I am new to the board and am hoping to share similar discussions concerning the care of an elderly parent. I recently had to put my father in a nursing home and am suffering from guilt and sorrow although it is mostly his own fault that he is there. I have dealt with him over the past 10+ years not taking care of himself and refusing any suggestions from his kids to make his situation better. I am on the brink of madness and need advice on how to cope. Thanks in advance for your help in any way.

Hi there,
I know what you're going through......we had to put my mom in the nursing home back in January. We hated to do it, but she was getting worse and harder for us to take care of(she has Alzheimer's Disease). After she went, we were really glad we did put her there, because she just loves it there.
Please don't feel guilty.......putting your father in the nursing home is probably the best thing for him right now. They will be more apt to listen to the nurses and staff there, such as bathing, taking medicine, etc., alot more than they will listen to us.....I know that was the way my mom was.
I hope this helps some.

Hi-

First off let me start off by saying do not feel gulity. Alot of people think that since thier parents took care of them when they were younger they should do for them in return. However for alot of people that can not be the case. I work as a Nursing assistant I have done it for years. In a nursing home they should recieve 24 hour care and someone always looking over them. there are alot of things that later on in life end up being hard for family to do on thier own. I take care of people who can walk, who can walk with assistance, who take 2 people to put them to be and some we use a machine on to lift them up. Day to day home care can be very stressful. And I am sure it is alot harder when it is a family memeber.

As I have said I have been doing this for years. I love what I do. For me there is no other job I would rather be doing. I enjoy taking care of the people I also enjoy talking with the families. I always try to make all my residents feel as if they are part of my family. There are alot of us out there like that. If there is one bad egg in the group. There are always afew more to make up for it. Try and get to know the care givers and create a bond. That way you will know for sure how everything is going for your parent.

Also please keep in mind visitation is so important. So visit as much as you can. I know lives are all hurried these days. I have 4 children and a husband and a full time job. So I know its not easy to always drop on by. But its importnat to do it when you can and when you do you will see there is no reason for you to feel gulity knowing hes in good hands. Surprise visits are the best so you can see first hand how he is doing. Remember alot of us aides love what we do. It is a very, very, very..... Rewarding job. Plus you get new family memebers while doing it. Really I don't even look at it like a job. My children know what I do is important to the people I take care of and to me. My Husband always tells me to quit as I have MS and he makes more than enoght money to suport us but I would not give it up for the world.

So all in all (as you can see I always go on and on in my posts) don't feel gulity. Just let him know you are still there....

Take care!!!!
De http://www.healthboards.com/ubb/angel.gif

1 1/2 years ago we had to put my husbands mother in a nursing home. Many times we found her in her apartment where she had fallen and laid all night. (even though she had a medical alert button which she didn't want to use because she didn't want to bother anyone). Putting her in a nursing home was the best thing we could have done. She looks better than she ever did and we know she is being well taken care of. She is also around other people whereas in her apartment she sat from morning to night in her chair many times even forgetting to eat. Do not feel guilty. I must admit we did at first but after being out there A LOT and seeing how content she is we feel so much better.

I don't have anyone (other than my husband to talk to about this, and I really can't talk to him because I'm so ashamed of the way I feel). His father lives w/us & is in pretty good health to be in his mid 80's....... But sometimes I miss things the way they were before he came to live w/us (alot). I feel so guilty for feeling this way....I know we're providing help & mostly companionship for him and I know know it's the right thing to do.....How can I get past this and stop feeling this way? I don't feel "at home" even though I live in my own home. Any encouraging words anyone can give me will be appreciated.

Well taking care of an aged parent is the hardest and most rewarding thing you'll ever do-next to raising her own kids. It's very important to build private time into your lives. This is sometimes called respite care. Remember if the aged person isn't totally dependent-they don't have to go everywhere with you. Get out for dinner, go to a movie. If they do require supervision hire a sitter for a couple of hours.
Take a break, if there are other siblings, enlist their help.

I don't know where you live but is there a senior center you could take him to to spend a few hours with people his own age. Finding an interest or hobby there for him. Bigger places have like a day care center but for older people. But you do need some time for just you and hubby. I hope this helped.

Irish Cream, thanks for that idea, but I really think he'd be insulted as he has definite opinions about things. Having a hobby is important, I agree, though....he really doesn't have one. Also, I think sometimes, when some get older they feel isolated, but at the same time, they're the ones who isolate themselves! Does that make sense?

