Posts Tagged With ‘ Aging parents ’

This really happened. George is 90 and is generally doing well, but he has a few memory problems.  His wife, Gloria worries about him keeping track of things. He has a full-time caregiver from a qualified agency. He goes to the gym for an hour every day. The caregiver drives him there and to the bank, to his errands and to lunch. He keeps cash on hand for his own use. The last time George went to the bank, Gloria wanted to know what had happened to the $300 he withdrew.  He couldn’t find it. Missing Cash The next time, he said he had put $1000 in his “secret stash” drawer in his dresser. ... Continue Reading

How did the adult son of a wealthy but secretive 85-year-old father get his dad to finally reveal important information about his assets? It wasn’t easy. Many adult children have an elder who thinks he’s fine and doesn’t need any help. Even if the patriarch or matriarch is fine, there is no guarantee they’ll stay that way. In this case at AgingParents.com, the son, Alex, was increasingly worried about his father, whose mind was ok but his management skills had fallen apart. Alex sought help because his father had extensive real estate investment properties, but they were being sorely neglected.... Continue Reading

Adult children wanting to keep aging loved ones safe often suggest that their elders wear a personal emergency device. (personal emergency response system or PERS). With the push of a button, the elder summons emergency help. Despite that fact that a lot of elders have them but won’t wear them, they are important for those who do put them on every day. Advances in tech for these devices are constantly evolving. Some devices are part of a smart watch and the wearer doesn’t have to feel “old” wearing one. Some resist wearing something like a pendant that to them is conspicuous. They think... Continue Reading

A common worry many adult children express about aging parents is that the parents are alone and it’s time they got some help. The kids are worried because of changes in the parent’s health, mobility or memory problems. The aging parent may not agree that there is anything to worry about, and this, of course, leads to resistance. Assisted living is something adult children frequently mention as a solution to their worries. But is it? There are pros and cons to consider and the family needs to understand what assisted living is and what it isn’t.  On a personal note, I had a 96 year old mother-in-law... Continue Reading

A common worry many adult children express about aging parents is that the parents are alone and it’s time they got some help. The kids are worried because of changes in the parent’s health, mobility or memory problems. The aging parent may not agree that there is anything to worry about, and this, of course, leads to resistance. Assisted living is something adult children frequently mention as a solution to their worries. But is it? There are pros and cons to consider and the family needs to understand what assisted living is and what it isn’t.  On a personal note, I had a 96 year old mother-in-law... Continue Reading

Do you have a stubborn aging parent? Are you worried that he or she is doing unsafe or just plain dumb things? You’re not alone. Here at AgingParents.com, we see this scenario often, and it’s frequently about control over the family finances. Here’s an example, based on a real case with some elements altered for privacy’s sake. The matriarch, age 85, decides to move to a high end assisted living facility, due to her physical difficulties. She has lived in her elegant home for 60 years and it is, of course, much more valuable than when she and her husband, now deceased, bought it. Her financial... Continue Reading

Questions about parents’ finances often come up when a parent starts to need some help. Basics like shopping, cooking or bathing can become too difficult for an elder with chronic illness, frailty and problems with memory. It may have started at retirement when income became fixed but unpredictable expenses weren’t figured into the cost of living. You, the adult children grow concerned that Mom or Dad need to spend more now for new things in their lives, such as paying a caregiver. You ask questions. “How are your finances?” and “Can you afford this helper?” Often there is push-back... Continue Reading

These ethnic crime rings, as I call them, work like this—many of their elders are foreign born and the oldest may struggle with English no matter how long they’ve lived in the U.S.. These elders are always more comfortable with “their own”. The elders trust those who speak their first language. They trust those who share cultural, religious and other habits in common. This sets them up nicely for being targeted by unscrupulous members of their own ethnic group. It can be any ethnicity. Aging is aging and predators find way to steal any way they can. I have heard about pastors of their... Continue Reading

Imagine your aging parent or other loved one living on his or her own and losing power from a natural disaster or an intentional blackout. What would they do? Massive weather events across the U.S. leave millions without power, sometimes for long periods.  There are lessons for all of us in what we are seeing. Power outages bring their own crises, particularly to vulnerable elders. Many elders live alone, some with major mobility problems and some depending on electricity to run medical devices. At AgingParents.com, elders are our focus. No client of ours has yet raised the issue of an aging parent... Continue Reading

Agatha, 60, had married a man 25 years her senior. He had one son who lived outside the US and was not close to his father. Agatha and her husband had a lot of good times until he began to show signs of dementia. Before long, Agatha was a full-time caregiver. She lost her husband within two years of the emergence of his symptoms. Now, Agatha finds herself in charge of everything her husband had handled before: investing, management of retirement funds, household repairs, maintenance, and decisions she had never made in her life. She was not financially literate when she got married and she feels... Continue Reading