Home Helpers

Plan ahead for aging parents

Emma Dickison is president of Cincinnati-based Home Helpers.

When I was 17 years old, the matriarch of my family, my grandmother, suffered her fifth stroke. Afterward her mind was still sharp, but physically she was never the same. She needed care 24 hours a day. She was lucky to have family close to her in Kentucky.

In the summers and on holidays we would drive to Kentucky from our home in Florida to spend time with family and help care for Nan. When I was a senior in college, my mother suffered her third stroke after a surgery and took a turn for the worse cognitively and physically. Six months after my mom's stroke, my dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

My family and I felt overwhelmed, stressed, confused and frustrated that we did not know where to turn for help. Life spiraled out of control much faster than anyone could have anticipated. I turned in my roles of daughter, granddaughter, wife, friend and sister and became a caregiver to my mother and father while finishing my last semester of college. A large, extended family was able to help us.

Many are not so lucky. Nearly half of American adults are members of the so-called sandwich generation, faced with caring for the escalating needs of aging grandparents, parents and their own children at the same time.

What sets this generation apart is the sheer number of people who will need to be cared for over the coming decades. An alarming 76 million people, or about a quarter of the U.S. population are Baby Boomers. In the next 15 years, more than one in five Americans will be over the age of 65. While these Boomers' increasing medical and financial needs continually receive appropriate and important attention, what is usually missed is the effect this will have on families.

How will we provide the care our aging loved ones require, when most of us are already swamped with the demands of a career and taking care of our own children? How can you be mom, daughter, caregiver, wife, employee, friend and yourself all at once?

I know from personal experience how care needs escalate quickly and without warning. I also see it in my line of work every single day. Family caregivers start out helping with a few chores "here and there" and soon are spending hours running errands, cleaning the house, doing laundry, cooking, bathing and helping Mom or Dad with almost all their daily needs. The truth becomes clear only in hindsight: They traded in their role of daughter or son for that of caregiver, and they didn't even know it was happening.

Life becomes incredibly challenging and difficult to manage when you're feeling so overwhelmed. On average, family caregivers provide 20 hours of work weekly to aging relatives. These family caregivers lose their sense of self and then begin to feel guilty, resentful and angry.

In order to meet this growing challenge, Americans require a stronger support system. We have to be willing to accept help.

Conversations about aging need to happen sooner. Many of us have an idea of what will happen when Mom or Dad starts to need more help at home, but how many of us have actually talked to them about it? Do not wait. Planning allows you to have more quality time with your loved ones and some peace of mind for the road ahead.

My family's care needs sneaked up on me, and I would give anything to have spent more quality time with my father as his daughter, not as his caregiver