Taking Care of Ageing Parents & the Issues It Creates for a Will

One of the things that almost all children face is the reality that their parents will grow old and eventually find it difficult to take care of their everyday needs when they do. Increasingly, whether through a lifestyle choice or a job opportunity, their siblings don’t necessarily live near their parents which makes the issue of care a problem.

Sometimes couples stay together for the sake of the children only to split up and divorce once all their kids are fully grown. In which case, both parents are often living alone with no one to take care of them other than a friendly neighbour who may stop in every once in a while.

It then falls more on the shoulders of their children to do what they can to help out.

Adapting Their Home to Make It Safer

Making some basic changes to their home is a good idea to create a more liveable space. When it’s a multi-story property and it’s owned, there’s the question of whether to have a stairlift put in to allow them to get up and down the stairs more safely if their balance isn’t as good as it used to be.

Additional guard rails and bannisters are a good idea to provide a way to steady oneself too.

In the kitchen, converted cupboards that have shelves which come out easily and don’t require the relative to reach inside them is a good idea. A better way to keep bottles and cans in place once they’ve been unsealed is helpful too.

For bathing, a non-slip bath mat helps to stop slipping on the wet surface when climbing out of the bath. There are specialised seats for the shower or lifts that help get the person into and out of the bath safely.

Baths are tough because they’re a naturally slippery surface and easier to have an accident. Showers are potentially a little easier and there are models that permit walking into and out of the unit without having to step up and over the lip to do so.

Wheelchair Access & Structural Changes

Making some of the changes to permit wheelchair access will require a handyperson to complete them. If your relative gets to a stage of requiring a wheelchair, then the doorways may need remodelling to enable wheelchair access and both the front and back entrances will likely require substantial changes.

Do check with the local authority for where the property is located whether any planning permission is required before any structural work is carried out.

The Problems with Forgetfulness

One of the things that happens with the brain as it gets older is that cells die off and new ones stop being created. Repairs to existing cells cease being as effective too.

Regardless of whether there’s an early onset of Alzheimer’s and possibly Dementia, it’s natural that someone older will start to have problems remembering things. They’ll forget some short-term information even though they will remember vividly an event that happened some forty years ago.

This situation is baffling to some people, but it’s just how the brain works and stops working as effectively as one gets older.

Where this does have an impact on short-term memory is forgetfulness. The older parent could walk into the bathroom and turn the tap on to run a bath, sit down to watch their favourite TV programme and completely forget that they’re running a bath.

The next thing they know, there’s water flooding the living room from the bathroom upstairs or in a block of flats, there’s a flood in the downstairs flat and someone’s knocking on their door to see what’s happening one floor above.

In such circumstances, a phone call to their son or daughter who lives 40 miles away won’t help much as they cannot get there very quickly, and the problem could happen at any time of the day or evening.

How to Handle Their Forgetfulness

There’s a series of preventative measures to put in place to handle these kinds of situations. The first would be a flood detector.

This can alert the older parent to the running water. It’s sometimes possible to have a bathroom system fitted to prevent the release of too much water too.

With prescription medicine, it’s easily possible to forget what pills have been taken already that day and double up on meds where it’s dangerous to take too much of it. A weekly medicine pill box with separate pill containers for every day of the week is a useful tool.

The relative can self-manage their meds because they’re organised about picking up the prescription but tend to be forgetful otherwise.

Raising the Alarm

Where ageing parents have the most difficulties is when they slip and fall inside their home. When they don’t have many visitors each week, a fall could result in them being injured and unable to call for help.

They usually don’t have a mobile phone in their pocket all the time, so there needs to be a personal alarm system, so they can get assistance.

A push button pendant necklace is one solution. It lets them simply push the button and it calls the 24-hour call centre to get assistance.

Most systems only work in the home or garden area where they’re no more than 50 metres from the receiver. The system is purchasable and then has a weekly subscription.

There are more expensive models that work on a mobile network anywhere there is a mobile phone tower within reach.

Forgetfulness & the Making of a Will

Hopefully, the parents have previously made a will. However, it may be discovered when spending more time with them in their silver years that they haven’t made one or it’s out of date.

It is natural that their son or daughter will want to help them get it sorted out. Quite possibly, a new will could get drawn up and they act as one of the witnesses to the will signing.

This is where the trouble starts.

After their passing, when looking to get advice on contesting a will, other relatives and people who knew them may look at how to contest a will. The process of contesting a will can be done on a variety of grounds, some less successful than others.

Certainly, one avenue is whether the older parent was of sound mind and understood all the clauses of the will when they signed it. If it can be shown that they were coerced by the son or daughter taking care of them to change their will in their favour, then a successful objection could be made to contest a will.

Late Changes to the Will

When a will is revised only a few months before the passing of the relative, there is likely to be more questions raised about its validity. The older the person was, the greater issue there may be about their being of sound mind when they signed the will.

Also, a will must have two witnesses present when it’s signed. Any question about how many witnesses were there or if a relative was one of the witnesses, and things begin to look a little suspect to some people’s eyes.

For parents who are keen to leave an estate to their children, care must be taken to create a will in a situation where it cannot be successfully contested later. In many ways, the less involvement their children have in its preparation, the better.

While taking care of ageing parents is admirable, it does tend to muddy the waters when it comes to probate.

*This is a collaborative post.