Guest Blog by Adele
Lund, Director, Community & Business Relations, Laureate Group
“I’ve had the pleasure of working with thousands of adult
children as they navigate the transition of a loved one from their home of many
years to a senior community or care facility. I have observed that when a
family hasn’t had an ongoing dialogue with their parent about possible changes
in the future, siblings often form different ideas of what would be best for
mom or dad. When finally
confronted with decisions, each child brings their own experience, as well as
their personal conversations over the years with their parent. And while
each sibling may be right to some degree, their different perspectives of what
is “best” for mom or dad cause undue conflict at a time when the family can
least afford it.
As the need for change draws closer, older adults are less
inclined to talk about it, for fear their children are going to force them to
do something. I encourage adult
children to begin the conversation about their parents’ future long before the
need for change is upon them.
When you have a loved one with memory loss, one of the
hardest things to do is make decisions for them. We’ve always felt that we
are doing the honorable thing by allowing our parents to take part in decisions
about their future.
The problem is, by virtue of the diagnosis of memory
loss, a parent’s ability to take part in these decisions may be limited. They
may not even be able to recall what was discussed a few minutes ago, so all the
valid reasons for making the changes we discussed last week, yesterday and
again this morning are possibly gone. When that’s true, how “honoring” is it to
expect them to make decisions they’re no longer capable of making? No
matter how hard they try, no matter how responsible they’ve always been, the
logic and thought process needed to make a good decision about their own future
is simply no longer in their skill set. “
Find additional blogs from Adele Lund
at blog.laureategroup.com.
Laureate Group operates eight senior
communities throughout the Greater Milwaukee area.
Additional
resources can be found at www.laureategroup.com