How and When to Intervene, part 2

*The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

The following podcast is provided by care partners living and answers for elders radio. And Welcome back everyone to answers for all the radio with Kelly Smith, by President of sales and marketing for care partners living, and Kelly and I are talking about the your roles and responsibilities as an adult child or a loved one of a senior that may need care. How do you best facilitate that? Kelly, welcome back to the show and I’m glad, I’m so glad we’re having this conversation. It seems like I’m moving up a lot lately. It is you have to remember, just like you said in the offset of you know, this show, it’s spring. People are getting outside again, where we’re getting the mandates lifted, we’re going to spend a lot more time with family and friends and this is one time, especially now that we’re getting our yards cleaned up and we’re a question. Get over and took a look at MOM’s yard. You’re starting to really get outside and do more things. This is the time when people are going to start noticing grandma and GRANDPA or mom and dad. Huh Man, thanks for kind of show with them a little bit, because maybe we we haven’t really noticed it all winter and now we’re really getting to see things as they all lately. Absolutely and I think too, with the pandemic, we didn’t see our loved ones for such long period of time, you know, and then all of a sudden, you know, we start maybe to spend a little bit of time with them and then you start realizing, you know, there has been some downturns. I’m starting to see, you know, I can’t believe that. You know, my my grandmother used to keep her house spotless and now I’m seeing, you know, there’s a bunch of spoiled food in the refrigerator and there’s a bunch of things that, you know, piles of papers that she never has or, you know, she’s getting packages that don’t make sense, that she’s artering online or, you know, are on the phone or whatever it is. There’s a lot of little indicators that we may be seeing on but we don’t necessarily know if those are warning signs are not doing what doing that will exactly because, let’s be honest, if you walked into my house right now, you go killing US dementia, because I’ve been I’ve been sick. So, yeah, I don’t. Wouldn’t saying we all have our moments. Nobody’s else is perfect all the time, but there are ear marks you know your loved one. It’s kind of like when my grandmother got sick. There were things we noticed that we never were not like her her personality. That’s very much a very certain way and she was a very modest woman. There were very things that just that suddenly just didn’t make sense with her personality, and those are the kind of things you to watch for. If all of a sudden you’re you know, you’re on a zoom meeting with this person for the last two years because you can’t see them the way you want to because of the damn it, and now you’re able to go into their home, there’s things you’re going to know where’s normal, yeah, and it’s things are going to say, wait a minute, this is so not like you. Are you? How are you doing? And you also re expect people to repeat themselves. You know when they when they’re telling us a sort of story, especially having humus in a long time. But how are they telling the Stream? Is it true forgetfulness, or are they telling you stories that you know never happened because they have been in a dreamland for a long, very time. If you notice on their you know, indicators are also things like you walk into their home and you know it’s the prescriptions are all on the Kulm the counter and they’re two years old. They’re not taking them the way they should. That’s that’s a concern. You know, we all have things in the refrigerator we need to throw away. But is it a pattern? You know it is. It’s so bad that you don’t think. She said she’s gotten groceries and weeks because they don’t even know what’s good not good, or the eating properties, the mom losing weight or gaining weight. MM, anything over five pounds in a month. They’ve seen or something you want to look at. Yeah, I always a few look for signs of when I call furniture walking right now, are they grabbing on two chairs or or walls or things, you know, to like walk from the chair to the bathroom? Absolutely making excuses for you to not come over. Yeah, Oh, that’s a big one. Absolutely no one that we’ve noticed. With people too that you know, love to talk to, you love to see it, but now they’re making excuses every chance they get for you to not come to the home to not in person. That’s a really big indicator right there, because that told me there’s something going on they don’t want you to be aware of. M So when you’re seeing these kinds of concerns that these on to our listeners, these are red flakes, yeah, and these are something to be concerned about. So when you start telling when you start to see things like that, what is your advice to our listeners of how to interstate? What do you do this? They’re going to be a point when people need to understand that with a loved one there’s there’s general you know, there’s genuine concern, and then there’s a time when you need to step in and when it comes to their health, the condition of their home, anything at all that could be called into adult protective services, you need to make sure that you are very well aware of what the consequences could be at there. You need to know the severity. I guess that’s what I’m to need to say. You know, having mom furniture walk in her home, one’s falling down on the time, all the time, and nobody’s doing anything about it. I don’t protect us. Protective Services become involved, you lose all your rights to make any decisions for her. So you know, you want to look at the severity of the situation and be thoughtful about your process. You know, is it really if it’s really serious? Sometimes you don’t children or whoever family is being power of attorney or however that works. Sometimes there’s a point where you can’t just sit back and go we need to talk to mom and Dad. Sometimes there’s also a point where you need to step up and actually do something and you need to be aware of what those differences are. Sure, sure, and when it’s time to do something, it’s like, I guess to me, does it make sense to talk to siblings, another close family and kind of before you address it with your parent? How would you suggest that that the family learns to come together, because that’s the main thing and that’s the hot the challenging thing. I now sometimes well, if you’re sibling and you can get with