If you don't live with your elderly parents you probably want to know what they're doing since you aren't with them. Calling on the telephone is fine, but it only goes so far. You may consider that the time has come where additional monitoring is needed.
When should you determine that your mother and father require more monitoring? Some common indicators include how well your mother and father take care of themselves.
You should look at your parent's personal grooming.
Can your elderly parents bathe and comb hair? Do they need help getting dressed including buttoning buttons, zipping zippers and tying shoes? Are your elderly parents capable of keeping their house clean? Can they dust, mop, run the vacuum, do the dishes? Can your mother and father cook? Are they able to walk around their home? Can they sit down and get up from chairs by themselves? What about getting in and out of bed? Can they bend over and get something off the floor?
What about doing things outside the home? Can they go to the grocery store? Run errands? Can they get in and out of an automobile? Do they get around where they live without getting lost?
How about finances? Can your mother and father handle their monthly budget? Balance their checkbook? Pay bills?
These are the kind of inquires you need to make. A little trouble in a few areas may indicate some problems in the future, but your parents are still able to function OK. However if you see problems in a lot of areas that could indicate it's time to closely watch your mother and father. The more situations where your parents have trouble doing things and the more severe those problems, the more they indicate somebody should keep a closer eye on your mother and father.
Your parents want to remain independent. This is a big deal to anybody, but it gets even more important to elderly parents. That is because independence is so vital. On some level your parents know that if they lose their independence they may never get it back. You want to help your parents stay independent. Therefore if you can help it, you don't want them to have to go to an assisted living setting or nursing home if less restrictive alternatives are available.
Nowadays, more than ever, different technologies exist that can help you keep an eye on Mom and Dad regardless of how far away you live. Mom and Dad may feel like monitoring systems in their home are an invasion of privacy. That may be true. But you want to only use least restrictive alternatives to keep your parents safe.
Several options of monitoring exist from an occasional phone call to having your elderly parent's entire home wired so you know precisely where they are and what they are doing 24/7. You can consider different options between the extremes.
One of these alternatives may be a much better solution for your parents than having to leave their home.
For example, some companies will charge thousands of dollars to completely wire your parents' entire home thus allowing you and others to keep track of your parents. A less costly alternative would be a computer and security cameras set up in a couple locations around the home. Many options like this come prepackaged as software and hardware. You may need an a computer guy to come in and set it up, but after that the price is just an internet connection.
You may consider a Help button. That is a device worn around the neck so it is always within reach. If your mother and father press the button, which is always in reach as long as they are wearing the device, a monitoring company calls and determines whether help is needed. If the monitoring company decides help is needed one person from the monitoring company remains on the phone with your mother and father until help shows up, and a second person calls for help.
The bottom line is your mother and father need to stay safe. On that point everyone will agree. What you may need to determine with your parents is the amount of monitoring that is needed to keep them safe while maintaining their independence. Assure your parents that you respect their desire to live in their own home and you want to make sure they get to do that. But sometimes they have to give up a little privacy, even if they don't want to, so they can stay in their home.
Copyright 2011 Jeffrey B Kent
You have permission to reuse this article if you credit the author and place a link to the author's website in a prominent place.
No comments:
Post a Comment