November 11, 2025 • 21 mins
Caring for aging parents involves a blend of practical planning, emotional support, and self-care for the caregiver. Key steps include starting conversations early, organizing legal and financial affairs, creating a care plan, and utilizing available resources to prevent burnout.Planning and Communication
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- Start the conversation early: Discuss future needs, preferences, and concerns with your parents while they are still healthy and able to make decisions. Position yourself as a partner, not an authority, to foster trust and respect for their autonomy.
- Involve family members: Hold family meetings to discuss caregiving roles and responsibilities. Clearly defining who handles what (e.g., finances, medical appointments, daily support) helps prevent conflict and ensures all needs are met.
- Use “I” statements: Frame concerns in terms of your feelings rather than accusations (e.g., “I’m concerned you might fall,” instead of “You can’t live alone anymore”).
- Be patient and persistent: It may take multiple conversations to address complex issues. Avoid power struggles, and focus on the benefits of any proposed solutions, such as increased safety or social interaction.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Gentlemen, I have your attention. Please the show stops it
Liay seven six Hill Shoot fun Go.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Good evening and welcome to another episode of Delay but
Not Denied the podcast where I am your host, Latanya
little John. Tonight, we will be discussing caring for an
aging parent. But before I start, I would like to
read a Bible verse that I found concerning your parents
(01:53):
and it's Proverbs twenty three and twenty two. Listen to
your father who gave you life, and do not despise
your mother when she is old. So those close to
me know that my mom right now is in the hospital.
She is on her third trip to at a hospital
(02:17):
stay this year. She's dealing with Louis body dementia, Parkinson's disease,
and neuropathy. Right now, we are in the middle of
dealing with nursing home neglect. So I'm trying to do
(02:42):
my due diligence as her daughter to get all of
this done. The reason for my topic tonight, I'm adopted,
and a lot of people that are adopted and know
that they're adopted disconnect with their adoptive parents, where I
(03:05):
often have felt very disconnected from my family as a
whole being adopted. As I was saying, you know, my
mom is going through what she's going through. She's had
a couple of strokes, a couple of heart attacks. She
hasn't always been the nicest person, but lately I've been
(03:33):
getting aside of her that I've been longing for majority
of my life, and it's been it's been different, but
accepted to receive the love that she's given so freely
now that I've longed for my entire life. She adopted
(03:56):
me at eighteen months old, and so I've been trying
to win her over, I would say majority of my life,
so to be her caregiver now that she's older. My
(04:17):
mom is eighty four, yes, eighty four years old, God will,
and she'll be eighty five in December. Life has not
always been easy or fair for her or myself for
that matter, but we do what we can and we
(04:39):
try to put one foot in front of the other
and just keep moving. I also wanted to read some
things I found about caring for your elderly parent, and
it says caring for aging parents can involve managing their health, finances,
and emotional well being. It's important to involve your parents
(05:02):
in the planning process and prioritize communication to understand their
needs and wishes. Here are some tips for caring for
aging parents. Get help. Trying to care for parents alone
can lead to stress and burn out. Consider asking family
and friends to check in investing and monitoring technology like
(05:26):
alarms or GPS tracker. So for me, she has a
constant circle of myself, my son, my aunt, and a cousin,
and we all try to jump in where we can.
She also has people from her outside world from when
(05:50):
she used to be a caregiver. They check in on her,
and I'm forever grateful for them that the fact that
they're still keeping in touch with her long after their
parents have passed away. It also says excess home safety
(06:12):
work with a geriatric care coordinator to excess home safety
develop a plan to help prevent fall in other dangers. So,
right now, the hard part of my journey with this
is knowing that there's nothing that I can do to
ease her pain. She's constantly hurting. She's crying now. I've
(06:39):
never seen my mom cry. She's tough as nails, but
seeing her cry now and beg people not to touch
her has been really, really hard. Really hard, and this
is what I'm seeing is is possibly the beginning stages
(07:03):
of what's to come next, the inevitable. Prior prioritize God,
I can't talk. Communication. Communication can help strengthen your bond
and understand your parents' needs and wishes. Take care of yourself.
Caring for someone can be emotionally and physically draining, so
(07:27):
it's important to take care of your own health, include
your parent. Involving your parents and the planning process can
help them feel less like they're losing control. My mom
has always been one that likes to be in control
(07:47):
of everything, her finances, her health, just her everyday life.
