doctors spent more time with their patients, and the options for eldercare were very limited at best.

Now families may be scattered across the country or continents, both partners have spent years creating families and careers and there are so many options for a functional life expectancy that it takes a geriatric professional to understand them. Even so, in many families guilt wins out, and we continue the status quo.

But wait…We are the first generation, ever in the entire history of the world, to face the difficulties of living in a time where we may spend more years caring for elderly parents than we spent caring for our children.

How do elder-caregivers cope in a world where less than 1% of doctors are trained in geriatric medicine? Where up to 140,000 deaths annually occur from Adverse Drug Reactions yet only 720 out of our 200,000 pharmacists have geriatric training? And the entire care giving system relies on poorly paid workers with only 40 hours of training for effective and compassionate care? Add to this the inherent determination of most parents to keep their adult children from knowing anything about their medical needs or financial status and it’s easy to see why continued attempts at intervention may seem like a waste of time. They’re not. Education, planning, and communication can help overcome much of our parents’ resistance to our help.

But even though you are providing a valuable contribution to yourself, and to your elderly parents, you may be paying a price. Caregivers do suffer from anxiety and depression. Some resent the burden, but then feel guilt over the resentment. You may also be missing time from work, just as you do when you have to stay home because a child is ill. Some employers are friendly towards adult custodians of elderly parents, but some employees have not progressed to that point yet. This can be a source of additional stress.

Of course, you want to be a responsible adult child, and since you love your parents, you do want to make sure they are well cared for. However, you will not do anybody good in the long term if you do not accept some help when you need it. If you are feeling the strain, do not be afraid to look into sources of help.

We don’t have safety and efficacy issues because those recommending products are well versed in the issues. We need to encourage professionals to learn more about the devices they recommend so they can match the device to user needs and conditions.

Resource Author Francisco Rodriguez Higueras
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