When your parents begin to show some of the more advanced signs of aging, you can find yourself wondering just what you can do in order to help them to navigate this often tricky and emotional phase in their life. To be sure, there are going to be a fair few challenges along the way. However, with the right approach, you can help your parents to live a healthier and safer life.
Before you make any big changes, it is important to figure out just what steps you are going to take in order to ensure your parent’s comfort and safety going forward. You don’t want to make any major changes to their lifestyle without first establishing just what changes will be the right ones.
Moreover, you want to ease your parents into any changes that you make. Changing too much too quickly can cause them to feel as though they no longer have control over their own lives and result in some emotional conflict.
If you are currently looking to help your parents to live a healthier, safer lifestyle, here are a few important tips that you should bear in mind.
Assess Their Medical Needs
The most important thing that you need to do when you are looking to help your parents live a healthier lifestyle is assess their medical needs. This is going to provide you with the information that you need in order to make the rest of your decisions going forward.
For example, if your parent is going to require memory care going forward, you will need to consider finding an assisted living community that offers such care. You can find senior housing St Louis that offers the sort of care that your parents will need in this respect.
On the other hand, if your parent’s medical needs are going to pertain more to their physical condition, then you need to ensure that the assisted living community that they move to has trained and qualified staff on hand round the clock to assist with such things as well.
Have a conversation with your parent’s primary care physician to see what they would recommend in terms of medical care for the future. You can then use that information to find a few communities that meet your criteria for you and your parents to consider together.
Keep Them Involved in the Process
To that point, it is important to remember that any big changes in your parent’s life is going to potentially result in some emotional distress on their part. One great way to help alleviate this is to keep them involved in the more important parts of the general conversation about what is going to happen going forward.
For instance, if you have decided that it is necessary for them to move to an assisted living community, make sure that you include them in the process of choosing their new home. Bring them along on tours and encourage them to ask as many questions as they want as you consider the various options on your list.