And being in a situation where she's having to depend
on people to help her out has been like the
greatest struggle for her. Right now, she's not able to walk,
(08:10):
and she's in physical therapy, but walking is not I
guess something that she's going to be able to get
back to dealing with everything that she's dealing with the
effect that it's had on me emotionally, it's been hard
(08:34):
just watching her go through all of that, and as
I said before, not being able to fix any of it.
For it's definitely not easy watching her in pain and
then with her having Louis body dementia, she goes in
and out with different things in her head. She doesn't
(08:57):
know where she is sometimes and oftentimes she just she'll
repeat herself a lot, and I wanted to explain what
Louis body dementia was. Louis body dementia is an umbrella
term for two similar and common subtypes of dementia. Dementia
(09:21):
with Louis bodies and Parkinson's dementia. Both are characterized by
changes in thinking, movement, behavior, and mood. Behaviors associated with
Louis body dementia include sleep disturbances like acting out dreams,
(09:43):
mood psychiatric changes such as depression or apathy, cognitive fluctuations
with periods of confusion and alertness. People with LBD may
also exhibit hallucinations and delusions, leading to behaviors like believing
(10:04):
a loved one is an imposter of food is poisoned.
Involuntary movements such as shuffling, gait, balance problems and difficulty
with coordination also contribute to a higher to higher risk
of fall. These are things that my mom have definitely, definitely,
(10:25):
definitely been dealing with as far as her feeling like
somebody's out to get her. She felt like some of
the people at the nursing home was trying to unalive her.
She does have the shuffling gait where she rocks back
(10:48):
and forth for her steps or whatever. But sleep and
movement behaviors, acting out dreams which can include yelling or
violent movements while asleep, excessive daytime sleepiness, sleeping for long
periods of time during the day. She does that a lot,
(11:13):
and she sleeps so much during the day. When she's
up at night, you're trying to calm her down to
get her to relax and go to sleep. But oftentimes
it's just a battle with her, you know, not knowing
what's going on around her. So it keeps her with questions.
(11:38):
And it's been really hard, really really hard. And again
I was talking about the shuffling gait and balance problems,
a shuffling walk with an increased risk of fall. She
does walk with assistance as far as like a cane
or a walker. She has tremors and that's shaking or
(12:03):
you know, sometimes muscle stiffness, difficulty swallowing. Right now, she
doesn't have that problem. They do have her on a
soft diet where she's just eating very very soft and
fine food. She doesn't like it. She wants to eat
(12:25):
pig feet and chitlings, is what she told me yesterday.
But prayerfectly we'll get back to that. Hopefully she'll be
able to enjoy the things that she once enjoyed before,
you know, before again. The inevitable her cognitive and perceptual behaviors.
(12:50):
Mental function of fluctuations, periods of alertness and a tension
that vary throughout the day. Visual halluci nation, seeing things
that are not there, which can be detailed and sometimes interactive.
That's the hard part for me, because she's constantly telling
me that she sees these children around her and they're
(13:14):
playing and she's laughing at him, and she's pointing at them,
like she can literally see these kids. And she doesn't
know who they are, because I've asked, you know, who
are they? Whose children are they? She don't know who
they belong to, but they keep her quite entertained, seeing
(13:36):
things that are not there which can be detailed and
sometimes interactive. Holding firm false beliefs, such as the idea
that a spouse is having an affair or a loved
one has been replaced by an imposter, difficulties with decision making,
problem solving and staying focused. Mood and psycheatric behaviors. Depression,
(14:03):
a persistent feeling of sadness, and loss of interest in activities.
She's been dealing with depression for quite a while. She
has no desire to participate in a lot of everyday
things and just being there for her and trying to
(14:25):
include her into things. And she enjoys playing bingo, but
lately she hasn't been in a mood for playing bingo.
She really has a desire to get back to going
to church, which I am also hopeful that she'll be
able to get to where she wants to go. Anxiety
(14:50):
a feeling of worry or nervousness, Apathy, a lack of
interest in social activities in daily life, she has definitely
been anxious. She gets anxious when it comes to my
son and my granddaughter. She's always asking where they are,
how they are, and you know, she wonders if they're
(15:12):
okay all the time, and I have to constantly remind
her that they're fine oftentimes, which leads to video calls
or phone calls so that she can talk to them
or hear them or see them rather so that she
knows that they're fine. Agitations and restlessness, easily becoming upset, reriskless,
(15:38):
and shouting out. I haven't experienced that with her, but
nurses have said that she has had some moments of
agitation where she's basically fighting them off from touching her,
or you know, she's She's told me that they told
(16:01):
her I was there and I wasn't, and she was
tired of them lying to her and whatnot. But I
say all of this to say, I've heard older people
say that you're an adult once in your life and
(16:21):
twice a child, and I never understood that, but now
it's all like coming full circle and I get it.
