According to conventional opinion, we all desire to stay in our homes for as long as possible. Most of our seniors feel this way, but it is not necessarily in their best interests.
How can we approach them with the reality and risks of remaining at home when their health and functional skills deteriorate? Besides, how can we persuade them that moving to a senior assisted living facility will benefit their health?
This article will reveal various tips to help you move your seniors to an assisted living facility. So, let’s find out.
14 Tips to Help Move Your Elderly Parent To Senior Assisted Living
1. Start Speaking About It Before Need Arises
You should engage your seniors as if you’ve already decided for them. It is advisable to discuss assisted living and other senior care choices with parents earlier before the need arises.
If you haven’t already built the basis for this idea, simply explain that solutions are available to make their lives safer, more straightforward, and pleasurable.
2. Do Some Research On Local Assisted Living Facilities
Look for neighboring senior assisted living facilities and suggest taking them on tours and when they finally agree take them on a tour, but never force them. If they refuse, leave the issue and return to this stage another time.
3. Feel Some Discomfort
Please remember that whenever your parents say they would like to go home, they may not always mean their current abode, especially if they have dementia.
Home is a physical location and a state of mind. You can’t guarantee to improve their circumstances; however, you can listen to them while expressing their emotions. Stay with them in the misery of that revelation and discuss whatever is missing.
4. Be Your Loved One’s Advocate
There is no perfect location. Your folks may notice the potential improvements in their new house, but they may be hesitant to speak that out. If you have an idea, find a way of carrying out the advancements.
5. Surround Them With Their Personal Belongings
Shifting to an assisted living community generally entails downsizing. Unfortunately, a dining room table with two extension leaves and a matching cabinet might not fit in the new place.
On the other hand, family and friends’ photographs, picture albums, cherished novels, and a recognized piece of artwork can fit perfectly well.
What’s more, you can still carry a more comfortable blanket and pillows if you need to minimize the bedroom set.
Even if the kitchen is new, you can bring your mother’s favorite teacup. Leaving a house should not imply abandoning the amenities of that home.
6. Find Some Referrals
You should inquire among friends and ask if anybody is doing well at a nearby senior assisted living facility. This is an excellent method for gathering impartial information that can help you in narrowing down your options.
Besides, it’s even more preferable to discover an assisted living facility where a close friend stays. Your loved ones would be more comfortable if there were a recognizable face within that community.
7. Take Some Tours Of Communities
Demonstrate the social components of a good assisted living facility. Even if your loved ones do not know anybody at a particular institution, you could still take them out to eat or engage in a pursuit they love. Please keep things casual and avoid pressing the subject during that time.
Furthermore, you can visit more facilities and solicit feedback from your parents. What could be their preference, larger or smaller communities? Is a modern and stylish assisted living community appropriate for their personality, or an older warm and inviting facility be preferable?
Among the communities, which of them loved their meals? Is there any which provides intriguing activities and excursion schedules?
You need to pay much attention during your tours to the level of privacy the residence offers. Ask if your folks can equip their room with items from home.
Moreover, it’s essential to figure out how their new dwellings can be reset and decorated as per their taste and preference.
Display the same degree of enthusiasm you will have while assisting them in moving into a new house since that is absolutely what you are doing.
8. Let Them Know of the Benefits
Highlight the advantages and psychological comfort that extra help with activities of daily living (ADLs) and safety precautions will provide.
Reinforce the idea that assisted living helps seniors avoid everyday duties and difficulties, allowing them to focus on activities they like. There is no outdoor work, although there are horticultural activities available.
Dishes are served in the dining area, but some units include kitchenettes, allowing seniors to prepare their food if they so wish.
They have much time to be alone, but companionship is right outside their doorstep. You are the expert on your loved one, so accentuate the elements you know they will adore.
9. Have Some Boundaries
The possibility is that you want to be a responsible child and help your parents adjust to their new situation, but you also have other responsibilities to carry out.
Try to set aside as adequate time as possible to assist in the first relocation period, but understand that it is alright if you are not consistently present.
What’s more, you may be having children, bosses, and even clients who also require your assistance. Establish what you can do and then keep to your commitments.
10. Organize for a Family Meeting
If the family members stay close, you can call a casual gathering and explain to your parents how you will feel if the transfer is made. Clarify that it is not an intrusion or a done transaction over which they have no choice.
Encourage individuals concerned to express their worries and concerns regarding the existing situation and a possible move. Employ the services of a family member, doctor, or spiritual guide to speak with your parent(s) and inform them of the reason for transfer.
In other words, if the family fails, other individuals can frequently make a significant difference.
11. Understand that You Can’t Reason With Dementia
Our families and friends undergoing mental impairment may be unaware of their limits and insist on remaining at home.
On the other hand, there is no one-size-fits-all solution for moving an elderly with dementia to assisted care. Hardly is there a reasonable thought or bargain to persuade individuals who have Alzheimer’s disease or other kinds of dementia to change their opinion.
Dementia caretakers frequently force the issue to protect their loved one’s safety and well-being. Still, it’s hard to force a senior to transfer to assisted care unless deemed incompetent.
In such cases, the power of attorney or guardian and a few minor lies are sometimes required to place a loved one with dementia or other memory loss disease in the right protracted care environment.
12. Visit Your Elderly Parents Often at the Senior Assisted Living Community
It’s only you who understands your parents better; thus, only you can determine how to effectively help them during the first few weeks of the transfer.
Many specialists would advise you to visit as frequently as possible. Regular trips might alleviate your parents’ fears of being deserted. However, If they have a partner, it may be simpler to connect with others at events or in the dining hall.
13. Patience is a Virtue
You shouldn’t insist, except if you perceive the need for ALF care to be a necessity. It may be difficult to wait, but you’ll probably have to. When you wish to bring the issue up again, seek an opportunity to provide senior assisted living solutions to your parents’ problem.
For instance, you could wait when your father is tired and complaining about how he no longer sees his buddies, then switch to another topic.
Kindly make your seniors feel in command of their lives and decisions. Regrettably, many caretakers often wait too long until a problem arises to listen to their seniors’ decisions.
14. Be Supportive
Your loved ones will be anxious about their new living environment. You indeed need to focus on the positives of their new environment. Still, it would also help engage the community staff to find relevant solutions to your elderly parents’ challenges in their new community.
Your parents will probably settle in well, but expect them always to want to come home once in a while. During these circumstances, it’s best to let them understand that the decision to seek assisted living was the best idea and that they shouldn’t regret being there.
Get Mom and Dad Assisted Living
For some seniors, the entire procedure may be quite challenging. Furthermore, leaving a house full of a lifetime of memories is an emotional choice.
Be gentle, empathetic, and try making it about your parent(s) rather than about you. It may require some time to adjust to the new surroundings, but they’ll most probably like the change after the transition phase.
If you have any questions about our senior assisted living facilities, please feel free to contact us.