Making the decision to send your parent to nursing home is not an easy choice for children. But it is most often imposed when the senior no longer has the ability to take care of himself at home and the children are worried about the health of their parent. To prevent this decision from being sudden and a source of anxiety for both your parent and yourself, it is best to discuss life in nursing homes well in advance so that you can discuss together the reasons that lead to such a decision and consider the points positive for the elderly person to live in a secure environment.
Accommodation establishments for dependent elderly people (Ehpad) designate medicalized retirement homes which accommodate elderly people over the age of 60, most often with a loss of autonomy or, in any case, who need help and day-to-day care for physical or mental reasons.
The nursing homes offer comprehensive care for seniors which includes accommodation in a single room, catering, entertainment, support for loss of autonomy and care. Making the decision to send his parent to nursing home relieves the elderly person and his relatives of all the stewardship to take care of daily when his parent encounters more and more difficulties living alone at home.
For all children whose parents still live at home, the first signs of their loss of autonomy are cause for concern. Anxiety that is all the greater if his parent is seriously affected, for example if he suffers from Alzheimer's disease, which causes significant disabilities.
From the moment when the fears of leaving a parent alone at home due to accidents that may be caused by the loss of autonomy, or the danger that his loved one will no longer take care of him properly, no longer eat or badly, etc., the decision to send him to an Ehpad must be seriously considered because it is fully justified.
Elderly people who still live at home and who are able to express their wishes, if they do not have a disease that prevents them from expressing their wishes, can also express their preferences in terms of changes in their living conditions with age.
An elderly parent who suffers from living alone or who is aware that he can no longer take charge of all the tasks of daily life may decide on his own to prefer to go and live in an nursing home and be able to benefit from support for his loss of life. autonomy, as well as a secure environment.
For children, it is important to take into account the wishes of their parent and then decide whether to enter an Ehpad for their personal comfort. In any case, when the elderly person is capable, it is very important to obtain their consent.
Making the decision to send your relative to an nursing home can also come about when you realize that caring for them on a daily basis as a loved one is increasingly difficult and has consequences for their own well-being.
In fact, taking care of a parent who is sick or losing their autonomy every day is a task that children want to take on as often as possible, and for as long as possible, but most of the time it turns out to be source of difficulty for relatives, for example, in reconciling work and family life, sometimes with serious consequences for the well-being and mental health of the caregiver.
All these signs should alert and encourage the decision to send your parent to nursing home, to also protect yourself.
So that the decision to send your relative to an nursing home is as easy as possible when the time comes, it is strongly advised to raise the subject early with your elderly relative. This allows in particular, on the one hand, to collect the wishes of his parent when he is still able to express them and, on the other hand, also to talk about retirement homes, what they really are, how lives, what they offer to enliven everyday life, etc., and often to make them less "scary".
Discussing early with your parent about a possible entry into an nursing home in a few years can also be an opportunity to decide together to go and visit several of them, to get to know these places of life better, but also, why not, to already choose the one that best suits his parent in terms of living environment, atmosphere, type of accommodation, geographical location, etc.