As she gets older, she needs someone to take care
of her in the same sense a baby would. And
it's hard watching the person that raised you go through
(16:46):
life altering behaviors and health issues and you know, going
to my mom. My mom was a big lady at
one point in her life and now she is probably
one hundred and fifteen pounds if that. So, just trying
(17:10):
to keep her in good spirits has been my job.
That has been my job, just trying to make her happy,
keep her safe, and just being there for her. I
(17:31):
would also like to say for anybody who has a
loved one in a nursing home, please make it your
business to go check on your people. Don't take them
there and just drop them off and leave them, because
you wouldn't want that done to you. My mom is
dealing with some nursing home negligence, and she's been moved twice,
(17:57):
and this will be her third move and hopefully her last,
because I'm at a point where I just want to
bring her home with me, but I know that I
can't take care of her myself because I have health issues.
But so those of you who know the Lord, and
(18:20):
in words of prayer, I asked that you keep my
family lifted and your thoughts and prayers right now because
we are definitely going through it. Traveling from Georgia to
South Carolina as often as time and life permits has
(18:40):
been a challenge. We just did a turnaround trip yesterday.
We were told that my mom had a seizure, which
she did not according to the hospital. They said that
she didn't, But we went and we had to hang
out with her for a while just to lay eyes
(19:03):
on her and you know, see what she had going
on and things like that. So yeah, it's it's been
a very emotional roller coaster ride if I would, if
I had to say anything about it. I do treasure
the moments of time that I do get with her
(19:24):
where we're not in a space of arguing and fighting
and you know, just being on opposing teams. I like
to say, but right now she needs me and I
need her, and so being able to be that constant
(19:49):
for her has been life changing for me, just being
able to see everything she's gone through and going through
it so gracefully. But yeah, that that is what I'm
currently dealing with. So I wasn't planning on stand on
(20:15):
too long. So I'm gonna go because I know that
the hospital will be calling me shortly with updates or whatever,
and I need to be where I can receive phone
calls and handle my mother's business in the way that
she would want me to. So with that being said,
(20:36):
I thank you all for tuning and tonight. I will
be back on the fourth Friday of this month with
my co host, Miss Nadget Scott, Miss.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
D D.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
And until then, you all be blessed and have a
wonderful night. I love you all.
Gentlemen, I have your attention. Please the show stops it
Liay seven six Hill Shoot fun Go.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Good evening and welcome to another episode of Delay but
Not Denied the podcast where I am your host, Latanya
little John. Tonight, we will be discussing caring for an
aging parent. But before I start, I would like to
read a Bible verse that I found concerning your parents
(01:53):
and it's Proverbs twenty three and twenty two. Listen to
your father who gave you life, and do not despise
your mother when she is old. So those close to
me know that my mom right now is in the hospital.
She is on her third trip to at a hospital
(02:17):
stay this year. She's dealing with Louis body dementia, Parkinson's disease,
and neuropathy. Right now, we are in the middle of
dealing with nursing home neglect. So I'm trying to do
(02:42):
my due diligence as her daughter to get all of
this done. The reason for my topic tonight, I'm adopted,
and a lot of people that are adopted and know
that they're adopted disconnect with their adoptive parents, where I
(03:05):
often have felt very disconnected from my family as a
whole being adopted. As I was saying, you know, my
mom is going through what she's going through. She's had
a couple of strokes, a couple of heart attacks. She
hasn't always been the nicest person, but lately I've been
(03:33):
getting aside of her that I've been longing for majority
of my life, and it's been it's been different, but
accepted to receive the love that she's given so freely
now that I've longed for my entire life. She adopted
(03:56):
me at eighteen months old, and so I've been trying
to win her over, I would say majority of my life,
so to be her caregiver now that she's older. My
(04:17):
mom is eighty four, yes, eighty four years old, God will,
and she'll be eighty five in December. Life has not
always been easy or fair for her or myself for
that matter, but we do what we can and we
(04:39):
try to put one foot in front of the other
and just keep moving. I also wanted to read some
things I found about caring for your elderly parent, and
it says caring for aging parents can involve managing their health, finances,
and emotional well being. It's important to involve your parents
(05:02):
in the planning process and prioritize communication to understand their
needs and wishes. Here are some tips for caring for
aging parents. Get help. Trying to care for parents alone
can lead to stress and burn out. Consider asking family
and friends to check in investing and monitoring technology like
(05:26):
alarms or GPS tracker. So for me, she has a
constant circle of myself, my son, my aunt, and a cousin,
and we all try to jump in where we can.
