Long distance caregiving is one of the major drawbacks to today’s families that live apart from one another. While this arrangement can work out fine during a parent’s middle age years, it can be a cause of emotional turmoil and logistical difficulty as parents begin to age. Long-distance caregiving can be hard on both parent and child, especially when dealing with the difficult question of senior care options.
Prelude To Long Distance Caregiving
Often, when parents and children don’t live nearby, children start to notice that their parents really age with each new visit. This can be a rather emotional and disturbing revelation made all the more noticeable by the fact that a good deal of time goes by between each visit so changes are more apparent. When children don’t live nearby, parents sometimes opt to not reveal medical issues or other health concerns over the phone so they don’t worry their children, which can lead to even more surprise when parents and children are together. This means that you may not be prepared for any type of long-distance caregiving until it’s staring you in the face because you didn’t know that your parent’s health had deteriorated as much as it had.
Handling Long Distance Caregiving
When the time comes that your parent is in need of assistance due to medical issues or other aging factors, how will you handle long-distance caregiving? That is a question that many individuals have to ask themselves and there is not always an easy answer. How you handle the situation will depend on a number of factors that help you determine the best course of action.
Questions To Ask
Asking and answering the following questions will help you define your options and weigh your priorities. Consider questions such as:
Is there a sibling or another family member close by that can offer on-site help?
Is there a way I can be more available to my parent even though I live far away?
Is it feasible for the parent to move closer to where I live so that I can provide more on-site caregiving?
Does my parent need some type of in-home care or senior housing?
When Your Sibling Lives Nearby
If one or more siblings lives near your parents and you live far away, it is best to discuss the roles each sibling will play in caring for an aging or sick parent. Since proximity is an issue, the nearby sibling or siblings will probably handle the brunt of the day to day caregiving responsibilities, but that doesn’t mean that you can or should have no part in offering some type of long-distance caregiving help.
How much help each of you is willing to offer may depend on factors such as your relationship with your parents and each other, financial concerns, time factors, family responsibilities and other variables. Define how much you can and will help, who will make healthcare decisions, how often you can visit, whether financial choices need to be made and so on. This will make it easier for you to be okay with your role as a long-distance caregiver and will hopefully also make it easier for the on-site caregiver to know what they can rely on you for.
Ways To Help The Primary Caregiver
If you want to do whatever you can to help care for your parent but live too far away to make it feasible to be the primary caregiver, there are still a number of ways that you can help ease the burden of the primary caregiver’s responsibilities. There are long-distance caregiving responsibilities that will help make it easier for the sibling living close by to mom or dad. You can help find senior care, and help pay for it if necessary, so they get a break from constant caregiving responsibilities.
You can talk with doctors or do necessary research to obtain information or to ask questions about a parent’s medical condition or care options. If feasible, you can come in for important doctor’s visits, hospital stays or visits. You can offer to spend time with your parents so the primary caregiver can go on vacation and get a break. How you handle your long-distance caregiving responsibilities will depend on many factors, but it is best to discuss upfront what you each can and cannot do to avoid resentment and discord within the family.
What If There Is No Family Member Nearby?
What do you do if you do not have a sibling, or even another family member living nearby your aging parent to serve as the primary caregiver? This situation can certainly make long-distance caregiving a more difficult responsibility, although you will not have to worry about disputes, disagreements and even feuds that can sometimes arise when siblings disagree on parent caregiving decisions or responsibilities.
Nevertheless, you need to do something, so you have a few choices. You can opt to move your parent near where you live, but this may not be a feasible option or be very fair to them. You can move closer to them if that is an option or take a leave of absence to care for them. If moving is not an option, you can consult a geriatric care manager in the area in which your parent lives to assess your parents needs and help you choose the best care options to meet those needs.
Geriatric care managers serve as consultants, usually with a background in nursing or social work, that you can hire to periodically check in with your parent, assess their needs, recommend care, make sure that their care is being met, and communicate with you about any issues that arise or decisions that need to be made. This may be better than nothing, but be sure you do some research about the geriatric care manager you hire, check references and try to meet them in person initially, because there are no regulations governing this relatively new profession.
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