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The Sudden Need For Kansas City Senior Care: Now What?

Are you searching for Kansas City senior care services in the metro area? We know it can be stressful, these tips can help you make the best decision when the time comes for choosing the best senior care living services in Kansas City.

When Care Giving Becomes A Crisis

When families are providing support for an older family member or a mom or dad with memory care concerns the workload consistently increases.

It may start with daily phone calls and in-home visits. It might progress to medication setups and reminders, preparing meals and house cleaning.

Siblings often work together to spread the caregiving responsibilities.

But the impending scenario is always looming that there could be a sudden emergency like a fall or a stroke and hospitalization is necessary.

In our office at The Piper Assisted Living and Memory Support in Kansas City we get daily calls from caregivers saying that the discharge planners at the hospital say their loved one can’t go back home without round the clock care.

Suddenly everything changes and there is a real crisis for care.

Sandwich Generation Deals With Stress

With an ever-growing life expectancy, it is not unusual to have three or four generations interacting.

A typical 50-year-old woman may be helping out with her grandchildren while providing support for a parent.

Families have so much on their plate with multiple commitments to their own kids, careers, and a social life that full-time caregiving is impossible.

Even with multiple siblings, it may become impossible to provide 24×7 support. In addition to time limitations comes the stress and guilt of not being present.

Caregiver stress is a recognized health concern whether it is a spouse caring for their loved-one or children taking responsibility.

There is research that indicates that the health risk to caregivers is dramatic.

A study by Richard Schulz, Ph.D. and Scott Beach, Ph.D. found, “participants who were providing care and experiencing caregiver strain had mortality risks that were 63% higher than non-caregiving controls.”

How Can You Prepare For Kansas City Senior Care?

The goal is usually to stay at home for as long as possible, but there may come a time when that is impossible and having a plan for an assisted living facility or memory care facility is imperative.

The best time to consider these issues is when the elder is healthy enough to participate.

Preplanning would include researching various assisted living and memory care facilities, determining payment sources and affordability.

All families should discuss and implement paperwork for a durable power of attorney for healthcare and for finances.

If and when that emergency arrives the transition is so much easier and less stressful. All of us hope that we will remain independent until we die with little additional care but the sobering statistic stated by the Family Caregiver Alliance is, “The lifetime probability of becoming disabled in at least two activities of daily living or of being cognitively impaired is 68% for people age 65 and older.”

The only offense we have is a good defense.

Planning ahead does not ensure that the worst possible scenario won’t happen but it does promise that the stress impact will be lower!

The team at Piper can help you make the best decision for your loved one, please contact us today to schedule a tour or on-site consultation.