One person’s experience handling an aged parent

Assisting an elderly parent can be a difficult time from many perspectives — emotionally, financially, and physically.

Although each situation is different, it is often helpful to try to learn from the experiences of others.  For a thoughtful first-hand report, see Jane Gross, What I Wish I’d Done Differently, NY Times, July 7, 2008, in which writer discusses the following lessons she learned when dealing with her mother:

• Obtain a doctor with geriatric expertise.
• Nursing homes are not always a bad option and assisted-living facilities are not always the best option.
• Selling the home is not always a prudent decision.
• Long-term care insurance  may not provide expected benefits.

Here is her conclusion:

All of these mistakes would have mattered less if the trajectory of my mother’s decline had been different. But that trajectory, alas, is unknown and unknowable but for its certain ending. So every decision we made — residential, medical, financial — was a crapshoot that changed the landscape for the next decision, usually by limiting options I didn’t even realize we had. There’s no way around this uncertainty, no way of knowing what’s going to happen next so you can plan accordingly. But physicians, social workers, case managers, lawyers and financial advisers with expertise in old age are the best guides. And haste, often the result of panic, is the enemy.