Your mother resists in-home helpers, insisting you can wait on her. Your frail father won’t stop driving. Your aunt denies the need for a personal care aide, in spite of her unwashed hair and soiled clothes. Your grandmother refuses to move to an assisted living facility “because it’s full of old people.”
Sound familiar? Nothing is harder for a family caregiver than an older loved one who refuses needed help. “This is one of the most common and difficult caregiving challenges that adult kids face,” says Donna Cohen, a clinical psychologist and author of “The Loss of Self: A Family Resource for the Care of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders.”
Before pushing your mother too hard to accept help, try to understand her fears about aging, says Cohen: “Many older people see themselves as proud survivors. They think ‘I’ve been through good times and bad, so I’ll be fine on my own.’ Plus, they don’t believe their children understand the physical and emotional toll of age-related declines.”
An older adult in the early stages of cognitive impairment may be the most difficult to deal with. “Your angry father or agitated mother is aware of this miserable change in their brain they don’t quite understand,” Cohen adds. Calm reassurance will help them cope with a frightening loss of function.
It’s normal for family caregivers to feel upended and to experience rage, helplessness, frustration and guilt while trying to help an intransigent older loved one, says Barbara Kane, co-author of “Coping with Your Difficult Older Parent: A Guide for Stressed-Out Children.” “You may revert to the same coping mechanisms you had during adolescent power struggles with your parent — screaming, yelling or running out of the room,” she says. “You need to understand what parental behaviors trigger your emotional response and realize you have other choices.”
Here are nine strategies to help you overcome the objections of a recalcitrant loved one:
1. Have conversations early on
Ideally, families have relaxed conversations about caregiving long before a health crisis. Look for opportunities to ask questions like, “Mom, where do you see yourself getting older?” or “How would you feel about hiring a housekeeper or driver so you could stay home?”
2. Ask questions more than once — and in different ways
Ask open-ended questions and give your loved one time to answer, says Mary Stehle, licensed clinical social worker and Care.com senior care advisor. “You can say, ‘Dad, what’s it like to take care of mom 24 hours a day?'” It may take several conversations to discover the reason your mother, a meticulous housekeeper, has fired five aides in a row is simply that they neglected to vacuum under the dining room table.
3. Validate your loved one’s feelings
Ask questions to determine why an older adult refuses help — then you can tailor a solution, Kane says. “Is it about a lack of privacy, fears about the cost of care, losing independence or having a stranger in the house?” says Kane. To build trust, listen with empathy, and validate rather than deny your loved one’s feelings.
4. Offer options
If possible, include your parent in interviews or in setting schedules when hiring in-home care, says Stehle. Let them choose certain days of the week or times of day to have a home health aide come. Emphasize an aide will be a companion for walks, concerts, museum visits and other favorite activities.
5. Recruit outsiders
“Sometimes it’s easier for a parent to talk to a professional rather than a family member,” says Cohen. Instead of hearing it from just you, ask a social worker, a doctor or nurse, a priest or minister — even an old poker buddy — to be a part of the conversations and to suggest that your parent might benefit from help.
6. Prioritize problems
Make two lists, says Cohen, one for your loved one’s problems and another for the steps you’ve already taken — and where to get more help. “If you don’t categorize your efforts, caregiving becomes this huge weight,” says Cohen. Writing it down and numbering by priority can relieve a lot of stress.
7. Use indirect approaches
If your father has dementia, offering less information may be more effective at times, suggests Stehle. “You could let your parent know the aide is someone very helpful who can take your father on walks, fix him meals, and help him throughout the day. You don’t need to explain every aspect of care the aide will provide before the relationship has been formed. This may make your loved one feel less threatened.”
8. Take it slow
Weave a new aide in gradually, says Kane. Start with short home visits or meet for coffee, then bring the aide along to the doctor’s a few weeks later. “You leave early on some pretext, letting the aide accompany your parent home.”
9. Accept your limits
As long as a senior loved one is not in danger or endangering others, let them make their own choices, says Cohen. “You can’t be at your parent’s side all the time. Bad things can happen, and you can’t prevent them,” she says. “You need to accept limits on what you can accomplish and not feel guilty.”
*Originally written by Elizabeth Pope
