My Elderly Parent is Refusing Care
How do you help your Mum or Dad when they clearly need care but won't accept it? This is a common situation and we offer some tips and ideas.
You’ve noticed Mum or Dad is struggling with everyday tasks, their personal care is slipping or they are simply lonely, but every attempt to suggest help meets with flat rejection. It’s worrying you and you try to help, but your efforts are jeopardising your relationship with them. It’s a situation we come across a lot, and we offer some tips.
Home Instead Basingstoke is here to help. We work with families to find an acceptable way to support reluctant ageing parents. Through highly flexible home care visits we can enable your parent to remain comfortable, happy and independent at home.
What are their concerns?
Your loved one may be resisting the suggestion that they can no longer cope, or fearful of loss of privacy or loss of control. There may be concerns around cost, strangers coming into the house or implications for their way of life, or simply denial that there is a problem. Understanding this can help establish your starting point.
Who’s in control?
Whatever the reason for resistance to care, it has got to be Mum or Dad’s decision, or even their idea, to get some help. Your parent has been an independent adult for a long time and is not going to appreciate being managed. Avoid pressure or any implication that a decision has already been made. Sow a seed and give it time, rather than trying to rush into what may be a major change in mindset.
Start practical
The easiest areas to talk about will be minor practical difficulties – like the housework, shopping, meals or getting to appointments, and how a little support would help. “Mum, you know how busy I am, it would really help if we could get someone to assist with …”. The conversation can be steered around what Mum readily accepts she needs help with, rather than the awkward issue of “care”.
But it’s so embarrassing!
“Margaret down the road has carers every morning – I feel so sorry for her, she used to be such an independent soul!” However care at home is more common than it might appear – what might not be so obvious is that Betty opposite also has daily carers, but no one notices. Our carers don’t wear uniforms or drive branded cars, helping clients to be discreet about their daily care visits.
But Dad lacks insight into his need for care
Some families come and talk to us first, to discuss arrangements for a care package before we meet the parent. This can be followed up with a very informal introduction to the parent as, say, a cleaner or a friend who will drop in for a coffee, a walk in the park or lunch at the garden centre. The key is to start some form of regular contact, enabling a relationship to be built up which invariably leads to the elderly person coming to accept support, even personal care, where it is most needed. The parent remains in control but comes to appreciate the benefits of the services on offer.
Heard bad stories?
Sometimes resistance is based on stories of someone’s bad experiences elsewhere. Care providers vary in their approach – we are very flexible and will provide the care that your loved one wants, in a way that supports their ongoing independence, happiness and comfort at home.
Families and loved ones can get to know us via our monthly singing sessions Let’s Sing or our seated exercise sessions Let’s Move.
Please come and to talk to us about a flexible and innovative approach that might work for your loved one
Home Instead Basingstoke provides home care and live-in care services in Basingstoke and the surrounding towns and villages of north Hampshire. Our approach is to provide a service for our clients which is based upon building up personal relationships through which care support can transition from minor practical assistance, like help with housework or making a meal, to sensitive personal care, day care or live-in care. Our approach is always to work with our client, respecting their wishes and preferences, and only providing as much intervention as the client wants.
FAQs
My elderly mother is not managing her personal care properly, but denies there’s a problem. Can you help? – Yes, our approach would be to offer services of a less personal nature, such as housework, companionship or outings, to enable her carer to build up a relationship. Your mother is then much more likely to accept help with a shower or bath from someone she has come to know and trust.
My elderly father is lonely and sits at home all day, but rejects attempts to arrange companionship as merely “interfering do-gooders”. What can I do? We can help. We would discuss any practical help that he might need, such as housework or preparing a meal, through which our carer could get to know him. That in itself would provide valuable social interaction, but in time the carer might be able to take him out, eg for a walk or to a pub for lunch.
My elderly mother is just not safe in the kitchen, but she won’t accept care. What can I do? Our approach would be to offer whatever help she might accept, such as housework or shopping, allow our carer to build up a relationship with her, and then offer to work with her in the kitchen eg by doing the more difficult tasks like preparing the vegetables. As your mother comes to accept how useful that help is, she will allow the carer to do more and more.
If we engage a carer to do practical tasks like housework or shopping, can that same carer also provide personal care? If it is a Home Instead carer, then most certainly they can. The Home Instead approach is that care services are very flexible and care visits can cover multiple tasks from companionship and housework, to personal care and more complex care.
We have carers but there are multiple different faces and they come at different times, and my elderly father just won’t allow them to help him. What can I do? Home Instead would provide as small a team of carers as possible, visiting your father at regular agreed times. This will enable him to build relationships with the individuals, and as he gets to know them and know who to expect when, he will allow them to start helping him.
Experience home care that your elderly parent will come to love.
To find out more about our home care services please give us a ring on 01256 840 660,
email us at basingstoke@homeinstead.co.uk,
visit: Home Care in Basingstoke
or click on the enquiry button above.