Moving your parents into a care home can be stressful for all parties. Your parents may only be grudgingly going and making regular mean comments about how you don’t love them. If their health requires around-the-clock care, or if they’re feeling socially isolated, however, then moving into that care home can be the absolute best thing for them.
Care homes come in all shapes and sizes, so you can easily find a stunning one that’s more similar to a five-star hotel than anything they may be thinking about. So, if you want to smooth the way for your parents, follow this guide to ease the transition.
Choose a High-Quality Care Home
If your parents are excited about the care home they’re moving into, everything will immediately become so much easier. There are top-notch and brand-new care homes like the new Signature Care Homes property in Highgate. This property has been designed with Stirling University’s Gold Standard Framework in mind. This means it’s not just great for the elderly but for those with memory-related diseases like dementia as well. What this means for your parents is that they get full support, no matter what. If one of your parents has dementia, for example, then a care home can help ease your other parent’s carer role while also supporting their health and wellbeing.
Try to find a great option that’s also easy for you to reach. So long as they are close by, they will be far easier to stay in touch with after they move in, which in turn will help you maintain a close relationship with your family members.
Make Sure It’s Full of Things to Do
Staying mentally, socially, and physically active is essential to maintain a high quality of life as you get older. When choosing a care home with your parents, always make sure to find one that offers the best of all worlds. This means the schedule is full of low-impact exercises, art classes, day excursions, and events. You should feel jealous about the sheer number of things available. After all, they finally have the time to relax, unwind, and focus on the things they want to do, not the things they have to do.
Help Them Settle In
Help them with the move. This means helping them pick out what they want to bring and what they want to pack up in storage or even sell on. They can rent out their family home or even sell it outright. Do whatever makes the most sense financially so that they can enjoy a high quality of life throughout their retirement.
Look for a care home that uses care software, this way you can be assured that both you and the carers have access to all of the relevant information and can make the settling-in process quicker and easier.
Create a Regular Communication Routine Immediately
One of the common fears for those moving into a care home is that their loved ones will just forget about them. Ease those worries immediately by setting up a regular communication routine and sticking with it. This will include phone calls, video calls, texting, and in-person visits. Try to see your parents at least once per week, for example, either at their care home or by bringing them back to yours for a family dinner. Plan bigger events and activities, like a trip to the cinema, to a play, or even a holiday, regularly so that they have ongoing things to look forward to. As a bonus, you get to make a few extra key memories with your parents while you’re at it.
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