As your parents age and require greater care, you may determine that moving them into your home is the best choice for everyone involved. Many families prefer the comfort and convenience of caring for elderly parents in their home and find benefits to multigenerational living. 

Since this is a significant change for all parties involved, it is essential to navigating caring for elderly parents in your home with grace, understanding, and open lines of communication. 

When Elderly Parents Need Care

After decades of living alone, your parents may have physical or medical limitations. By moving in with a child or relative, they can often receive higher quality care, which translates into a better quality of life. 

Reasons your parents may move in:

• Onset of illness or injury
• Declining hygiene
• Neglecting home care
• Decreased mobility
• Increased memory loss
• Ongoing isolation 

Challenges of Caring for Elderly Parents in Your Home

Settling into a new routine will take some adjustment, even if you are confident about having your parents move into your home. Moving from complete autonomy in your home to providing care for someone else can be difficult.

Things you may experience as a family caregiver include:

• Loss of Independence. Caring for your parents will likely replace the time you formerly spent on hobbies and self-care. If you don’t prioritize your happiness and make time for something that fills your cup each week, you may feel like your freedom is gone. 
• Exhaustion and Burnout. Sleep deprivation may lead to exhaustion or burnout if your parents’ sleep cycle doesn’t align with yours. Physical stress also can occur if caregiving requires you to lift or move a parent. 
• Lack of Privacy. Your home may feel smaller after a loved one moves in, so setting boundaries early on is essential. 
• Financial Strain. Because family caregiving is usually unpaid and for an unknown duration, finances can be troublesome, especially if the caregiver has to leave the workforce.
• Organizational Overwhelm. Managing your parents’ appointments, caregivers, medications, and preferences can be a lot. You can feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day, and far too much is demanded of you. 

Readying Your Home

Before your parents move in, you may want to make improvements to your home that minimize the potential for harm and create authentic spaces for them. 

Safety is Essential

Though grab bars on the wall may not be your ideal bathroom hardware choice, they may make a meaningful difference for your parents. Walk your home with a sharp eye for trip hazards, removing things like rugs, cords, and clutter. Consider whether a shower seat will be helpful and ensure lightbulbs burn brightly. 

Create a Space that is Theirs

It’s not easy for your parents to move out of their home, and they are likely downsizing drastically. Get rid of your items from their bedroom and bathroom, and tailor their space with their favorite items to make it feel like home for them. Put their interests and likes ahead of your preferences. 

Invest in Care Tools and Resources

If adaptive tools or services will help you best care for your parents, invest in them at the onset. Look for ways to simplify caregiving and implement available best practices. Think about what will make the transition easier for everyone involved and use those resources. 

Preparing Your Parents

Many parents have difficulty admitting they need assistance in caring for themselves. Provide them with grace as you merge your households and keep open lines of communication so all parties can voice their views. 

Assess Care Needs

To ensure you can give your parents the best care, be thorough in monitoring their daily activities to determine how much assistance they’ll require. Watch to determine their autonomy when eating, mobility, dressing, and personal and toilet hygiene, then use the outcomes to develop their care plan. You’ll also want to consider what you’ll need to do for them regarding grocery shopping, laundry, medication preparation, and financial management. You may not have the capacity to do it all. By outsourcing some of these tasks, you can create balance for yourself as a caregiver. 

Understand Financial Responsibilities

Before your parents continue to age, discuss their finances to determine what assets are available to support their care. It may be helpful to have a conversation with a neutral third party like a financial advisor, who can help educate your family about what available funds can facilitate. They may also be able to provide information about government assistance or funding programs.

Get Legal Documents in Order

Work with your parents to make sure they have updated legal documents accessible to you. If their medical directives, power of attorney for healthcare, power of attorney for finances, revocable trusts, and wills are complete, it will be easier for you and your family members to advocate for and act in their best interest. 

Preparing Yourself

A role reversal will take place once your parents move in. You are suddenly making the decisions and directing the care rather than the parent-child relationship you experienced most of your life. Accepting this change and learning to navigate it can be challenging. Whenever possible, let your loved ones maintain control of their decisions to foster their sense of independence. 

You never know how long you will have with your parents, so it’s vital not to set yourself up for exhaustion or to hit a breaking point. Here are some tips for children who are caring for their parents.

Know Your Capacity

Your time is finite. There may be some care areas you are willing and able to oversee. Others may be best outsourced. Be honest with yourself about where you can use your strengths to help your parents. You may be willing to handle all financial and insurance paperwork, take them to all doctor’s appointments, and handle daily medications, but feel unequipped to help with bathing and therapies that would be best served by independent caregivers.

Establish a Schedule

Routines help everyone know what to expect. Consider finding a cadence that allows your parents concrete time with you and gives you room for activities that aren’t caregiving-focused. Having routines for your days and weeks will help everyone involved. 

Get the Help You Need

You are a superhero for welcoming your parents into your home. You don’t have to prove it day after day by trying to do everything yourself. Embrace the skilled care and assistance that caregivers from home health agencies can provide your parents, as it also provides you with a respite from round-the-clock caregiving duties. 

Adult daycares are another helpful way to distribute caregiving responsibilities within the household. They can provide your parents with social interaction and opportunities to participate in activities they may not do at home. 

You also need to take care of yourself and ensure you have an emotional support network. This support may look like seeing a therapist regularly to talk through things or having a standing coffee date with a trusted friend who will listen as you discuss what’s on your mind. Don’t put your parent’s well-being ahead of your own – everyone’s wellness matters. 

Utilize Tools and Technology

Caring for elderly parents in your home is not easy, so maximize your time by using technology and automated reminders to simplify your to-do list. From messaging platforms for caregivers to electronic medical records and medication monitoring mobile applications, some tools can streamline your tasks and help your caregiving team stay on the same page. 

Let Fokes Coordinate Communication

The Fokes app offers a communication platform where all parties can converse in real-time to ensure that the lines of communication are open among all of your parents’ caregivers. When everyone has access to the same information, your loved one receives the best possible care. Contact Fokes to learn more about implementing it for your family and caregivers.