What do you do when your elderly parents or relatives can’t care for themselves, but they live states away? Relocating is expensive and will complicate the lives of you and your other family members. However, allowing the state to get involved in senior care isn’t promising either. Ultimately, you want them to get the support and care they need but finding a practical solution seems impossible. Fortunately, that’s not the case, as there are multiple things you can do to care for your elderly loved one from miles away.
Home Health Care
The first objective is to find the most affordable yet sufficient way to care for their health and wellness. Since you can’t be there every day, you may want to consider home health care services. Let’s say your mother has dementia and lives in New York while you live in Georgia. You can search for dementia care in NYC and have a trained nurse work with your mother in her home to cope with the obstacles of dementia and Alzheimer's.
Home health care providers offer various services ranging from taking medications and getting dressed to household chores and emotional support. They can visit your parent’s house daily, taking a load off your shoulders.
Visit Regularly
Seniors, loneliness, and social isolation tend to go hand in hand. When their relatives live miles away, or even in a Broward senior care facility, and their friends and spouses have passed, staying connected is often challenging. Therefore, it’s essential not only to call your elderly loved ones regularly but plan in-person visits. Whether it’s once a month or a few times a year, your presence means a lot to them.
You can make a point to visit for holidays, birthdays, and other special occasions or just show up for a few days to spend quality time. Find activities to do and make the most of your time together. You can also use these visits to take care of in-person tasks like home improvements, household chores, bulk shopping, and medical appointments.
Get Authorization
There are a lot of tasks you’ll need to complete for your elderly loved one that requires you to have account or legal authorization to handle. From scheduling payments for the mortgage to talking to insurance providers, you want the ability to manage these tasks no matter where you live. Therefore, you should talk to your parents or an attorney about obtaining authorization to avoid obstacles down the line.
Modern Technologies
Another way to manage your elderly loved one’s life from miles away is to incorporate modern technology. Various tools can make everyday tasks easier to manage. For example, online banking makes it easy to review finances, pay bills, create budgets, and set aside cash for savings.
Grocery delivery services enable you to have fresh fruits, veggies, proteins, and convenience items delivered to their house. Telemedicine enables your loved ones to keep up with medical appointments and treatments. Social media can help you send messages, share photos and videos, and stay in touch.
As senior safety is a concern, installing security systems and utilizing medical alert devices, such as personal alarms that will let people know if something has happened, can give them the support they need if something goes wrong.
Create An Emergency Plan
What do you do if there’s an emergency but you’re miles away from your loved one? Having an emergency plan in place can help reduce stress and get them the help they need immediately. Write down a list of emergency contact services and relatives in the area. Discuss what to do if there’s a need to evacuate, natural disaster, or incident of crime. You should also pack an emergency bag just in case you need to get to them in a hurry.
Caring for an elderly loved one is already challenging. When you add distance as an obstacle, it only makes the responsibility more challenging. Fortunately, there are practical solutions that enable you to care for your relatives, whether you’re cities, states, or countries away.
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