The best time to talk to parents about senior care before emergency hits: expert

Most families wait to talk about senior care until an emergency hits, but experts say having those discussions early can lead to better outcomes and less conflict.Tatyana Zlotsky, CEO of A Place for Mom in New York City, said 77% of the families she works with tell her they wish they’d acted sooner.Planning before a crisis gives families more time to compare care options, understand costs, and honor an older adult’s wishes instead of making rushed decisions, the expert advised.“If you think about this being an extremely stressful, financially burdensome decision already, doing it under the duress of a medical emergency makes it 10 times worse,” she told Fox News Digital.“And yet most families are still not taking action.”Family caregivers lose an average of $21,000 per year as they cut back on work to care for aging relatives, she noted. Families generally tend to procrastinate because they suffer from caregiver burnout, according to Zlotsky, who specializes in providing support services and digital tools for finding local senior housing options.“They’re already dealing with so much, it’s nearly impossible for them to predict the situation sooner,” she added.“It’s a reconfiguration of a parent-child relationship … the parent wants to maintain their independence … the child becomes the one providing the care,” Zlotsky went on.

“And so the senior resists this at all costs … and the adult child is not sure how to have the conversation.”The discussion shouldn’t wait until a fall, hospitalization, or other medical emergency, according to the expert.Zlotsky emphasized that cognitive decline often begins with subtle changes in executive functioning — not always dramatic memory loss.Adult children should pay attention to these signs during routine visits, as they may signal that it’s time to talk about future care plans.These may include, but are not limited to, any of the following, according to the expert.“Maybe Mom...