Parent Care Warning Flags
Warning Flags Can Signal a Decline
An atypical detail of behavior can be a parent care “call to action”. Alert to warning flags, you can intervene and perhaps avert a crisis. Eldercare can be foreign territory and difficult to navigate. A geriatric care manager can help you understand your parent’s needs; find and manage appropriate parent care; and help you achieve a degree of freedom from worry about your parents.
ELDER ABUSE
Financial abuse
• You learn that your parent has a new friend who makes purchases on your parent’s behalf with your parent’s credit card.
• Your parent enjoys talking on the phone with friendly salespeople and makes donations and purchases in response to the calls.
• A sibling with a history of substance abuse lives with your parent and receives checks from your parent for large sums of money.
Neglect
• A chronically unemployed brother lives with and ‘cares for’ your parent.
• On an unannounced mid-day visit you find your parent’s caregiver watching TV and your parent still in bed. Furthermore, you discover that your parent has severe “bed sores”.
Undue influence
• Your widowed father has hired a caregiver and now intends to marry her.
A sibling with a history of mental illness lives with your paren, limits your parent’s contacts and refuses caregiving assistance.
© 2009 Binocular Vision Advisors, LLC
The material in this website is for informational purposes only. It is not intended to replace the advice of a professional such as an attorney, accountant, financial planner or geriatric care manager. Although this website is periodically updated, it may contain information which is incomplete, inaccurate or out of date.