How do you help someone is sweet, but opinionated, needs things to do with their time, but resists new things (or either doesn't know where to start)?

saar1234; I had to do the hardest thing last Sept.,
to put my Mother in nursing care. She, too, fell
continually and could not get herself picked up.
She just did not have the muscle to do it, so she,
also, laid there with an emergency button and never
pushed it. I went back there to IL from FL and after
a couple of days, found her on the floor. She had
been there from the day before. I thought she was
dead, then, but we got her to emergency room and
from there she went to Nursing Care. It broke my
heart, but know that she is in the right place. Hope
she forgives me as it was a very difficult decision
to make. She is so special, as everyone's parents are. My thoughts are with you.

I, also, find it is much harder to care for a family member than a total stranger because you are aware of the way things use to be. No matter how much you love your Mom or Dad, it is heart breaking to no longer see them as your parents. Actually, you become the parent and they become the child and you have to treat it as such. If I lived close to you, I would take care of them for you in my home. It is a hard job, but, such a rewarding one. Just visit as much as possible and take them a candy bar or fruit. You will be able to see it in their faces that they know you are someone that loves them even tho they can't express the thought.
You made the right decision. Not all people are caregivers and that does not make you a bad person but a caring one......someone that wants the best for their parents.

God Bless You,

SARAH

Hi Miatakat,
We had to put our Mother in a nursing home a few years back and I felt so guilty. I tried to keep her in my home, but that didn't work out. She had dimentia and was hallucinating and hard to deal with. I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown and she would not go to a dr. because she didn't trust them. She later,was diagnosed with alzhiemers and while in the nursing home they got her lined out on medicine and she was once again, more like her sweet little self. That was one of the hardest things I have ever had to deal with. You done the right thing...even though you love your parents dearly,you can only cope with so much. Do go see him often,ask questions about his care and keep tabs on the medications that they give him and enjoy him while he's still here...we lost our Mom a year ago and I miss her so much. Good luck!

I don't have any solution but I certainly admire the problem. --Ashleigh Brilliant


Recently I noticed a large banking advertisement illustrating a "Well To Do" older family repositioned with a younger family with grandchildren as a gathering into the spacious retirement home. The pitch of the advertisement offered: When the unexpected happens, such as layoffs and unemployment, "Family Matters."

In my building experience I have witnessed apartments being built into an existing home for older parents and younger offspring as a combined living arrangement. It is my understanding that prior to World War II families orientations were structured somewhat differently than they are at present.

There were more rural town and country and farm settings than there are now. The "Rising Middle Class" solutions were more or less family-oriented depending on background, inheritance, and traditional family experience. "Rural Retreat" was a common nomenclature for the "Rest Homes" and "Sanitariums" and "Poor Farms" of a turn of the early to mid-twentieth century experience. Now this designation has changed to "Costal Living."

Beach homes have served a multitude of functions throughout the century. Pre-WWII family settings were far more communal than what we have grown up with in the last fifty-years, and retirement and old age was part and parcel of that communal circumstance. Church communities also played a larger part in terms of "family affiliation." The constant splitting of churches in the rural regions of America, not to mention the closings of older urban churches, have had a large impact in the way the social structure has rearranged itself.

Now we speak of nursing homes that look like extended ranch homes or flatlander motels, and assisted-living communities that look like swank apartment complexes, while our welfare towers are essentially dormitories spread upwards that support a limited subsistence scale. The problem of an escalating and long-lived population base has a lot to do with the basic architectural designs for caring for the young and the elderly.

When veterans returned from WWII, "Single Family" homes were the building boom of the twentieth century experience. Upscale residential communities grew alongside the wide-open educational and corporate opportunities of the university and post-industrial complexes. With the advent of the "GI Bill", "The Military Industrial Complex" essentially incorporated "The American Corporation" within "The Campus Environment."

"The Cosmopolitan Environment" became "The High-Rise City"; but today, with "Suburbs" and "Urban Sprawl", "The Metropolis" has become "The Megalopolis." The entire eastern and western seaboard, the extended boardwalk, invades some three to four hundred miles inland, and it is not uncommon to see seagulls in the inland shopping centers picking over the parking lots of fast food franchises.

In Americana, cultural self-absorption with eternal youthfulness and fast-living reigns supreme as the aging milieu.