I'm new to this forum and hoping to find some help. My parents are 76 and 83. My dad is in a wheel chair and my mom has mild dementia. They currently live at their ranch several hours from me. I do what I can to help them like order groceries, have meds delivered, talk to doctors, etc. I even pay most of their bills but they refuse to leave their ranch. I have other concerns but if I could get them to move closer to me that would help with other concerns. Has anyone else had this situation and resolved it? I need help!
I had already been through helping them with a lot. All the legal documents, getting him diagnosed when she was in denial and resistant during covid, taking away his driving and access to financial accounts, all from afar or on visits.
I could write a book on all I did to make the move happen and another book on all the effort I put in since then. I went into therapy myself for two years to help me cope.
My dad passed two years after the move. My mom is now depressed and isolated but not interested in helping herself. I work on boundaries and dispelling misplaced guilt every day.
I agree with a lot of the advice below. Just to say, look before you leap. I thought moving them near me would lessen my worry and make things easier for me. It did not lessen my worry, it only changed it. Things are not easier for me — quite the opposite. But moving them did make it easier for me to help them a lot more.
I agree with Fawnby’s advice 1,000%. Don’t move them in with you!! and I tried the aide route a few times after they moved and none of them worked out.
I had checked out all the AL and continuum of care places near me and urged them to go this route when they moved but they refused to even discuss it. I have broached it again since my dad passed but not had any success yet. It may take a crisis.
if I had it to do over again, I would insist that AL is the only way. Maybe it’s possible for them to live in one for a couple of months on a trial basis? Like a kind of vacation? If so, and they accept it, you could then make it permanent and sell their ranch afterwards. Sometimes I think the idea of having to sell their home and downsize is paralyzing. Good luck.
And also, managing people that you hire to live in their home to take care of them is a full-time job for you. You'd need at least 3 caregivers for two people. It's expensive, hard to handle from a distance, and there would always be some crisis that you have to untangle. So don't do that either.
Assisted Living for both of them is probably the best answer. They could still be together and be fed, entertained, have their housekeeping done for them, also laundry and supervised outings. Choose one that has continuum of care so that when your mother needs a memory care unit, she can stay on the premises and dad can still be with her most of the time.
"Oh, but I can't put my parents in a dreadful HOME!" It's not a "home" as in the old days where spiders come out of the woodwork and demons attack residents at night, along with horrible nurses who steal their underwear. Modern senior facilities are way beyond that. And it gets you off the hook, which quite frankly you need to be because your parents could live another 10 years, and you're already tired of it. Keep reading on this forum about what you're likely to face if you continue to let them be in charge. It's not pretty.
When you bend over backwards to enable foolish choices, going so far as to make everything work out using your time and money, of course they won't see the wisdom of making better choices. As far as they can tell their choices are working out fine.
You will find you're now facing down the basic problems in elder care, the first of which is getting the elders to recognize that they need help, and how much help they do need.
Second on the list is how much CAN you do, how much are you WILLING to do, and for HOW LONG?
You will have decisions to make as things "come to a head" here, and they will. The trajectory is downward. Enabling all of this will delay progress toward changes that are needed, because they can "avoid" the issues as long as you are picking up the slack. As Beatty here used to say, "There will be no solutions as long as YOU are all the solutions".
It's a mistake to put your own money toward your parents care and you should make it clear now that you cannot continue to do so.
You clearly see now that it takes an entire lifetime of coupon clipping, savings and investment, and enormous determination as well as good luck to have funds to keep you safe in your own age. At 82 I assure you that comes with great rapidity. Time has a way of moving faster and faster.
We here cannot know your parents' assets, whether they own their ranch, what assets for living in say a condo or efficiency apartment or even ALF would be available. Land is often of great value. They may need to sell in order to have living expense.
It's crucial also now for you to get documents, Wills, Trusts, POAs, Advance directives and end of life wishes discussions...................all of that done.
So again, we cannot answer a general question for you, knowing little. I think you'll get a better idea of honing down the question to something we CAN answer if you just stay and read for a while. I sure hope so. And I welcome you to this Forum. We are all here trying to support one another, learn from one another, and get hints for survival.
Best to you, and again welcome!