One of the major decisions is where the elderly parent will live.  For many working adults, it is much easier to take care of an elderly parent if they agree to move into the son or daughter’s home.  In this way, many people can continue working and spending time with their families as well as take care of an elderly parent.  Depending on the health and independence of the aging parent, different amounts of extra help might be needed.  It may be the case that the parent can be home alone all day, but if that is not the case, there are plenty of organizations and people to turn to in order to get some help and support in the caregiving process.

One option is to find an adult day care center where healthier elderly people can go during the day in order to socialize and stay active with other people.  At such a day care facility, people play games, listen to music together, organize trips and have lunch as a group.  For most elderly people, this is much preferred over sitting home alone every day.  Many aging people are not amenable to the idea of an adult day care center, but do remind them that they won’t know if they like it or not until they’ve tried it.  Most elderly people who go to such a center end up being huge fans of the arrangement.

If your aging parent is not in good enough condition to go to a recreational adult day care center, you could also check to see if there’s a center in your area that includes health care.  Such centers exist, they are just fewer and far between. These care centers are an excellent option for having an aging parent taken care of during the day while you are at work without having to put them into a nursing home.

Home care is also an option, although it offers fewer social benefits for the aging patient.  Home care can either take on the form of medical care brought into the home or it can be as simple as hiring someone to come over an hour before lunch to do a little cleaning, having lunch with the aging parent and then cleaning up, visiting for a while, and then going on their way again.  Depending on the type of home care that is necessary, the range in price is huge. Home health care can get very expensive very quickly, but having a local come over for a few hours every day can be very affordable and produce significantly satisfying results.

Talk with your aging parent to get a feel for what it is that they would like to do in terms of getting their needs met without moving to a nursing home.  Also, talk to your siblings and other family members to see what everyone else thinks and to see if anyone is willing to help.  For many families, the constraint of cost makes it necessary to keep all of the adult caregiving within the family, and even if that’s not, per se, necessary, it can be a very nice experience for all involved to each have a hand in the caregiving process.  If one person does all of the caregiving, it grows very stressful and very tiring, but if ten family members each spend two hours a week, you might all enjoy it so much that you’ll never want to hire home care!