Join us as Jamie shares valuable insights on visiting aging loved ones at home during the holidays. From observing their interactions to ensuring their safety, there are important factors to consider. Let's dive in and make every visit meaningful.
Video Transcript
Hi, everyone, and welcome to an episode of Senior Living Live. We are here in Fort Worth, Texas at The Vantage at Cityview on-site we are so lucky to be joined today, by Miss Jamie. Thank you so much for joining us. And we're going to talk about the holidays. It's it's coming up, which is crazy to me.
It is crazy. Yeah. Kinda like starting to have anxiety about it, but in a good way.
Yes. It's an exciting time. But, you know, one thing that really comes up with the holidays is visiting loved ones and visiting family. And so, you know, one thing we really like to talk about and hoping to get your advice on is what to keep in mind when visiting your loved ones for the holidays. So let's start there. But let's say someone someone's going home for Thanksgiving dinner, Christmas dinner, what would you recommend keeping an eye out for?
You know, there's so many things to think about when you're going to visit a loved one that might be aging or living with some chronic conditions it's really just kind of coming at it, looking at it, don't have an agenda when you're there, I think, is one of the biggest things not coming to say I'm gonna fix and solve and move things forward, but really just have an objective.
Let's look. Let's observe. Let's see how they're interacting in their environment. Obviously, you wanna check for safety issues.
Right? Make sure their, bills are paid. They're the fire the, batteries the fire alarm are working. You know, all of those things, the doors latch, have the bills aren't piled up over in the corner.
So we're looking for those things, but it also is how are they navigating their environment? Just sit back and watch. How do they work in the kitchen? Are they doing working with the appliances like they used to.
You might notice that they're moving slower and that's okay, but are they doing it in a safe way? So there's that physical safety, but also some mental and emotional safety as well, that they're, you know, talk about, are they staying in contact with their friends and family, or they're still going to do the bunco card game that they've always done. Right? So making sure that they're staying social and what they're social connections that they have and continue to do that, maybe even reach out to some of their friends or the neighbors and just say, Hey, how are things going?
You seeing everything doing alright, is the yard kept up with? And, but, but I think it's coming in just watching observing If you notice any red flags, we can address that later, but just knowing that that you might see some changes, you might see some things. They're moving slower, And they may not be doing things like they used to, but they're still able to get through them.
Then that's okay and just not having your agenda out there that you want everything to be it's been your whole life, and then they can move as fast, and they can do all these things without any hiccups.
But just really being there taking a deep breath, and watching and observing, and of course making sure they're safe. Of course. So, you know, if we if someone is noticing some red flags that might trigger some thoughts about, you know, making a change. When when would you say Okay. Yeah. It's time to start that start that conversation.
You know, nobody likes to be told what to do. I don't care who you are or you're at. No likes to be told what to do. So a lot of it can be - It's just how you, approach the conversation because it might not be. There might you gotta find out what's really causing the changes. It might not be needs to be a big move in the future. There might be a straightforward fix to whatever an issue is or a concern.
But starting it with, you know, asking your loved one how they're feeling.
But in a in a non-confrontational way, if you will, or again, having your agenda there. But it, you know, it could be an example of, you know, same mom, dad, grandma, you did another great job at hosting Thanksgiving dinner. Oh, so good. Love coming here.
That is really such a huge job to host this Thanksgiving dinner. I noticed that it took a little bit more energy out of you this time than maybe in the past years. How are you feeling right now? You know, or how do you feel about Are you even feeling feeling fine lately?
What's been going on? So asking them, and it's a non-confrontational, nonjudgmental way to open up the conversation.
Instead of automatically jumping to well, I noticed some things changed about here and you look extremely tired. We need to start about we need to start talking about moving into a community somewhere.
Because then, most of the time, walls are gonna go out, they're gonna become defensive, and then the conversations just will not progress from there. That's such great advice in trying to come at it from an open open point of view for sure. When-It's a stressful time during the holidays no matter who you are. Do you have any advice for for caregivers who are dealing with a lot during on top of the holidays. How can they kinda, you know, take care of themselves during this time?
Yeah. It's there's a lot of ways. I mean, holistically, take care of your whole person, your whole self when we first started this, and you're like, even just the holidays, I kinda get some anxiety about them. There's excitement, but It's the holidays too, right?
And not all stress is bad stress, right? So it's just being organized It's also managing expectations for your family, aging parent, aging grandparent, maybe your kids, the managing expectations for yourself too, because this holiday season, you may not need to do all the things that you've always done. And that's okay. Particularly if there's somebody in the family that is dealing with an illness or, or aging, they may not be able to manage it physically, but may not want to either because it is - I can have eye anxiety or high stress. So it's managing what what do we want to do and feel like we need to do traditions and hold to those, can some of those be modified? Or are there some things that we just don't do this year and maybe create new traditions of doing this instead of that or not doing you know, not having the big meal. Maybe we do potluck, or something like that.
