Your elderly parent’s safety should be one of your top priorities when creating a care routine for them. As their family caregiver, you are responsible for not only identifying what types of risks that they may face, but also implementing steps in their care and in their daily routine to help them reduce these risks and stay safe.
October 7 is National Personal Safety Day. This is an ideal opportunity for you to go over safety issues that your elderly parent may deal with and help them to adopt habits and approaches that will reduce their risks and keep them safer as they age in place.
In today’s society, receiving multiple phone calls a day from solicitors, charities, and others is not uncommon. For an elderly adult, however, this situation can turn from an annoyance to a threat if they are not able to detect or manage an unscrupulous caller. Going over these issues with your parent and creating a phone call approach can help them to protect their safety, finances, and identity.
Use these tips to help your parent manage phone calls safely:
• Consider an answering machine. Voicemail is far more prevalent these days, but answering machines can be extremely beneficial for elderly adults. These allow them to listen to the person’s voice before answering so that they, or their caregiver or provider, can make a determination about whether to answer. If they do not answer, you can then review a message later and take the necessary steps.
• Never guess. There is a common scam that involves someone calling an elderly person and asking “do you know who this is?” in hopes that that senior will feel pressured and guess a family member. The criminal can then use that to ask for personal information or money. If your parent is ever asked this question, they should not guess. They should simply say “no”.
• Have someone else answer. If you are uncomfortable with your parent answering the phone due to cognitive functioning decline or other issues, consider asking that your parent not answer the phone. Instead, make sure that you or a care provider are in the home and can answer.
• Never provide personal information. Assure your parent that genuine companies and services will never ask for detailed identifying personal information over the phone. They may ask for the last four digits of their Social Security number, but never the full one, and will never ask for things such as passwords or PIN’s. If your parent is asked for this information, they should hang up immediately.
Being a family caregiver for an elderly adult can be stressful and challenging. Fortunately, elderly care can help. If you have found that your parent’s challenges and needs are more than you feel that you can handle successfully and efficiently on your own, or your own limitations have increased so that you are no longer able to do for your senior what you feel that they need or deserve, an elderly care provider could be an invaluable addition to your care routine.
This in-home care provider can step in to fill care gaps and ensure that your loved one gets everything that they need at all times, helping to support your efforts in giving them the highest quality of life possible as they age in place. Not only can this care enhance your parent’s life, but it can also be a benefit to you, easing stress, giving you peace of mind, and allowing you to focus on other obligations and needs in your life while knowing that your parent has what they need.
If you or an aging loved one are considering Elderly Care Services in Newton MA, or anywhere in Eastern Massachusetts, please call the caring staff at CARE Resolutions – (508) 906-5572.
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