A Symbiotic Relationship

Helping Your Parents Becomes Being the Parent

Being able to successfully help your parents in their later years will require an honest and open conversation that your parents may struggle to have. Both parties will have to understand and be compassionate about the level of vulnerability required for this discussion.

As a caregiver, whether you live with your parent or if you are providing assistance from another city, you will need to know many details about their lives in order to be their advocate in making important decisions regarding their care.

Who is your Mom’s doctor? What medicines does your Dad take? Where do they do their banking? When is their mortgage payment/rent due? Do they have retirement accounts? Where do they keep previous years tax returns? Do they have a safe in their house, what is the combination? Do they have a safety deposit box, a post office box? Do they have any social media accounts? What are the passwords for these accounts? Do they have a medical directive, a will, a living will, an advanced directive? Have they designated anyone to have power of attorney privileges?

Caring for Aging Parents has available on their website (www.careforagingparents.com/pdfs/Caregivers_Organizer.pdf) a thorough checklist that you can use to gather this information. Schedule a family meeting to sit down with your parents to gather this information requested on this form. Understandably, your parents may be uncomfortable allowing you access to everything listed. However, it is imperative that your parents complete the form as you will need it in the future.

The list is somewhat exhaustive (in a good way), and your parents may not want to tackle such an endeavor in one sitting. If that is the case, then schedule as many meetings as they require to complete the checklist.

If you’ve ever been to the hospital for an operation one of the first questions asked is if you have a living will or an advance directive. As advance directive spells out the type of healthcare you do or do not want in the event you are unable to make your own decisions. You can also elect someone to make these decisions for you on your behalf.

You may also want to consider a living will and a healthcare power of attorney. The living will serves as a notice to doctors and family members as to the type of treatments you do or do not wish to receive. The healthcare power of attorney allows you to appoint someone to make medical decisions for you. These medical decisions can be detailed in the healthcare power of attorney. AARP has a link for the advance directive forms required by each state (https://www.aarp.org/caregiving/financial-legal/free-printable-advance-directives/).

Another not as well known document is the POLST (portable medical order). This form is for the seriously ill patient. A patient’s healthcare provider would detail what type of medical intervention the patient wants during an emergency, and this works in all locations. The POLST is a medical order similar to a prescription and applies anywhere medical decisions need to be made. For more information, please visit https://polst.org.

There are several apps you can download to help you keep and maintain information for yourself as well as your parents.

• 1Password is an encrypted app where you can store passwords to any website (banking, social media, shopping, health insurance, etc)
• Mobile Scanner allows you to scan documents and converts them into PDF documents. This can be used to store health insurance cards, passports, powers of attorney, medical directives, wills or any sort of document you may want to have easy access to
• Medicare Medication Management allows you to list all medicines you are taking along with dosage information and has alarms to remind you to take your medicines along with reminders for doctor’s appointments. Additionally, this app shows the actual picture of the medicine prescribed and will alert you when you need to refill your medication
• ECare21 allows you to monitor blood pressure, sleep patterns, weight and other medical data via a smartwatch or FitBit.

As you begin to help your parents more and more you will come to realize that you are an extension of them. It can feel strange but providing this help will be one of the most rewarding experiences of your life.

Until next time, be kind.