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Ask HN: Advice about aging parents

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Re: Ask HN: Advice about aging parents

#91

Post by abletonlive »

throwawayboise wrote: post #80
a2tech wrote: post #73

I'm a realist. I told my parents (one retired but active and one preparing to retire) that they needed to get their end of life plans and elder care plans in place because I wasn't going to do it for them. My wife and I don't have children and are hoping to spend our retirement being semi-mobile around the globe. We simply won't be available to take care of them in their old age. I threatened (only half joking) that…

I bet you're glad that they didn't view you as much of an inconvenience to their life ambitions as you view them.

I find this kind of appeal to "reason" questionable. While I am thankful that my parents took care of me while I was dependent, did I ask to be born into this world? I don't view my parents as an inconvenience to my life ambitions but it's a lot more reasonable to view them as such compared to parents that feel that their children (who are there because of their decisions in one way or another) are an inconvenience.

Re: Ask HN: Advice about aging parents

#92

Post by datavirtue »

reacharavindh wrote: post #60
czbond wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dad suggested there are three events that turn an individual from "able to be home" to assisted care (which is very expensive). 1) Change in ability to walk, which triggers 2) Inability to take care of and feed themselves, which triggers a slew of medications to try to combat 3) Inability to go to bathroom by themselves Keep people moving. Build strength early - strength training is great (people begin losing stre…

Agree with you on everything, except frozen foods. I am in my mid 30s. I like to cook and try to eat healthy. I have read at many places on the internet that frozen vegetables in some occasions are healthier than the ones I can at the supermarket- because they are flash frozen, retaining most nutritional value vegetables stay out in shipping and shelves far too long losing nutritional value. Also that they tend to be…

I was eating frozen pizzas quite regularly in my twenties and thirties. At 32 I was diagnosed with pre-hypertension. The doctor was suggesting pills. I went home and evaluated my sodium intake. Those pizzas are insane with the sodium. I stopped eating them and haven't had one since. Shortly after, my blood pressure went back to normal/good levels. Ten years later I'm still healthy...and eating much better than I did when I was younger.

Re: Ask HN: Advice about aging parents

#93

Post by dsomers »

brutus1213 wrote: post #8

Similar boat with aging parents. It is really tough with few solutions. In a very HCOL area and parents own a condo. So stairs are less the issue but there a ton other challenges that emerge. Simplest solution would be to do a joint-family system with the parents. That is not feasible because single story houses are pretty rare in our area and spacious housing is stupidly expensive in general (Toronto); moving my fam…

Toronto does not equal all of the west. There are a lot of low cost of living parts of Canada where you can affordability arrange that exact living situation. My home town in Ontario which is around 80k people has had a lot of Indian-Canada families move from Toronto to my home town in the last decade for that exact reason.

Re: Ask HN: Advice about aging parents

#94

Post by germinalphrase »

vr46 wrote: post #45
foobarbaz33 wrote: post #15

Your dad crawling up the stairs is helping to fend off muscle atrophy. There's a risk of course. Falling down the stairs could lead to death after complications. But it's not as out-right bad as you might assume, and crawling reduces the fall risk a bit. Falling is a risk even with normal walking. But if you don't have some movement in their life, they degrade faster and die sooner. There is risk from all choices

Falling has worse outcomes than the immediate ones. Both my parents passed away after a chain of events that began with a low-speed fall just onto the floor that damaged their lower body. The resulting incapacity and muscular wastage led to a multitude of issues that I don't want to go into but I would say that keeping elderly people safe from falls is extremely important. That and diet and healthcare. Activity is cr…

A relative of mine (M/90) recently went from fairly independent to passing within three weeks of what appeared - initially - to be a moderate fall. The cascading health impacts were all secondary to the fall itself.

Re: Ask HN: Advice about aging parents

#95

Post by [deleted] »

notacoward wrote: post #23

This is becoming a common quandary for GenX(ish) folks - how to care for both parents and children at the same time. Especially hard when so many of the former didn't plan well. My suggestion would be to seek out an elder-care specialist. They not only know what kinds of support are available - including issues or options you might not have thought of - but they have contacts with all the different sorts of service p…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Advice about aging parents

#97

Post by a2tech »

Clubber wrote: post #81
a2tech wrote: post #73

I'm a realist. I told my parents (one retired but active and one preparing to retire) that they needed to get their end of life plans and elder care plans in place because I wasn't going to do it for them. My wife and I don't have children and are hoping to spend our retirement being semi-mobile around the globe. We simply won't be available to take care of them in their old age. I threatened (only half joking) that…

>I would put them in the cheapest elder home I could find I don't think any of them are very cheap. >They need to figure out their life--not lean on me to figure it out for them. At least in the US, there aren't a lot of options unless you're pretty wealthy. Medicare doesn't cover nursing care. Nursing homes cost around $5k a month or so last time I checked. They will literally throw them on the curb if they can't pa…

I know. And its not like I'm a monster, obviously I'll try and select the best elder home that matches the amount of money they have plus what I can afford.

However, and this is what I was trying to humorously get through to them, I will not compromise the life my wife and I have built and worked towards to arrange care for them. Call me callous, call me cruel, but my wife and I are working towards something for ourselves. We're making our future and so should they.

Re: Ask HN: Advice about aging parents

#98

Post by frereubu »

The only small piece of concrete advice I have for you is to do with online security. My 90-year-old mum was using a single password for all services, and had started to use it for places that allowed you to purchase things, like Amazon and PayPal. I added her to my 1Password account and helped her change all her passwords to 32-character mixes of letter, numbers and symbols, then taught her how to use it. All of her password are stored in a vault that is shared with me, so if she needs to set up an account on a new site, I can do that for her and add the item to 1Password so she can use it straight away. I always had this nagging feeling about her using the same password, and I'll happily trade the occasional 1Password support phone call for the peace of mind I get knowing she's not using the same password everywhere.

Re: Ask HN: Advice about aging parents

#99

Post by izhak »

Hey, I'm 42, Father 81 and every time we visit his doctor (now it happens no less than 10 times a month) he refuses to use elevator and insists on walking to the second floor on his own feet (in fact also his hands - one for the stick and the other for the railings). He says: "I must train as much as I can".

I personally respect that and consider it to be the a sound choice. Not only this helps him to get some physical activity, but also a sense of control over his body and life which is a crucial thing to have in his age/situation. I really can't overestimate how important that is for his is deteriorating self-being. That allows him to keep some measure of self-respect and pride. At my 40 I started to understand that old people (I mean OLD, like 80+) are not strange yoda-like creatures from outer space (like I suspected when I was younger) but actually not different from us except for their bodies not working right anymore in many different ways and w/o any hope for getting better. Most of the time men feel pity and shame in such situation, no different from somebody younger. Whatever they can do to prove themselves their ability - I appreciate that.

Re: Ask HN: Advice about aging parents

#100

Post by Jyaif »

throwawayboise wrote: post #80
a2tech wrote: post #73

I'm a realist. I told my parents (one retired but active and one preparing to retire) that they needed to get their end of life plans and elder care plans in place because I wasn't going to do it for them. My wife and I don't have children and are hoping to spend our retirement being semi-mobile around the globe. We simply won't be available to take care of them in their old age. I threatened (only half joking) that…

I bet you're glad that they didn't view you as much of an inconvenience to their life ambitions as you view them.

They raised him to be like that.
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