My advice is to keep your parents moving for as long as possible.
Motivation and exercise is what keeps people alive and happy. I once knew a 92 year old who benched 140lbs and who’s grip was a vice. He worked out every day for ~2 hrs. Was one of the most impressive things I’ve seen.
All that said, perhaps ask them what they want? For instance, their motivation might not be meals or cleaning. Getting a maid or food service can lighten their load. Similarly, consider a cleaner for yourself! And give yourself more time to spend with them and your young family.
At the end of the day, they’re their individuals. I suspect they’ll have some thoughts. It’s honestly hard to watch sometimes, but all you can do is try to spend time and enjoy each other’s company.
One major thing you have to worry about with octogenarians is falls. There are all sorts of injuries related to falls but the worst one is to break a hip. It can happen very easily.
When old folks break a hip, it sets off a chain of consequences that are really, really bad for their health and quality of life. To begin with, it immediately requires hospitalization and major surgery. Then, a period of immobilization starting with a "short term" stay in a nursing home followed by weeks of rehabilitation. During all that time, they're susceptible to many different complications. It's basically the beginning of the end for many.
This happened to my mother. In the course of 3 years: broken hip, stroke, and UTI followed by near-fatal sepsis (which precipitated dementia). After all that she lost the ability to walk and we had to put her in a skilled nursing facility for the rest of her life.
Best thing you can do is to make sure you get advice from an elder-care attorney about end-of-life problems and financial planning. There can be dire financial consequences for the family if any money is transferred from the elderly to family members within 5 years of going on medical assistance (thanks to George W Bush's "deficit reduction act" of 2005).
Yes, a fall also was the beginning of the end for my uncle.
My mom also had a (non-hip-related) fall and that resulted in a hospital and nursing home stay (fortunately she seems to have recovered for the most part).
There are auto-inflating airbag belts that protect the hips for seniors during falls. I think the tech started in motorcycle racing then became available for cyclists, and is finally available for seniors now.
This looks like an interesting product but how do you get them to wear it consistently? Half the problem in hip fractures is mentation: Many elderly people have decreased balance, decreased pain sense, and decreased muscle strength. And yet they're not cognizant of any of this, so they continue to try to behave the way they did 20 years ago and of course they fall. Getting them to become aware of their limitations would prevent a lot of falls but it is very difficult. I'd expect that getting them to wear this belt would be similarly difficult.
Yeah, and people who have fallen once already and ended up in the hospital are probably now plenty aware of their limitations, whatever illusions they may have once had.
i just want to say, I concur with this sentiment. A fall and "simple broken hip", unfortunately is usually the beginning of the end. Sadly I've witnessed it several times. It just kicks off a chain reaction of events that leads to most old people not coming back from it.
My grandmother who lived to her mid 90s did a lot of arm exercises to get the blood circulation going. She would stand up and just fling her arms up and down.
Saw this earlier this year (it's a body airbag for old people in case they fall. Invented by a Chinese so eastern way haha), reminds me of the bike helmet some Swedes demonstrated a few years back
Yeah, I think the best thing for this situation is to pay someone to stop by for an hour a day. Probably around breakfast time or lunch. They can make sure they are eating and taking their pills. They can be someone to talk to and something to look forward to. That person can also be someone who can notice if someone is limping a bit or looks "off". Obviously this is expensive but could be a reasonable middle ground to a facility.
Keep moving! Yes! Also, emotional health is important. Many elderly people die of loneliness. If one parent dies, be VERY vigilant about getting the other into a situation where he/she has friends.
Good thing society banned people from visiting their relatives in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. We sentenced the oldest in our population to die in what amounts to solitary confinement.
I don't understand why you are getting down voted. You are dead on.
My wife worked with geriatrics. She directly saw the impact of having friendly people around the elderly. Even if you aren't visited by your family, any visitors can help. The pandemic made this especially difficult. My wife worked to overcome this: she partnered with a local "sniff" (think: old people left the hospital, but they need some help before they go home, so they go to an old-people hotel) to have fun events where people from our church would visit the elderly and just have fun.
But it is dismissive to those people with nobody at all in their lives, to equate "got calls instead of in-person visits" with "nobody knows or cares about you and you will never receive a call from anyone for the rest of your life".
The GGP conflated those experiences but they are qualitatively different.
I'm fully in favour of visiting the old people in your life.
But I wish people would also spend some time brightening the lives of other old people as well.
Motivation and exercise is what keeps people alive and happy. I once knew a 92 year old who benched 140lbs and who’s grip was a vice. He worked out every day for ~2 hrs. Was one of the most impressive things I’ve seen.
All that said, perhaps ask them what they want? For instance, their motivation might not be meals or cleaning. Getting a maid or food service can lighten their load. Similarly, consider a cleaner for yourself! And give yourself more time to spend with them and your young family.
At the end of the day, they’re their individuals. I suspect they’ll have some thoughts. It’s honestly hard to watch sometimes, but all you can do is try to spend time and enjoy each other’s company.