How to Help Organize your Aging Parents

It may seem like a scary, or even far-off thing to think about, helping organize your aging parents. But, the truth is, our parents are getting older all the time. And if you want to avoid having problems with helping them, now is the time to start (no matter their age!). Work to get their things and lives organized so that you can help them easily when needed.

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The first thing you may want to do is talk to them! Find out if they have any plans in place already, and/or what their wishes are. Then offer your help to get them organized if they are not. But, don’t be surprised if they are resistant to wanting to do this, afterall, it can be frightening to think about.

But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t think about it. If there is one sure thing in life it’s that we’re all going to die one day, right? So the sooner you can bring this up and know what your parents want done for them as they age and eventually pass on, the better.

You may find that they already have the bulk of planning already done and perhaps even paid for. Or you may find that they haven’t even thought about it themselves. Either way, if they won’t get the ball rolling, at least you can.

There are many things to consider when helping your aging parent(s), but I’ll focus on some of the basics here to get you started. In this post I will briefly summarize what my husband and I have learned with our own parents, and then provide some tips and resources too.

Unprepared Trial by Fire

I decided to write this post to share with others because we’ve learned the hard way. And if I could go back and be more prepared, I absolutely would.

First, my mother-in-law got very sick, very suddenly in June 2019. One day she was “not feeling great” but still active out in her garden and going to work every day. Then the next day she was being rushed to the hospital with a ruptured colon from a cancerous tumor. And sadly, she passed away only 31 days later.

And I’m not blaming her, or saying she’s a bad person, but I will say that she was not prepared. We didn’t know this until she was in the hospital. She did not have a Will, nor any type of “end of life” directive, and no Power of Attorney’s or anything.

We were very lucky to at least have that one month with her to “prepare” for her passing. (As much as we could when we were actually going through the thing you want to prepare for.)

Fortunately, we were able to get those few documents created, signed and notarized before she passed away. Unfortunately, we worked with a lawyer who helped us for free and also gave us some wrong information. So, we still ended up having to go through Probate regarding her house and possessions anyway.

One benefit we had though is that my husband is an only child, so there wasn’t the complication of dividing things up between multiple people.

And now we are taking care of my Father-in-law who has progressive Dementia. He was living alone, as his wife died a few years ago, and up until about a year ago, living independently. He was doing pretty well until he got Covid-19, and now he cannot manage by himself for more than a few hours at a time.

I share these stories to help you see that you’ll never know when your parents are going to need help- and this can be a way you can start talking to them about it.

Start by helping them see that you care about THEM, not their things, not what they might leave you. Help them understand that you just want to be an advocate for them, for whatever it is they want, if and when they are unable to be the advocate for themselves.

1- Medication Management

One thing we quickly realized is that he was taking a lot of medications, A LOT. But we really had no idea what he was taking exactly, how much, or who his doctors were. And he couldn’t tell us either.

Maybe other people are more organized with this type of information, but again, he was not, and neither were we. As my father-in-law is also diabetic, it’s critical that he takes all his medications properly, and eats good meals on a regular schedule.

His experience with Covid was totally avoidable though, which has been frustrating as we told him so many times how to protect himself. But he continued to go bowling and golfing throughout all of 2020. Even when most places shut down, for some reason his bowling alley and golf friends were still going strong. They didn’t even have to wear masks while bowling!

We had to distance ourselves from him during that whole time to protect our own health, since he was seemingly gambling with his. And we just didn’t feel like we could “forbid” him from living his life how he chose to.

Then one day in mid-January there was a sudden change in him, like night and day. He wasn’t answering his phones, wasn’t calling us back, and when we did get him on the phone, he couldn’t really answer any questions. At first we thought he might just have low blood sugar, but something was definitely wrong.

We took food over to him, and he said he was eating it, but after two days of him not communicating in a regular way with us we got worried and decided we had to do something.

I went into his home with all kinds of protective gear on (fearing it was Covid), to see that he had just lined up the food we’d been bringing to him on his table, hadn’t eaten any of it, nor had he taken any medication or insulin for at least one to two days. Needless to say we took him to the hospital that day and he was admitted immediately.

Skipping to end of this story, he miraculously recovered from Covid and was able to come home from the hospital after spending 10 days there. The doctors were amazed how well he was doing after only 2 days, because the first day they told us due to his age and diabetes we should prepare for the worst.

But once he came home, he was now dealing with having “Covid Brain” on top of dementia. It quickly became apparent that he was going to need round the clock care and we had a lot to figure out.

First, we needed to sort through his medications, figure out what he was supposed to be taking, and if there were any medicines he shouldn’t be taking. He had piles of pill bottles everywhere in the house it seemed: in his bathroom, office, kitchen, hall closet, and even the guest bathroom.

I decided to take charge of the medication and to figure out a way to keep track of everything he was taking, and also tracking his actual doses every day.

And that’s how I came up with this design for a Medication List and Tracker. (You can purchase this HERE!)

The doctor said it was extremely beneficial to have this information logged so that we could help him manage it ongoing.

