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Last week, I finally made it to another ElderCare chat on Twitter. Babysitting grandchildren had kept this Sandwich Generation granny nanny too busy to make it the last couple of weeks so it was a real treat to get to join in. And I was so glad as it was a very interesting discussion full of useful news for those of you caring for elderly parents who need help transitioning them to a senior care facility. Excellent resources and information shared for all in the baby boomer generation caring for our senior citizen parents. That’s always good news, isn’t it?
Here are some of the great tips and links I learned about:
- Seniors For Living, always an excellent resource, has a great in-depth article on just this topic – SeniorsforLiving.com’s Senior Living Transition Resource Guide
- @KathyKastner shared the link to a wonderful little e-book, Visiting with Elders, Strategies to Help You Have a Meaningful and Rich Visit with an Elderly Loved One. Combining tips, ideas, and personal stories by relatives and caregivers, this free e-book deals with the issues of visiting seniors in nursing homes, understanding aging and cognitive loss, understanding the meaning of behaviours and feelings, checklists to help make visits special, grief and loss issues, and so much more. The PDF version of the book, which you can read online, print out, or save to your computer was written by written by Ruth Goodman, MSW, RSW, in collaboration with Linda Jackson, MSW, RSW, and Baycrest Public Affairs. It’s a very useful resource for yourself and to share with your extended family.
- Always Best Care Senior Services points out a CCRC can provide all levels of care throughout an aging parent’s lifespan which would then require no need to relocate if higher level of care is needed.
- In addition to senior moving services, there are also companies that help with the whole senior transition process – with a senior move manager to oversee and coordinate everything from moving, to cleaning, to helping with legal documents and more. One such company I learned about is Caring Transitions with fanchises across the U.S., some of which are accredited with one of my favorite resources, the Better Business Bureau. Of course, you always need to do your own “due diligence” of thoroughly researching any company you work with. I’ve found to be a big help with that type of research process as well.
- Be sure to ask plenty of questions before selecting a care facility for your senior parent. We came up with a couple of extra questions to add to the list:
1. Are pets allowed and if so are my parent’s pet(s) allowed?
2. What could cause my senior parent to be asked to leave (medication issues, certain types of health issues, etc.)?
All in all a very interesting and resource-full time.
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