So it is because you've got to be able to watch them, I mean, it is an indulgent season, right, with food and all of those ants spending money. But just watching what we're eating and being mindful of - Do I need this right now? Am I hungry?
After the holidays, am I regret eating this right now? It's what I tell myself, well, I regret eating this and like, three days, or even three minutes. You know, so, asking yourself that staying active, don't get out of your, exercise routine, or just start keeping the weather a little bit better, especially here in Texas. Maybe you do take advantage of the cooler weather and go out for walks and do, you know, doing those things.
Staying with your social connections, keep those up. Don't overbook yourself. Okay? Cause it's easily can be done. It's okay if you miss that party. It really is. Don't overbook yourself to where you're, just worn out, you know, and make it a time that you wanna enjoy the holidays. And sometimes that's cutting stuff, cutting stuff out or just rearranging some of those traditions you've done, with your family, but really taking stock of how you're feeling.
Yeah. You touched on this a little bit, but having to to make adjustments, based on whatever circumstance, but how are some ways that families can make sure they're including their aging parent in h holiday activities?
Yeah. That is, that's important. You know, it needs a lot of it's coming asking asking yourself what's the reason behind the season. Right?
What's the point? It's - it's bringing families together for the most part. And it is just in bringing, I mean, inviting the aging parent too. Maybe it's the kids Christmas party. Or filming it if they can't be there, and so you can watch it later. But setting up activities in a way that they can join, in that when they are joining, they're able to hear, see, feel included. They're not overstimulated. There's not a lot of competing distractions in there.
So it might be that, you know, if we're gonna do a holiday tradition, maybe it's just a small couple of people getting together. And then, later on the evening, we do another small group and say, everybody coming at once, because that might be too overwhelming for an aging parent. Or somebody that has a chronic condition or the time of the day is important too. Let's not, maybe you have to change the time of Thanksgiving dinner, two the afternoon, or maybe even a brunch as opposed to late evening when everybody's more tired.
It's just being mindful of what, their abilities are and what their comfort level is and adjusting those activities around that.
Also being prepared to like if you're going somewhere to a party or a relative's house for dinner, being prepared to leave early if you need to, if that's what's best. You know, particularly for people that have some cognitive impairment or memory issues and the importance of celebrating the holidays, bringing it past holidays, reminiscing, being a part of that activity is so important for their overall well-being.
But also knowing that sometimes it's gotta be a shorter period of time. So it might be that we do need to leave a little bit early, but we were still able to participate. And have that family time or friend time.
But as a caregiver, we need to make those adjustments on our end as well. So maybe it's you have somebody to help you with that or being okay with leaving early.
Absolutely. You - you touched on this a little bit when we were talking about caregivers, taking care of themselves. Can you talk just a little bit about being mindful during this season, weather changes, but staying healthy for for everyone and just keeping that front of top of mind.
Yeah. You know, we got this is kind of a big topic now more so than ever as it should be. It is staying healthy, making sure, you know, of course, wash your hand after everything.
I mean, that's such a huge part. And if you are starting to feel run down, don't just fluff it off as, oh, I just didn't sleep well last night, or I had too much sugar today. Be really mindful of, well, gosh, did I pick something up? Do I maybe have a cold?
Is there something?
Or don't put don't take some over counter medication to, mask it and then go out into a crowd of people because we don't wanna pass along anything as the older adult in general, and those that have immunocompromised systems that can get exposed to those things. So it is, it is sometimes you can easily schleff it off as just tired, it's just high stress, but really take stock and be honest with yourself, if you need to take a step back.
Definitely. Absolutely. Well, I I kinda this has all been so fantastic, but I wanna kinda shift back just for a second. You work at the James L. West Center for dementia care. Mhmm. Can you just tell me a little bit about that and what you guys are doing?
Yeah. Absolutely. So we are an organization that serves persons impacted by dementia. So that encompasses everybody. Right? So it's the individual that has a diagnosis, and we have a long term care community, in Fort Worth. We have an adult day program as well, but we're also here to serve those primary, I mean, the full family and friends that take care of them and health care professionals as well. So we have a robust education department that provides free education, for families, friends, wherever, healthcare professionals wherever you may be. You can be in Fort Worth, or you can be able most of our programs are online, too.
We are recently starting to do a short term rehab also that's specific for people with dementia, in our building down in town in Fort Worth. So but that is our mission. It's to serve persons impacted by dementia, and serve them holistically as best we can.
And what is, the website where people could go and learn more? Yeah. Jameslwest.org. Pretty easy.
Yeah. That's very easy.
Oh my goodness. Well, thank you so much for this. This was absolutely fantastic. Fantastic. We learned a ton about preparing for the busy holiday season.
So thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to meet with me. Absolutely. Thank you.
Alright, everyone.If you'd like to see more videos like this one, please feel free to go to seniorlivinglive.com. Best of luck during this holiday season. That's it for now. Bye bye.
