It’s natural for elderly people to want to remain in their own homes. After all, they have often lived there for decades and have many memories associated with both the dwelling and the neighborhood. Yet moving to a nursing home or assisted living community sometimes makes the best sense for a person’s health and well-being.
As a caregiver of a loved one, you need to look out for people willing to take advantage of the person you’re caring for. Last week we looked at two such shady characters: the family black sheep and harmful religious groups. This week we’ll round out the list with alcohol abuse enablers and people willing to trade sex for favors.
The Dutch have a saying: “The world is good, but the people could be better.” While some people can be allies in providing care to an elderly loved one, others can be your worst enemies.
Many caregivers who are thrust into their eldercare role look for all the help they can get, especially if their elderly parent or other loved one is suffering from short-term memory loss, declining driving ability, and accidents around the house. But sometimes in their desperation, caregivers—or the one they’re caring for—fall prey to shady characters who don’t have the elderly person’s best interests at heart.
People of all ages can experience transfer trauma (or relocation stress syndrome) when moving to a new home. But the elderly can be particularly susceptible, with severe physical and psychological effects. As a caregiver or caretaker of a loved one, it’s important that you learn about the signs and potential repercussions of transfer trauma so that the impact can be minimized or prevented altogether.
As parents get older and their health declines, it becomes increasingly difficult to ignore the proverbial elephant in the room, particularly when memory issues are involved. A shift in power occurs in which the child now has to take care of the parent. This is an enormous challenge for the entire family. Even in the best of parent-child relationships, the power shift can be problematic, but when the connection is already strained, it can become extremely hard to deal with.
Eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia are typically thought of as diseases that affect young people, but these conditions are an often unrecognized problem among elderly adults as well. If you are the caretaker of a senior relative, it’s important to be aware of the signs, causes, consequences and treatments of these conditions.
Medical problems are a thorny issue of eldercare that many caretakers and caregivers don’t want to acknowledge. Not accepting that your elderly loved one has declined and now requires another level of care can be dangerous. One key medical issue that is fraught with great potential for error involves prescription drugs. Medicine, widely considered the solution to health challenges in older people, is often one of the worst eldercare problems.
Many adults who are placed into the role of caregiver for an elderly parent or relative find themselves immensely unprepared for their new roles. In my last article, I wrote about the “Shady Acres” myth of an idyllic place that will care for Mom or Dad in their declining golden years. While that falsehood is pervasive, it is far from the only misconception about senior citizens in our society.
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