Taking a Creative Approach to Suggesting Home Care for Your Seniors

Home Care in Wayland, MA

Hiring a non-medical caregiver for your elderly parents may seem like the ideal solution when you notice that your aging parents are in need of care or assistance to help them meet their daily needs. To your parents, however, the idea of home care may seem like a threat to their independence and another way they are losing their ability to control their own lives. Even if they can acknowledge physical, mobility, or cognitive struggles they have that limit their ability to live a high quality of life, they may be unwilling to accept having a care provider because it makes them feel “old” or “feeble”.

Taking a creative approach to suggesting home care is an effective way to recommend hiring an in caregiver for your seniors so that they do not feel cornered and can better recognize the benefits that having this type of care provider in the home can offer them.

The creative approach you should take depends on the specific interests, needs, and personalities of your parents. Use these ideas to get you thinking about how to bring up the idea of home care in a way that is more agreeable to your seniors:

• Appeal to their interests. If your elderly loved ones have particular activities or hobbies that they enjoy and often try to get you to participate in the activities with them, or mention that they do not have anyone to do it with them, use this to recommend a caregiver. “How about we find someone who likes playing board games?” or “Would you like someone to come by and knit with you a few afternoons a week?” are simple, approachable ways to recommend care without actually mentioning that it is care.
• Take pressure off of them. Rather than pointing out that your parents are not keeping up with their housekeeping duties, point out the tasks that they have never enjoyed doing and tell them that you could find someone to help them with those tasks. Try asking “Did you know there are people who can come help you with the dishes and laundry and stuff?” while doing the dishes or if you notice the laundry has built up. Present it casually and gauge their interest before going any further.
• Speak to their emotions. Sit down with your mother and talk with her about the concerns you have about your aging father. Even if she has limitations that worry you as well, focus on the concerns you have about your father and tell her that you would feel better if there was someone around to help him deal with those concerns. By making her feel like a part of the decision and commiserating with her about her concerns, you can show her that hiring a care provider would make life easier and more comfortable for her partner, which takes the focus off of her own independence and puts it on supporting and caring for the person she loves.