And now it’s so great to have on hand for any doctor’s visits as they will all want to know this information. His home health aide also has easy access to this information too, in case of any emergencies.

In fact, it was so eye opening to find out how important knowing this information can be in times of emergency that I’ve even created one for myself, in case my husband needs it.

2- Legal Documents

Now, I am not a lawyer and the information I share here is not legal advice- you should consult your own licensed attorney- these are my own suggestions and opinions based on our personal experience.

But, the next thing we realized we needed to get in order for my father-in-law were 2 versions of a Power of Attorney and a Will. The Power of Attorney’s (POA) basically give someone the right to assist, or make decisions for anything that might come up if your parent is not able to for themself- financially and health wise.

This includes not only helping make decisions for them medically, but also to help assist with their finances, paying bills, accessing bank accounts, and etc.

While my father-in-law was in the hospital we didn’t have these documents. And when we tried to pay some of his bills we were not allowed to because we didn’t have the POA’s in place yet. Crazy huh? Companies won’t even let you give them money unless you’re legally allowed to on your parent’s behalf.

The basic 4 documents you’ll want to have are:

• Will (for what they want done with all their possessions and assets once they pass)
• Living Will (for what they want to have happen if they are in a situation where they might need to be revived or placed on life support of some kind)
• Durable Power of Attorney for Healthcare (to make decisions on their behalf if necessary)
• Durable Power of Attorney for Finances (to make decisions and assist with management of anything financial)

These are fairly easy documents to create, and the ones we did simply had to have my father-in-law’s signature, as well as two unrelated witnesses, and be notarized by a licensed notary. Now that we have them, we’ll be prepared to help take care of anything in his estate.

The Will is important as you’ll need to have your parent appoint an Executor (usually the oldest child), which puts that person in charge of managing their affairs after the parent passes away.

You’ll just want to work with your parents to decide who they would like that person to be, how they want their assets divided (if there are any), any charities they wish to donate anything to, and/or listed out specific items they may want to go to specific people or places.

For the Living Will, you’ll want to talk to them about what they want to have happen if they were to become incapacitated. Do they want those lifesaving measures taken to revive them? Or, would they rather just let nature take it’s course without intervention?

There are definitely in between options there, and I’m sure religious and/or spiritual beliefs will come into play in this discussion, so don’t be afraid to discuss how they feel about it. It is their life after all.

Here are a couple Legal resources that may be helpful to research this further and/or to create these documents for your aging parents:

• EForms
• airSlate Legal Forms
• SwyftFilings

3- Talk about their “Stuff”

The other thing that we didn’t do with my mother-in-law, that we are still in the process of trying to do with my father-in-law, is to talk about all their belongings.

Let me tell you, people can collect some stuff! Especially when they live in one place for many decades.

Again, I’m not trying to disparage any of my parents or in-law’s as they were and are wonderful people, but geez, they have a lot of possessions!

It’s taken more than a year just to get through one of their houses, as of right now. And the hardest thing is not knowing what some of the things are.

We are constantly asking ourselves about varying items:

• Is this an heirloom? Did it belong to a grandparent or other family member?
• Is it worth something? Should we sell it or keep it?
• Who do we think they would want this item to go to?
• What on earth are we going to do with this thing?

I didn’t mention yet that my own Father passed away just before Thanksgiving 2020, from complications with Covid-19 and a lung condition he had been diagnosed with earlier last year.

And while I was not there to help her, my step-mother had mountains of things to go through of my Dad’s too. He was a collector and definitely held onto things for sentimentality as well.

But, I now wonder if he knew what a headache he left for my step-Mom, if he would have been more willing to part with his items earlier? Or, at least organized them a little more?

I can say that going through all their things definitely makes me want to downsize and minimalize my own life! I’d much rather not leave that kind of mess for someone else to go through- and I don’t even have kids, so it will likely be someone who cares even LESS about all my junk.

Again, this might be a difficult discussion, as people are very sensitive about their things. But, it might just be good enough to get them THINKING about this idea.

You may be lucky enough to have them come to the conclusion themselves that they do need to start getting rid of things, or at least label or designate what they want done with their things.

Conclusion

Well, I hope this post has given YOU a lot to think about too!

Whether you are the child or the aging parent reading this, you now probably have some homework to do. (Unless you’re already crazy organized and don’t need any help- in that case, why are you reading this? lol)

As is the theme of my blog, it’s better to work on improving things now, getting prepared now, because if you put things off until later, they may turn into “never” or “too late”.

Don’t let that be you!

And again, here’s a link to my Medication List and Tracker if you think they would be a helpful addition to you in helping to organize your aging parents.

Clarrisa Lee

Clarrisa Lee is a blogger, writer, and small business entreprenuer. She runs 3 successful Etsy shops, plus she's a pro-seller on Poshmark. She loves helping others learn how to get out of debt (like she did!), make more money, and learn how to start their own small business' too! She is happily married (unfortunately with no kids yet!) and currently lives with her husband in Wichita, Kansas.