4 Ways to Help Your Ageing Parents
It’s a bit hard seeing our parents age, they’ve been there for us our entire lives. When we’re kids we think they’re invincible, and it’s only once we’re grown ourselves that we can see them ageing and their quality of life decline. It’s important to be proactive and start thinking about ways to help your parents while they age. Here are my top 4 ways to help your ageing parents, no matter your budget or financial situation.
1. Encourage Them to go for a Medical
Seeking a medical check up when you’re older can be downright depressing. Your body slowly starts to decline and you’re simply not at your peak anymore. For this reason, many elderly people start to put off regular medical check ups, which can be where issues start to crop up. It may be small things like seeking proper diabetic foot care, or it may be larger things like having regularly breast scans. Regular checkups are what will allow you to catch anything while it’s a small problem, before it becomes unmanageable. Be aware that many people haven’t saved properly for retirement, so there’s also a good chance that these checkups may be outside your parents financial means.
2. Check Over Their Home
If your parents want to age at home, then you might want to do a walk through of their home looking for potential issues or things that may need to be changed. You’ll also want to inspect things before the next winter comes, to ensure they’ll be warm enough and that their houses will weather the winter. You might notice that it could be worth adding in a simple thermostat to help improve their heating efficiency, you can find some great options on this website.
3. Help With Technology
It can be challenging as you age and technology seems to move at light speed ahead. Many things that appear basic to us, can be challenging and extremely frustrating for our parents. Going to their home for a day and helping them make the most of their technology can help them feel more empowered. Likewise, if your parents own a business, there’s a good chance they’re not maximising technology like SEO and digital advertisements to get the most out of their business. It may be worth outsourcing some of their business to a company like Ignite Digital to help them grow their customer base and improve their income.
4. Quality Time Together
The beset thing you can do for your parents is to spend time with them. It doesn’t have to cost a lot of money – it can be something as simple as popping over for dinner and watching their favourite show with them. You can include them in your family trips, or have them over for special occasions. Ageing can be quite a lonely process, as many friends and family members pass away, most elderly people’s social circles simply diminish. For that reason, spending quality time with your parents is by far the best gift you can give to them. If you live quite far away, it may be as simple as setting up a regular phone call to check up on them and to update them on all that’s going on in your life.
After all your parents have done for you, it’s natural that you want to give back. Hopefully these tips inspire you for some simple but effective ways to help your ageing parents.