Elderly Relatives: How to Care for Them

have appeared, due to the need to provide for older persons and keep them

safe. In our country, a typical “old age” does not represent

a full life.

Care of old men is to a greater degree, a moral problem, rather than

an economic one. Yet still, older people have the right to free-of-charge

help from the state. Although not all of them are eligible, and not everywhere.

The questions connected with homes for elderly people are handled by

the Department of Social Services. If you make a decision to put your

relative in a home for elderly people, be ready that first, you should

collect plenty of documents (you will most likely be invited to a personal

consultation) for information from clinics, from a polyclinic, a medical

card, extracts from the documents registering the elderly person in a

place of his stay (from the house register, in particular), etc. After

that, approximately within a month, you receive a permit to a certain

home for elderly people, and be aware that it may be located on the other

end of the city. 70% of the pension of a person living at a home for elderly

people is deducted by the account of this institution.

If you are interested in daytime groups, contact the Department of Social

Services. Somewhere, it is possible to leave the relative for the day,

as a child in a kindergarten (of course, only if he is responsible and

more or less reasonable and mobile). There he will be under supervision,

he will be fed, and he can take part in a knitting or singing club. In

other places, there are free-of-charge dining rooms, and old people can

have their dinner by themselves. As a rule, this service is free-of-charge,

but sometimes a payment is assigned, proceeding from many parameters;

including the presence or absence of relatives and a financial condition.

Sign up for such groups in advance because there are a lot of applications,

and opportunities from social services are limited.

Free-of-charge nurses work for the Red Cross, and they work according

to permits from district clinics. However, this service is accessible

only to lonely, dying old men, provided that their apartment is not privatized

and departs to the state. Visiting nurses watch for the correct response

to medicines, change pampers, heal bedsores, remake linen, and watch the

hygienic condition of their patients.

The Red Cross has branches in districts where you can be given more

detailed information; almost on the same conditions as services of mercy

at temples.

Advice of the expert.

How to get along with elderly relatives.

1. Have patience and do not forget that we all shall someday get

   old. Before getting angry at your elderly relative, take a deep

   breath of air, stop, and... do not yell. Otherwise, you are guaranteed

   an insult and grumble. Besides, you will reproach yourself for upsetting

   him.

2. Remember that old men are like children, they love to speak and

   listen. They attract attention to themselves with complaints and

   demonstrations. Analyze how real their complaints are.

3. If old men are capable, it is necessary to think of any easy

   duties they can perform. Grandsons are ideal means; grandmothers’

   and grandfathers’ pain fades into the background, parents have

   a reliable assistant, and the child is brought up by loving people.
   

   Besides it is important for old men to feel that their voice will not

   play the last role in the family.

4. Do not perceive the old person as an opponent. No matter

   what he says, or how he tries to show superiority (he feels he knows

   it better because he has lived a longer life), do not forget that this

   person is much weaker than you!

5. Do not forget about yourself. If your elderly relative’s

   whimsical, sensitive, and grumbling, quickly results you in causing

   you stress, and he has other relatives, it is helpful to establish duties;

   for example, one month the grandmother lives with you, the next month,

   with us, and the next month in sanatoria. It is good also to allow yourself

   to rest and have time to miss each other because your relations after

   that will be completely different.

6. Avoid criticism and remarks, old men do not enjoy being reproved.

   Therefore, if you do not accept something in their behavior, it

   is better not to start a conflict ("Mum, well why don’t you

   wash! You already smell!") and to act diplomatically: " I

   want you to be beautiful, so we will wash you, and then we shall put

   a new dressing gown on".

7. Old men, as a rule, consider that we are obliged to them, and

   often use this argument, even when it is unreasonable. Be ready

   for this, treat them with understanding, and tell them about your gratitude.



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