She also has people from her outside world from when
(05:50):
she used to be a caregiver. They check in on her,
and I'm forever grateful for them that the fact that
they're still keeping in touch with her long after their
parents have passed away. It also says excess home safety
(06:12):
work with a geriatric care coordinator to excess home safety
develop a plan to help prevent fall in other dangers. So,
right now, the hard part of my journey with this
is knowing that there's nothing that I can do to
ease her pain. She's constantly hurting. She's crying now. I've
(06:39):
never seen my mom cry. She's tough as nails, but
seeing her cry now and beg people not to touch
her has been really, really hard. Really hard, and this
is what I'm seeing is is possibly the beginning stages
(07:03):
of what's to come next, the inevitable. Prior prioritize God,
I can't talk. Communication. Communication can help strengthen your bond
and understand your parents' needs and wishes. Take care of yourself.
Caring for someone can be emotionally and physically draining, so
(07:27):
it's important to take care of your own health, include
your parent. Involving your parents and the planning process can
help them feel less like they're losing control. My mom
has always been one that likes to be in control
(07:47):
of everything, her finances, her health, just her everyday life.
And being in a situation where she's having to depend
on people to help her out has been like the
greatest struggle for her. Right now, she's not able to walk,
(08:10):
and she's in physical therapy, but walking is not I
guess something that she's going to be able to get
back to dealing with everything that she's dealing with the
effect that it's had on me emotionally, it's been hard
(08:34):
just watching her go through all of that, and as
I said before, not being able to fix any of it.
For it's definitely not easy watching her in pain and
then with her having Louis body dementia, she goes in
and out with different things in her head. She doesn't
(08:57):
know where she is sometimes and oftentimes she just she'll
repeat herself a lot, and I wanted to explain what
Louis body dementia was. Louis body dementia is an umbrella
term for two similar and common subtypes of dementia. Dementia
(09:21):
with Louis bodies and Parkinson's dementia. Both are characterized by
changes in thinking, movement, behavior, and mood. Behaviors associated with
Louis body dementia include sleep disturbances like acting out dreams,
(09:43):
mood psychiatric changes such as depression or apathy, cognitive fluctuations
with periods of confusion and alertness. People with LBD may
also exhibit hallucinations and delusions, leading to behaviors like believing
(10:04):
a loved one is an imposter of food is poisoned.
Involuntary movements such as shuffling, gait, balance problems and difficulty
with coordination also contribute to a higher to higher risk
of fall. These are things that my mom have definitely, definitely,
(10:25):
definitely been dealing with as far as her feeling like
somebody's out to get her. She felt like some of
the people at the nursing home was trying to unalive her.
She does have the shuffling gait where she rocks back
(10:48):
and forth for her steps or whatever. But sleep and
movement behaviors, acting out dreams which can include yelling or
violent movements while asleep, excessive daytime sleepiness, sleeping for long
periods of time during the day. She does that a lot,
(11:13):
and she sleeps so much during the day. When she's
up at night, you're trying to calm her down to
get her to relax and go to sleep. But oftentimes
it's just a battle with her, you know, not knowing
what's going on around her. So it keeps her with questions.
(11:38):
And it's been really hard, really really hard. And again
I was talking about the shuffling gait and balance problems,
a shuffling walk with an increased risk of fall. She
does walk with assistance as far as like a cane
or a walker. She has tremors and that's shaking or
(12:03):
you know, sometimes muscle stiffness, difficulty swallowing. Right now, she
doesn't have that problem. They do have her on a
soft diet where she's just eating very very soft and
fine food. She doesn't like it. She wants to eat
(12:25):
pig feet and chitlings, is what she told me yesterday.
But prayerfectly we'll get back to that. Hopefully she'll be
able to enjoy the things that she once enjoyed before,
you know, before again. The inevitable her cognitive and perceptual behaviors.
