When an aging parent’s health begins to decline, it can be emotionally difficult for their adult children. The stress and tension it creates can increase the likelihood for conflict between adult children who often have differing ideas about what type of care an aging parent s needs.

One person may want to take a proactive approach and begin searching for senior living communities, while another child might be in denial that their parent is struggling. The situation often brings long forgotten childhood squabbles to the surface again.

Finding ways to manage these conflicts and create a plan for care that keeps an aging parent safe becomes even more challenging.

5 Ways Prevent Family Feuds over an Aging Parent’s Care

Here are a few tips you can use to avoid a family feud:

1. Put Your Parent First: If your loved one is able, ask them to share their wishes for future care with all of you. Don’t make assumptions about what he or she would want. Whenever possible, include your parent in the decision-making process.
2. Divide Up Responsibilities: Create a comprehensive list of tasks and activities your older loved one needs help with. Assign each task to a family member. If one sibling lives far away and can’t pitch in, ask if they are willing to contribute financially to the plan. They might be willing to hire a cleaning service to come a few times a month or for a few hours of care from in-home caregiver.
3. Communicate Frequently: As with all things in life, good communication is important. Make an extra effort to stay in touch with one another and to share updates and changes in a parent’s condition. Don’t put the burden of communication on the primary caregiver though. He or she is probably already overwhelmed. Instead, designate one sibling to call the sibling who is handling most of the responsibilities to obtain updates. Then have them communicate those updates to the rest of the family. It can even be done using an app like Care Zone or a private group on Facebook.
4. Exercise Patience and Respect: Aging services providers see every day how family squabbles can lead to permanent rifts among loved ones. It can be tough not to let your emotions get the best of you when you are worried about a loved one. Remind yourself to be patient and respectful of one another. The old practice of taking a deep breath and counting to ten before you say or do something you will regret later is one to remember and adopt.
5. Hire a Mediator: Sometimes families just can’t work together. If you feel like your family has reached an impasse, consider hiring an elder care attorney or an elder care mediator. These trained professionals provide unbiased guidance about senior care solutions and can make recommendations for moving forward.

If you have questions about senior living in Michigan or how to tell what type of care your parent might need, please call the Heritage Senior community nearest to you. We will be happy to answer your questions and point you in the right direction for help!

If you are a Michigan senior loved one’s primary caregiver, you’ve probably worried about what would happen to them if you suffered an emergency of your own. Because you are involved in their day-to-day care, you likely know their medical history well. You also understand what medications they take and what the schedule is.

But in the event of an emergency, would someone else in the family know what your aging family member needs? What their allergies are? When their next physician appointment is?

Having an emergency caregiver in place before a crisis occurs is the key.

There are two important steps for creating a successful caregiver backup plan. The first part is to carefully craft the plan and the second is to share it with others.

How to Create an Emergency Care Plan for a Senior

Begin by pulling together all of the information someone else would need to be able to care for your senior loved one in the event you are unable to.

At a minimum, your back up plan should include:

1. Medical history: Create a complete health file that includes your senior family member’s medical history, past surgeries, current and past medical issues, and any allergies.
2. Medication list: Also put together a list of prescription and over-the-counter medications your loved one takes along with the schedule. Be sure you include the prescribing physician and pharmacy name in case the back-up caregivers need to have one refilled.
3. Physician list: It’s important to document all of your loved one’s physicians and any other health professionals who are involved in their care. Include their contact information along with the reason your family sees each of them.
4. Insurance information: To help prevent your family member from falling victim to identity theft, it’s important to keep insurance documents stored in a secure location. Just make sure back-up caregivers are apprised of where and how to access them in the event of a medical emergency.
5. Legal Documents: Also share the location of any legal documents your senior loved one has in place, such as a durable power of attorney or living will, with family members who may be called on to pitch in and help with caregiving duties.

Our final tip is to visit with senior care providers in Michigan and develop a list of those you feel would be a good fit for your aging loved one if you aren’t available to provide care. Include this information in your back-up caregiver plan.

Share Your Caregiver Back-Up Plan

Once you have created your plan, it is important to make sure friends and family are aware of it and comfortable with the information it contains.

Some families have found technology makes it easier to keep everyone on track. CareZone, CareMind and Caring Bridge are a few easy-to-use apps to explore.