Long distance caregiving for elderly parents

When your aging elderly parents are hundreds or thousands of miles away, its a struggle to ensure their proper care. It can be even harder if one of your parents has passed and the other is left living alone. Many people are forced to juggle their demanding full time jobs with becoming the long-distance caregiver of their elderly mother or father. There’s the daily phone calls and the frequent visits that eat up vacation time time spent fixing up a parents home, dealing with bills, doctor visits and getting the estate in order. It’s always nice to spend time with family, but as an aging parents care becomes more and more vital paired with the everyday demands of work and other family, being in two places at once is extremely difficult, not to mention stressful.

An estimated 7 million Americans are long-distance caregivers, according to the National Institute on Aging. Not only that but the annual financial burden is nearly $9,000 for long-distance caregivers, far more than that of caregivers who live nearby their loved one, according to the National Alliance for Caregiving and Eldercare.

Help is available, however. Many turn to the expertise of a geriatric care manager, such as offered by Physicians Choice Private Duty in the Omaha area.

A care manager will:

• Assess the type of care needed
• Take the necessary steps to start a care plan and keep it functioning
• Assess the home or living situation to make sure it’s a safe and friendly environment
• Resolve family conflicts and other long term care issues
• Conduct ongoing assessments and make sure proper changes happen
• Oversee direct in-home care
• Assist with medication monitoring
• Help with placement into a nursing home and monitor care received in a nursing home
• Coordinate medical appointments
• Assist families with decision making
• Much more

The duties of a long-distance caregiver are many. A geriatric care manager knows this and will help assist family members with all aspects of their aging elderly parents care, making the burden much more bearable.

“Physicians Choice Private Duty solves the problems families face in finding home health care providers they can trust. Providers who will focus on strategies that keep parents in their homes. To learn more about our health care services, visit https://private-duty.pchhc.com/services/“