Category: Tips

Caregiving is an important role in many of our lives, but it can be emotionally and physically exhausting. It can also take up every moment of “free time.” When we are caring for a loved one, the idea of taking time away from those duties can feel selfish.  The fact is, you probably can’t be as good of a caretaker if you never let yourself have a break. Check out these tips for helping to take care of yourself as well as your loved ones.

Earlier this year, we started a short series of posts about having difficult conversations with your aging loved ones. In the first post, we discussed how to prepare for potentially stressful conversations. In the second post, we moved on to the day of your difficult discussion, with ideas of how to start and end the conversation with minimal stress. However, when talking about stressful topics like health, aging, or finances, conflict is sometimes inevitable. In our final post in this series, we’ll offer some suggestions for how to respond to conflict when it arises. Resolving Conflict With the STATE Method The book Crucial Conversations outlines the STATE method, as a way of working through conflict outside of being “right” or “wrong”. Check out this article for a more in-depth examination of the book and the STATE Method. Share Your Facts, THEN Tell Your Story The STATE Method separates out the facts from your interpretation of them. When conflict arises, taking a moment to identifying the facts of the situation ensures that you can separate your emotions and opinions from specific events. After that, you can share your “story”: how you interpreted the facts and how they made or are making you feel. Ask Another To Share After you have explained the facts, emotions, and impacts that you experienced, ask your parent to share their own facts and story. If emotions are very high, you may both wish to start by writing these pieces down, and then you can swap, read,…

In this blog post series, we are exploring the process of discussing difficult topics with our aging loved ones. Topics like money, health, and life changes can be stressful, but communication is vital. In our previous blog post, we identified ways that you can prepare for a difficult conversation.  Once you have prepared, it’s time for the talk. While in many cases, the actual conversation may be much less stressful than you feared, you may find that you—and your parent—respond in ways that you weren’t expecting.

It can be difficult to discuss topics like money and finances, especially with seniors and aging parents. As children, your parents are the ones that take care of you. They cover finances and any emotional stresses kids go through. But as they age, the roles reverse. The tricky part comes when your aging parents are not aware of this role reversal. Often, they still want to take care of you and don’t think they need help with their money. While this conversation can be hard, it’s important. Even though we don’t like to think about a time when our beloved seniors can’t be with us, you will be thankful you prepared for these changes ahead of time. This way, when the time comes, you can focus on grieving instead of stressing about finances and money.

It gets more and more difficult as we get older to keep up with a healthy exercise routine. Not only is it harder to find the time, but for some older adults it is physically impossible. Their bodies do not move the way they used to, and things that used to feel good are now painful. The trouble is that keeping an active body is crucial to maintaining a high quality of life. As Life Goes On has compiled this list of easy exercise routines for seniors to help keep your loved ones active and healthy. Of course, we always recommend checking with their physician or medical practitioner before undertaking any exercise. Once they get the all clear, try helping them to implement these into their routine!

Moving from your own home to an assisted living facility can be a daunting task. In many ways it can be emotionally and physically exhausting for seniors downsizing from their home. As caregivers and people who care about those moving, we want to help them in this difficult transition as graciously as possible. We have some downsizing tips for seniors from As Life Goes On Elder Care to ease the move and keep everyone healthy and happy. 

Once adults start to experience mobility or cognition loss, it can be difficult to find new activities and ways to pass the time. Although staying active may be tough, it is especially important for seniors to get out of the house and keep moving. Mobility and cognition loss do create some tricky restrictions, but we put together a few healthy activities for seniors that you can add to your toolbox.