Talking to your parents about moving into aged care

Helping your elderly parents maintain their independence in their own home can be a Catch 22 situation. On one hand, remaining in a familiar environment can reduce anxiety and save some money. On the other hand, their loneliness and worries about safety can quickly outweigh in-home care.  Sometimes making a move is the safest option, but talking about moving into aged care can be hard.

If your parents have always maintained they will stay in their own home, convincing them to move to a retirement village or aged care facility will need to managed gradually and handled sensitively.

Following are some ideas on how to talk to your parents about moving into aged care, based on the experiences of Care to Move’s clients who have gone through similar experiences.

1. Be sensitive to your parents’ feelings.  Moving into aged care or what they might see as ‘the end of the road’ isn’t easy.  This process needs to be about your parents not about you.
2. Gently plant the seed of how assisted living could make life easier and much more social.
3. On another occasion discuss how different retirement and aged care villages are nowadays, in comparison to ‘old people’s homes’ of the past.  Talk about the new buildings, fabulous interiors and excellent facilities on offer.
4. Wait for a ‘teachable moment’.  This might be a fall, an exceptionally lonely day, a pot being left to boil dry.  Essentially an opportunity to say “That was a little scary for everyone.  Do you think we would all have felt better if someone else was around?  Perhaps we could go and look at the retirement village?”
5. Suggest visiting a friend or other family member who is living in a modern independent living facility.  During the visit stress the social aspects and show interest in how much privacy the residents have.  Comment on how individual each of the apartments are, people taking their own furnishings and belongings.
6. In the weeks following the visit, casually discuss the benefits of not having to look after a whole yard but still being able to having pots and flowers to tend to.  Not having to maintain a whole house, but still have jobs to do if that’s what is desired.  The freedom to be alone, with plenty company whenever they would like to be social.
7. Ask a third party e.g. neighbour/lawyer/spiritual leader (or even Care to Move) to talk to your parents about a possible move.  Sometimes having someone independent discuss the benefits of moving and the problems of staying makes a big difference.  As much as possible, your parents’ need to feel in control and be involved in the decision-making process.