Why can't advanced seniors see the real picture??

I had an 'Aha!' moment when I was trying to tell a doctor what my mom was doing. He said: What do you want? She's demented!
That put it all into perspective for me and I was able to move forward from there. Not saying it's easy but demented could also be defined as 'nuts' and that tells you that nothing is going to make sense.
Hope this helps a little.

lovbob

kathyt1 comes across as a little bit harsh, but TRUE!

I have said to my father, "Do you want to go to the hospital, or do you want to lie here and bleed to death?" At first, he chose bleeding to death, and I said, "OK." He did change his mind later that night. I think the fact that I didn't fight him made it easier for him to back down.

It might help to back off, and ask him how he wants to handle various possible situations like falling, becoming unable to cook, losing his good vision. How would he handle it if he were still on his own? Start a conversation to learn why he doesn't want to leave his home. Listen to what he says, and agree with his reasons. Really understand where he is coming from, and appreciate his position.

Only then, maybe on a different day, give him your reasons for wanting him to move. Tell him that you worry he will lie on the floor for hours, that you love him and want him to be safe, that it's hard to drive all those miles, that you will be so ashamed if something happens to him and you allowed him to be alone. Tell him something could happen that would FORCE him into a NH.

Then suggest ways that he can hold onto his independence while relieving you of worry. Mention every way that he will still be independent. Every piece of furniture he can keep. Every hour he can be on his own after the caregiver has left for the day. Let him think about it. Don't fight or argue. Let him slowly change his mind.

As if that'll work! Good luck with a hard problem.

I for one have written a letter to the 80 year old me. I have given a copy to my children (who find it very funny) and kept one in my file. Seriously! I would hate to have my children go through what we have been through with our parents. I am angry and resentful frequently and feel that MY time when I could be doing the fun stuff is slipping away one day at a time. My parents never had to deal with it because most of their parents passed in their late 60's and the one, my maternal grandfather , that survived till he was 90 was not taken care of by my parents and in fact he came to live with me in the winter times. I don't get the attitude of expecting servitude.

The simple answer is that you lose your judgement and perspective, and think in the short term, self interest mode only. And if you have ever been on a medication that affects your thinking skills, you have a vague idea of this ...it seems to take FOREVER to realize what is happening, though once you are off it, you can hardly believe that you kept on taking it as long as you did. Plus just being human and naturally coping with the unthinkable with a hefty dose of denial. .

My parents never thought about it before or after. To avoid this problem for my kids, I want to move into one of those assisted living communites that have the spectrum of independent through end of life care, sometime in my 70s when I'm still with it enough to choose the right place. I should probably start thinking about where now which is 20 years out. If only my parents had moved in when we looked at one before my dad died, a ton of grief, resentment and money would have been saved.

Love the idea of writing to my elderly self, but if it's as vstefns says,and we lose our judgement and think only of the here and now, don't know that the letter idea will do much good. It will give our daughter something to hold over our heads though, if we get argumentative with her.

I guess all we can hope for to help our children not have to shoulder the burdens of our advanced age is to keep our judgement intact until we die. So I, for one, am going to do just that, as soon as I figure out how.

We have thought about the future and have set up our daughter (we've only the one child) as signatory on our bank accounts so she'll at least have access to money to help us, or to hire help for us when the time comes, at least as long as the money lasts.

I think it is all about independence!! Losing your independence when you have been making your own decisions for sooo many years!!Your children are always your children no matter how old they are, I mean really....don't you think your years of experience out weigh your childrens??? This is not to criticize anyone, believe me I have been through this and still going through it. Denial is also a problem. Parents don't want to admit to their children they need help. My mom has Alz, is mentally incapacitated and still maintains there is nothing wrong with her.

"Wouldn't you think the trouble they had with their elderly parents would have taught them a thing or two". I for one am still learning my lesson from not so wise choices, if only I'd listen to my own advice....................

It's not about you, the caregiver. They are not "selfish" any more than a 2 yo is selfish. They are only thinking about themselves because they are trying to survive. Leaving their home, or accepting the care of strangers is not surviving. They still love you as much as they can, which is LESS than it used to be.

Drives us crazy!

Annet...I'm going to try to do the same...move into assisted living early on if I'm not blindsided by ALZ or Dementia first. I'm also going to make sure my daughter has POA, both financial and health in case I am blindsided.

I don't want my daughter and granddaughter to remember me in a bad light because I caused them no end of grief in my old age. A lifetime of good memories can easily be overshadowed by years of being a real burden to family because of poor or selfish choices (no savings, no life insurance, not planning for the inevitable, etc.) made before old age made it impossible to correct the problems.