If your mom or dad has recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, you probably have a lot of questions running through your mind right now. What’s going to happen to them? How are they going to get through their day? Do I need to hire someone to help care for them? These are all valid questions, and they are all natural things to worry about. While there’s no clear course of how Alzheimer’s or any other form of dementia might run it’s course, there are definite things that you should be doing to help ensure that they stay safe and healthy. One of the first things that you should be considering is their care.
Many people feel confident that they can provide all of their care that their parent needs by themselves. You might be completely able to, but you should still have a plan in place, just in case. For instance, what if their physical condition deteriorates to a point where you are unable to help them? What if something happens to you? There are so many unknown factors that you simply cannot account for all on your own. You need assistance of some sort, even if it is only in the form of a backup plan. Ignoring this need would be irresponsible, and it could prevent your parent from receiving the care that they need and deserve.
In addition to care, your plan should also take finances, power of attorney, and end of life decisions, just to name a few things. You can create advance directives with your loved one, if you feel that will be helpful. Really, you just want to have a clear guide of what to do to help your loved one as their symptoms become harder and harder to care for. Having a loved one that is suffering is hard, but as long as you know that they are receiving the best help that they can get, a tiny bit of the emotional burden can be lifted from your mind.
Alzheimer’s is a degenerative disease, which means that it progressively gets worse. There might be days where the symptoms seem to have eased up a little bit, but that is not the same as a cure. There is no cure for this type of dementia, and is a fatal illness. What you may have been able to handle on your own in the early stages of the disease might become a lot more difficult for you to handle later on. Having a plan in place, preferably one that your loved one agreed to, is going to be your best course of action as the symptoms become more difficult to manage. In-home care is a great choice if your home is a safe place for someone with Alzheimer’s disease to be. Other alternatives, such as assisted living, should also be considered to be included in the care plan. You want to have all of your bases covered, and you want your parent to be as safe, happy, and healthy as possible.
Leave a Reply