Zarit suggests taking a quiet moment to think about what you can and can't handle. Do the things you're willing to do and draw the line with the things you won't do. Our counselors help 300,000 families each year find the right senior care for their loved ones. If you're upset that your older parent refuses to move to safer housing or to take their medications as directed, it's important to vent, but not to your parents. Keep your decision and you'll be surprised at how it can change your lives and even your relationships with this old lady.
It's easy to feel overwhelmed with frustration, fear, and anxiety when constantly helping an aging parent who refuses to get help, no matter how much you worry about them. There are several reasons why irrational behavior is so common among older people, and you may identify with them when you think about your own aging parents and their behavior. In an attempt to continue to appear independent, elderly parents may throw tantrums and insist on ridiculous ideas that don't make sense. for you.
For example, if you've seen balance problems in your elderly mother who doesn't want to do anything about it, you may be afraid that she will fall and suffer an injury that will result in serious surgery. I knew it would be a big responsibility, but I never fully understood how difficult it could be for my elderly mother with her own mental illness. Setting boundaries with an elderly and sick parent can feel like starting over and, in a way, it is. Caring for an elderly or sick person is not a single person's job, unless you want to sacrifice your own health and life. The result of this is that elderly parents cannot trust their own senses and their minds begin to lose control over what is real and what isn't (or how something was meant in the face of how they interpreted it).
So how do you treat elderly parents who seem to have lost their minds or are regressing? Lucky for you, I have some steps to help you (and them) deal with this difficult transition. Let them monitor your parents' health status, both physical and mental. Many older people develop depression, which can manifest itself in additional irritability, lack of quality sleep, loss of appetite, and other symptoms. But dealing with her mother's difficulties makes things worse for Ptacek, the oldest of three.
adult daughters. With the weakening of their senses, older people don't receive as much sensory information (or receive incorrect sensory information) from their world. Professional family mediator Roseann Vanella, of Marlton, New Jersey, used this strategy to help her aging parents who they refused to receive help.
