WHAT TO DO IF YOUR PARENT’S SENIOR COMMUNITY RESTRICTS VISITORS DUE TO THE CORONAVIRUS
So what can you do if you are caregiving during coronavirus and your parent’s nursing home or assisted living facility restricts visitors due to the coronavirus?
1. If your parents can operate their phones, call. Check in with them more than you might have in the past. Use the call to listen to their concerns and alleviate your own. If you hear anything disconcerting – that they haven’t eaten or that they need assistance – reach out to the facility staff.
2. Consider shipping a Grandpad, Portal or other tablet to your parent so you can connect “face to face.” If you do this, make sure your parent will be able to set up the device or that staff member will be able to assist.
3. If, due to hearing or sight loss, aphasia, or cognitive decline, your parent cannot operate a phone, ask the facility staff what plans they are putting in place for connecting residents to families. If they don’t have a plan, request that they help your parent with a regularly scheduled call- understanding, of course, that the staff is operating under unique and stressful conditions, and may be short-staffed.
4. Ask the staff if they are facilitating Skype calls or Facetime sessions between residents and family members. If they are not, ask them if they can.
5. Write to your parent. Remember letters? Send your parent a card or a note to let them know they are not forgotten.
Do keep in mind that staff at these facilities are operating under extraordinary circumstances and that they may be leaving their own families behind to care for yours. It is okay to ask for help connecting with your parent and to ask for updates on their well-being, but do keep in mind the many competing priorities they are balancing – and tending to ill patients is of course the most critical.
And finally, take measures to manage your stress levels during this time. Acknowledge and honor the sadness and maybe even grief you feel, not being able to see your parent. Seek support from others in your situation. Working Daughter has an active private Facebook support group for family caregivers. You can join here. Download a meditation app (we like Insight Timer), do yoga, take walks, practice gratitude. Control what you can control and accept the (many) things in life that you cannot.
Source: Working Daughter: https://www.workingdaughter.com/what-to-do-if-your-parents-nursing-home-restricts-visitors-due-to-the-coronavirus/