Continuing with our five-part series Handling the Difficult Conversation with a Loved One about Facility Placement: Tips for Success, Wes Coulson offers this helpful tip when talking with your elderly loved one.
Tip 4 – Writing Things Down Makes Remembering Easier
In this Elder Law Minute, and the fourth of our series, Wes Coulson shares this simple, yet effective, tip he learned from the Alzheimer’s Association for helping your elderly loved one remember conversations easier.
Writing Things Down Helps Make Remembering Easier
Transcript:
Hi, I’m Wes Coulson and this is your Elder Law Minute. This is another in our series on Handling Difficult Conversations with an Elderly Parent or Other Loved One about Placement in an Assisted Living or Nursing Home. One of the things that I hear commonly is, especially in the case of someone who is showing signs of Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia, “Well, we have the conversation and I think I’m making some progress, but then by the time we pick up the discussion again, we’re starting back from scratch because Mom just doesn’t remember the conversation.”
I want to pass along a very helpful tip here that I got from the Alzheimer’s Association as part of my training as a volunteer. And that is simply that writing things down helps. When you go to have the conversation with Mom say, “Now Mom, so that we can both remember, I’m going to write things down.” And you write down notes, of course you can be a little bit biased leaning toward the progress that you’ve made, and at the end of the discussion say, “Now Mom let me show you this and see if we agree that this is right, and then the next time that we talk about this, we’ll get this back out and it will help us remember the conversation before.”
If you do that, then you stand a better chance of not losing progress from one conversation to the next. Thanks.
Next week in our Handling the Difficult Conversation with a Loved One about Facility Placement: Tips for Success series, Wes Coulson shares another great tip with Be Brave, Be Strong, and Don’t Give Up.
For more about assisted living and nursing homes, visit:
- The Do’s and Don’ts of assuring the best possible nursing home experience
- Medicaid planning for someone who is already in a nursing home
- Assisted Living Facilities
Dent-Coulson Elder Law is dedicated to providing families in the St. Louis area with their Elder Law needs. Our practice areas include Asset Preservation Planning, Veterans Benefits, Medicaid Eligibility, Alzheimer’s Planning, Special Needs Planning, Estate Planning and more. We understand the financial challenges you may face as you and your loved ones grow older. At Dent-Coulson Elder Law, our clients’ well-being is our number one priority. For immediate help, call (877)995-6876 or Contact Us and we will get in touch as soon as possible.
