Is Your Senior Refusing Help?

It’s a terrible feeling as a family caregiver to know that your senior needs more help, even to know that you can’t do it all on your own, and to have her refuse that help. You might need to dig into why your elderly family member is against the idea in order to help her to see exactly how beneficial caregivers can be for her.

Change Is Really Difficult

Change is never easy and it’s possible that your elderly family member is already dealing with a lot of change as it is. Her health and other issues may be forcing changes in her life, so to also hear that some assistance would be good for her might feel like one change too many. In-home care providers are not there to cause unnecessary change in your senior’s life, though.

Control Is a Major Concern

One of the reasons your senior may resist change and even help can boil down to control. There are probably very few things in your aging family member’s life that are truly under her control at this stage. She may be putting her foot down when and where she can, even if it’s in a situation that doesn’t make a lot of sense to you or to other people who care about her.

Independence Is Also a Big Issue

The flip side of control involves independence. Your elderly family member may worry that home care providers might take away some of her ability to remain independent. That doesn’t have to be the case at all, but this is a very common fear. It may take finding ways to bolster your senior’s independence for her to believe that it isn’t going anywhere.

No One Wants to Feel as if They’re a Burden to Others

Something else to remember is that your elderly family member probably also has a very real fear of becoming a burden to you and to other family members. No one enjoys that feeling. As much as you and other people who care for your senior may tell her that helping her is not a burden, she may still harbor those fears deep down.

Talk with Your Senior about What to Expect

It’s vital that you and your elderly family member sit down and have a conversation about what she can expect with in-home care providers. Talking about the details and what exactly they will do for her can help her to share her feelings and concerns. It also gives you a chance to talk about what your concerns are for her and how you worry that she won’t have help when she needs it. These conversations aren’t always easy to have, but they can really help to work through the misunderstandings that your senior might be buying into.

It can also be a good idea to offer your senior a trial run with in-home care services. If she knows that nothing is written in stone just yet, she can feel a little more at ease about accepting the situation as it is and seeing what happens.