It’s not always possible to live close to the senior loved ones who may need our extra help and care. If you find that you are a long-distance caregiver—meaning that you live more than an hour away from a loved one who requires your care—you can make it work by having a plan in place. Here are a few suggestions to make that task easier.
- Find reliable, caring people who are closer and who can help. What type of daily or weekly hands-on care does your loved one need? Your first priority is to find people you can trust who can provide that hands-on care. In addition to asking local friends and family and reading reviews, you can use businesses like Secure Aging to identify trusted caregivers for your loved one and use them to help coordinate that care.
- Plan your visits. Regular, planned visits with your senior loved one have several purposes. First, they give your loved one something to look forward to each time you plan to visit. Second,
they make planning everything else in your life a little easier. You can use your planned visits, however frequently they are, to check in with caregivers in person.
- Help your loved one get familiar with technology that makes it easier to stay in touch. Even if your senior loved one isn’t adept with video chats and similar technology, that will make it so much easier to see how they are doing. If you can, help guide them through how to use this type of technology, or find a local person (perhaps a high schooler or college student) who can do so.
- Have a plan for managing their paperwork. One important task that’s part of caregiving is managing paperwork related to finances, health, and legal matters. As much as possible, gain a sense of where your loved one’s important papers are. Work with an attorney or their bank contacts so you can legally gain access to their information. Do what you can to keep these papers organized and easy to find. It may be too overwhelming to manage all of this paperwork at once; you can also work on it gradually. Even if you plan to do it gradually, make gaining access to their information a top priority.
- Make a contact list of those involved with your loved one’s care, be they health providers or caregivers. This will make it that much easier to reach out to them when needed.
Here are a few more articles to help you if you are a long-distance caregiver:
- Getting Started With Long-Distance Caregiving
- Eight Tips for Long-Distance Caregiving
- Long-Distance Caregiving: 5 Key Steps to Providing Care From Afar
Remember, Secure Aging is just a phone call away and can help you manage many caregiving responsibilities if you do not live close to your senior loved one.
Call Secure Aging to Find Out How We Can Help Seniors With Financial Management
At Secure Aging in Bradenton, we transform the weight of the world into a sigh of relief for our senior clients and their concerned family members. The mission of Secure Aging is to protect and preserve our client’s independence and dignity through careful and thoughtful financial and care management. As our clients age, it is their desire to remain independent and age with dignity. Our services protect our clients from talented con artists looking to exploit and deplete the financial resources of our vulnerable seniors. Secure Aging helps families in Manatee County and Sarasota County and in and around the communities of Anna Maria, Bradenton, Bradenton Beach, Ellenton, Holmes Beach, Lakewood Ranch, Longboat Key, Myakka City, Palmetto, Parrish, and Sarasota. Call us at 941-761-9338, or visit us online at www.secureaging.com.