(12:50):
Mental function of fluctuations, periods of alertness and a tension
that vary throughout the day. Visual halluci nation, seeing things
that are not there, which can be detailed and sometimes interactive.
That's the hard part for me, because she's constantly telling
me that she sees these children around her and they're
(13:14):
playing and she's laughing at him, and she's pointing at them,
like she can literally see these kids. And she doesn't
know who they are, because I've asked, you know, who
are they? Whose children are they? She don't know who
they belong to, but they keep her quite entertained, seeing
(13:36):
things that are not there which can be detailed and
sometimes interactive. Holding firm false beliefs, such as the idea
that a spouse is having an affair or a loved
one has been replaced by an imposter, difficulties with decision making,
problem solving and staying focused. Mood and psycheatric behaviors. Depression,
(14:03):
a persistent feeling of sadness, and loss of interest in activities.
She's been dealing with depression for quite a while. She
has no desire to participate in a lot of everyday
things and just being there for her and trying to
(14:25):
include her into things. And she enjoys playing bingo, but
lately she hasn't been in a mood for playing bingo.
She really has a desire to get back to going
to church, which I am also hopeful that she'll be
able to get to where she wants to go. Anxiety
(14:50):
a feeling of worry or nervousness, Apathy, a lack of
interest in social activities in daily life, she has definitely
been anxious. She gets anxious when it comes to my
son and my granddaughter. She's always asking where they are,
how they are, and you know, she wonders if they're
(15:12):
okay all the time, and I have to constantly remind
her that they're fine oftentimes, which leads to video calls
or phone calls so that she can talk to them
or hear them or see them rather so that she
knows that they're fine. Agitations and restlessness, easily becoming upset, reriskless,
(15:38):
and shouting out. I haven't experienced that with her, but
nurses have said that she has had some moments of
agitation where she's basically fighting them off from touching her,
or you know, she's She's told me that they told
(16:01):
her I was there and I wasn't, and she was
tired of them lying to her and whatnot. But I
say all of this to say, I've heard older people
say that you're an adult once in your life and
(16:21):
twice a child, and I never understood that, but now
it's all like coming full circle and I get it.
As she gets older, she needs someone to take care
of her in the same sense a baby would. And
it's hard watching the person that raised you go through
(16:46):
life altering behaviors and health issues and you know, going
to my mom. My mom was a big lady at
one point in her life and now she is probably
one hundred and fifteen pounds if that. So, just trying
(17:10):
to keep her in good spirits has been my job.
That has been my job, just trying to make her happy,
keep her safe, and just being there for her. I
(17:31):
would also like to say for anybody who has a
loved one in a nursing home, please make it your
business to go check on your people. Don't take them
there and just drop them off and leave them, because
you wouldn't want that done to you. My mom is
dealing with some nursing home negligence, and she's been moved twice,
(17:57):
and this will be her third move and hopefully her last,
because I'm at a point where I just want to
bring her home with me, but I know that I
can't take care of her myself because I have health issues.
But so those of you who know the Lord, and
(18:20):
in words of prayer, I asked that you keep my
family lifted and your thoughts and prayers right now because
we are definitely going through it. Traveling from Georgia to
South Carolina as often as time and life permits has
(18:40):
been a challenge. We just did a turnaround trip yesterday.
We were told that my mom had a seizure, which
she did not according to the hospital. They said that
she didn't, But we went and we had to hang
out with her for a while just to lay eyes
(19:03):
on her and you know, see what she had going
on and things like that. So yeah, it's it's been
a very emotional roller coaster ride if I would, if
I had to say anything about it. I do treasure
the moments of time that I do get with her
(19:24):
where we're not in a space of arguing and fighting
and you know, just being on opposing teams. I like
to say, but right now she needs me and I
need her, and so being able to be that constant
(19:49):
for her has been life changing for me, just being
able to see everything she's gone through and going through
it so gracefully. But yeah, that that is what I'm
currently dealing with. So I wasn't planning on stand on
(20:15):
too long. So I'm gonna go because I know that
the hospital will be calling me shortly with updates or whatever,
and I need to be where I can receive phone
calls and handle my mother's business in the way that
she would want me to. So with that being said,
(20:36):
I thank you all for tuning and tonight. I will
be back on the fourth Friday of this month with
my co host, Miss Nadget Scott, Miss.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
D D.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
And until then, you all be blessed and have a
wonderful night. I love you all.
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