How Should You Help Your Senior to Adjust to Senior Care?

Adjusting to having someone around all the time, even someone that is helping her considerably, might be difficult for your elderly family member. Senior care providers are trying to make your senior’s life easier, and yet she might still resist. Here are some ideas that can help.

Try to Put Yourself in Your Senior’s Shoes

It’s really important that you take some time regularly to put yourself in your senior’s shoes. You know what things feel and look like from your point of view, but this is your senior’s life. When you take a closer look at how she’s feeling, that can help you to understand some of her reactions and it can help you to be more compassionate with her in general.

Practice Patience Even When it’s Tough

Compassion will help with this next part, too. Patience can sometimes be difficult when you’re doing something for your senior, like hiring senior care providers, and she’s fighting the situation. Patience allows you to keep a cooler head about whatever your senior throws your way.

Ask Your Senior to Be Specific with You

It’s one thing for your elderly family member to just not want senior care providers around, but you need for her to be more specific with you. Ask her some open-ended questions that require more than a just telling you yes or now. When she tells you that she feels or thinks a certain way about the situation, ask her why and truly listen.

Take Changes as Slowly as Possible

There are a lot of big changes your senior has to just accept, and there might not be much you can do about that. But there are other things that are more within your control, like how often senior care providers work with your senior. Taking some of those changes as slowly as you can helps to give her a chance to adjust.

Give Her Choices Whenever Possible

Choices make a huge difference for aging adults. Your elderly family member may have lost more ability to make certain choices in her life than you realize, and that takes a serious toll on her. Even when the situation seems like it’s a small choice that doesn’t matter, offer the choice.
You just want what’s best for your elderly family member, and on some level she understands that. But you have to back that up with actions that prove you want the best for her.