RespiteMatch.com Health Blog

As your parents and other elderly relatives age, younger
family members may not want to confront the fact that
these elders will gradually need more help with their
daily lives. Our parents and other elders, after all, are the
ones who have always taken care of everyone else. When
they begin to need help, younger family members may
at first deny the signs; they may make excuses for their
elders’ behavior, not admit that there are problems or
deny that they need any help. Even the spouse of an
elder needing increasing levels of care may be in denial
about the situation.

Such denial is actually rooted in the inability or lack
of desire to confront the emotions that an elder needing
help may provoke. Relatives watching the decline of an
elder will likely experience a mix of emotions—fear,
shame, anxiety, frustration, and anger—without consciously
understanding these emotions. And the fact that
the decline may be gradual allows the denial to continue
indefinitely, until there is a medical emergency, a hospital
stay or some other crisis.

What is the best way to deal with this family denial
before there is a crisis? How can you get beyond denial
so that the person who needs care gets it?

Here are some tips:

Seek Professional Help

Counselors, therapists and social workers may all be
able to help work through family denial and other emotional
issues. Try to find a professional that you trust
and who is able to meet with your family as a group to
work out some of the issues at hand. A geriatric care
manager—as a third party removed from the emotional
stresses of the family—is also a good choice for helping
a family to work through some of its problems and for
managing the concrete aspects of daily care.

Communicate

Communication between all family members is key to
working out a care plan for an elder in need. If you are
noticing that your elder’s health or abilities are failing—
and that other family members are in denial—arrange
for a time when you all can get together with the elder to
talk about the situation. Ask the elder what kind of help
might be needed. Give all the family members a chance
to air their opinions and emotions—and try to work out
a plan for dealing with any current and future crises. In
order to maintain harmony, if possible, plan a monthly
family meeting, to take place either in person or on a
conference-type call, where everyone can be updated
and all concerns can be hea