Nothing is more fulfilling than taking care of your own parents when they are ill. It is a time for bonding and also self discovery of your own strengths. However, your strengths will reach its limit.Your parents’ health could deteriorate in which you will need professional help to care for them 24/7. Deep down, you know that a nursing home is the answer but you hesitate to look for one.

“How can I do this to them? How can I send them to a home? I would break their heart. What would people think? That I am an ungrateful child?”

Let me tell you something from my own experience…

We are in an age where communication has reached a culminating point. A friend or family member residing on the other side of the earth can be communicated via the internet or phone in matters of seconds. Despite this advancement in technology, research shows that ours is a society, lonelier than what it used to be before. Findings from studies carried out on the elderly, show that this age group is the loneliest than all the other age groups.

A few findings from American studies that focused  on loneliness in the elderly are as follows:

• Eighteen percent of senior citizens in America live lonely and 43% of senior citizens feel lonely on a regular basis.
• There is a 45% increase in the risk of death among people aged 60 years or older who feel lonely, while isolated elders have a 59% increased risk of mental and physical decline compared to those elderly who socialize.
• One in 7 people with Alzheimer’s disease live alone.
• The most startling of findings was that two-thirds of older adults in America who felt lonely were either married or living with a partner.

No one likes falling down and this is especially true for the elderly. It is their biggest nightmare and fear in life. This nightmare and fear is also scientifically supported by a study published in New England Journal of Medicine which states that up to 75% of the elderly would have had at least 2 falls within a year and the risk of morbidity and mortality due to these falls increase with age. This piece of information just enough to make fall prevention the number 1 priority for the caregivers of the elderly.

S.T.O.P = Stop, Think, Observe and Prevent

S.T.O.P is an easy to follow fall prevention program, recommended by the Gateway Geriatric Education Centre, which can assist any caregiver in preventing falls in the elderly. In this program, a caregiver has to stop and look at the environment which the elderly is in, think of how to make it fall safe, observe the elderly and their movement and prevent a potential accident from happening.

The first thing that you, as a caregiver, should do is to identify all the possible locations that accidents can take place as the elderly moves around at home ( this also applies to nursing homes)