2 ms·
I don't know your specific situation (location, financials, etc) so I can't share specific advice, but will share what we experienced with my grandparents. My
by andygcook 5y ago
I don't know your specific situation (location, financials, etc) so I can't share specific advice, but will share what we experienced with my grandparents.
My grandparents lived to be 94 + 95. One of the biggest improvements for them and us was hiring in-home help aid as they aged. Someone to do laundry, cook a good meal, clean up a bit, etc. It took a lot of the time commitment off my parents to constantly be making sure they were ok. Not to mention it gave my grandparents some much needed social interaction outside of our core family.
Another important factor was attempting to get their financials in order before they passed away and became incapacitated. After some review, we found some... shady accounting from a family member who was managing their affairs without much oversight. I'm not sure who is handling your parent's finances or if you have other family members, but once money is involved, people can get weird about inheritance. I've experienced and heard multiple horror stories about families breaking apart because of mismanaged finances.
I'd also recommend keeping your parents moving, and trying to keep their brains engaged. Bodily health is a vicious cycle once you lose muscle mass. Falls are also a huge issue for elderly people. YMMV, but installing smart speakers in each room of their house that they can use their voice to call for help in an emergency after a fall might be smart. We tried to get a life alert bracelet for my grandmother, but she always took it off. You'd have to train them to use it, but it sounds like your parents are tech savvy enough to get it. My grandparents missed the window for learning how to use the internet, so Alexa was tough. My brother actually took this funny video which got featured on a few meme sites of my grandparents trying to use Alexa: https://www.rightthisminute.com/video/rtmtv-grandpa-doesnt-get-along-alexa https://www.rightthisminute.com/video/rtmtv-grandpa-doesnt-g...
Finally, I'm going to plug my older brother's service, nanagram.co. It allows you to sms photos to a phone number that get printed and shipped to your loved ones in the mail each month. He built it to get photos to my grandparents without the internet. It won't fix the core problems you're describing, but can be a convenient way to give older people something nostalgic to look forward to each month, especially if it's pictures of their grandkids in the mail that they haven't seen on a photo stream.
Full disclosure re: Nanagram - I helped get the product off the ground, but am not involved anymore. Just a proud younger brother sharing a relevant service.
[Update] Another thing you should do is record their stories sooner rather than later. Using old photos as a story prompt is a good way to get the synapses firing on old memories. Once they pass away, all that history in their heads is gone, but it's easy to document some of it with video nowadays. If I'm missing my grandparents, watching old video of them and hearing their voice also really cheers me up.
[Edit - grammar/typos]