your other siblings, that’s great. If it’s your mom and dad is still in his right mind, you won’t have a conversation with dad right. You want to sit in the dad and say, you know, we’ve notice mom’s dementia is getting really bad. How are you doing? What can we do to help you. Give us mom and dad or just mom still in the picture, then yes, you want to get as much family around you to support you you can now. Never keep in mind the more people you invite into a problem, the more opinions you have about how you handle that problem with me. So keep in mind. If your Nosey aunts is always your problem, please don’t invite her to bring you on and stepping and exactly you know. You also have to weigh that out. But yes, siblings are always a good idea because, again, you’re going to need some support around this. You cannot be superman or superwoman and do it all by yourself. You also don’t want the wrath of any siblings in case you make a decision and they don’t like she’s a good idea to get everybody together, but you also might realize your siblings might have been over there and see some things you don’t know about. Yeah, always are going to be to put heads together if you can tell somebody might have a better solution. I might be thinking instant assistant living in your brother comes to you and goes, what about you know? What about they just come with? I have that downstairs. What if mom and dad can live with me. I mean there’s always another solution correct, but you have to weigh those solutions out and make sure that benefits everybody in them right. And I think the other thing are as there’s some really critic called questions that you need to have with yourself and your own immediate family about when you enter. You know, when you intervene, you know what is your family okay with? I mean, if you take on this responsibility, you know your first priority is to your immediate family, which maybe your marriage and your children, right, depending on where you are in that role at you know, yes, you have a quote unquote duty to help your loved one, but your needs and your you know, your immediate family. It’s just as important as to need to your loved one. Really is. Because again, you know this is so cliche and people get tired of hearing it, but just like on an airplane, they tell you to put your oxygen masks it on first and you can only do people. It’s the same thing in real life. Is Your Life is balling apart because you’re taking care of your mom and dead, but your marriage fail, your kids are coming off the rails, your your own house is a mess. How are you supposed to really think straight, to take care of your own parents? You can’t do it. So that’s why sometimes calling in. I also strongly recommend that there are power of attorney that needs to be handled and there are more than one sibling. Get one to be medical, one to be financial. I think anytime one sibling takes on everything, first of all it’s too much and secondly you wind up with resentment in the family and people thinking that, you know, somebody’s just trying to do it all again. And then you got two people working together for a solution and they’re just one that can usually not just release the burden, but two heads together usually or better than what. Yeah, very, very true, and and certainly that is it’s you and your siblings have a good relationship. That’s the reasoning to do, you know, and and again, it also has to deal with going back to our original discussion. What is your parents wishes? You know, I know what I wrote my book. I was really mindful and really you know, made a point in my book that talked about becoming an advocate for them it and and why I say advocate, is the fact that it’s not about your life it’s about their life. There’s a lot of times that if you have a healthcare power of attorney, are you have something like that? Your decisions have to do with what their wishes would be exactly, and no time that’s can be at odds with your loved one. You know, maybe feel differently. Think about it, just like, for example, you’re in the hospital when you’re loved one and they say I don’t want blood or I don’t want this antibiotic or I don’t want this procedure. If you understand the reasoning behind it, you’re going to be the advocate for them while they’re in the hospital. Is Not a different when they’re out of the hospital. You don’t know what your parents wishes are. We want to stay in our home. That’s what we want more than anything. Fine, at least you know that going in right know you know how to find this alution if you have no idea what your parents even want. We want to stay together. So that’s what we came up with, the bonded parish program at the care partners was thinking about it one day and it was my parents actually made a comment. My mom made the comments. They’ve been married over fifty some years and they were like, we don’t ever want to be separated. I thought you, but you know how many couples the kids even realize mom and dad don’t ever want to be separated, right, you know? Or whoever their parents are so so like, you know, do we even ask those questions? You know, yeah, they had mom’s got some you know, mom’s got thementia. What do you want? How do you want to see this go? You know? And then and then, like you said, advocate for what they want, what’s going to be most important for them. How would you like it if your children given your homes it? I was going to go sure, and I remembered. I remember those days so well that there were times when I think, oh well, if it were me, I would do it this way, but then I would have to rethink things and think, now, my mom was one it this way, and there was times I was going like okay, you know, I’m interested to be her advocate and therefore that’s where I’m going to go, and I think that’s one of the things that having these conversations like what we talked about in the beginning is so valuable, so that you can be the best advocate for your loved one and that’s what’s some part and so, Kelly, how do we reach you? Their partners livingcom is probably the best way to find us, I know, and you guys are off them. And Care Partners has communities all the way from Mary still down to lacy and too inspocan and you specialize in independent assistant and memory care. So we’d we love always having you on the show and Kelly and I are going to continue this conversation being your best advocate for your loved one. will be right back right after. The preceding podcast was provided by care partners living and answers for elders radio. To contact care partners living, go to care partners livingcom