Aging in Place 101: A Caregiver’s Guide to Aging in Place

For those of us living life in the sandwich generation, we’re constantly balancing caring for our children with caring for our aging parents. To say it isn’t easy is an understatement; I’ve watched many friends and extended family members go through this process, and I’ve been through it myself.

Caring for parents at home is doable, but also requires knowledge and a workable plan. This post offers practical tips I’ve gleaned from watching friends and extended family negotiate these challenges with their own parents.

This is a collaboration post. However, please know I stand behind everything written here, and only include links to products/services/resources I’m willing to recommend personally.

Aging In Place: Caring For Parents At Home

Aging in place planning is a critical first step for anyone considering helping their parents stay in their own home as long as possible. If you’re contemplating helping your parents age in place, you first need to weigh the pros and cons with them to see if aging in place is even a realistic possibility for them.

RELATED POST: Managing Life in the Sandwich Generation

Pros and Cons of Aging In Place

Pros of Aging in Place:

Probably the biggest pro of elderly parents aging in place is that many older people are happy to stay in familiar surroundings that they know and love.
If your parents are already part of a close-knit community – say, in a residential community where they are surrounded by many social connections – this may be a powerful reason for them to stay put.
For parents who may be in early stages of dementia, there will likely be a lot of resistance to leaving “their” space, so an age-in-place plan could be an expedient solution for the time being.
If you only have one parent to manage, such as when my half-sister Carissa was caring for her elderly mother at home, the caretaking responsibilities can often be much more manageable than if you’re trying to help BOTH your parents age in place.
Compared to retirement communities and assisted living facilities, aging in place can be much less pricey.

Cons of Aging in Place:

For parents in rural settings, there may not be many options for services to help replace daily activities that are hard or impossible for them to do for themselves. Think about driving, cleaning, getting groceries and prescriptions, etc. Public transportation, cleaning services, and grocery and prescription delivery are generally easier to arrange in urban centers than in remote rural locations, where public transportation and other services are less prevalent.
If you try to care for your elderly parents as their sole caretaker, you’ll quickly become exhausted and burned-out as their needs grow. And as I’ve gathered from several friends whose families have opted for this route, coordinating and managing all the services your parents may need to help them stay at home can also become a full-time job. (One major reason for this is the low pay and high turnover rate among those service workers in elder care related positions.)
Finally, if your parents are going to age in place and don’t want to (or are already unable to) downsize their belongings, dealing with a lifetime’s worth of accumulated stuff in their dwelling will fall to YOU when they are no longer able to remain at home.

Caring for Parents: Aging In Place Checklist

Still thinking of helping your parents age in place? Here are some of the things you’ll want to consider:

Mobility and Accessibility

Even if your parents are in great shape now, they won’t necessarily stay that way. That’s why it’s important to consider how friendly their current home is to their possible future accessibility needs.

Are there stairs? How many? It’s possible to rent mobility chairlifts for full flights of stairs; homes with many sets of one or two steps up/down could be harder to negotiate.
Are main living spaces on the same floor as a bedroom and full bath? Does the bathroom have ADA-height or “comfort height” toilets, an accessible bathing space, and grab bars? If not, can these be installed?
Are doorways and interior doors easy for walkers, mobility scooters, or wheelchairs to get through?

If your parents are already in a single-floor ranch house, it will be much easier for them to age in place from the start than if their living space is spread out over a finished attic, finished basement, and full first and second floors.

Planning Modifications Before Mobility Changes Become Urgent

Many homeowners wait until mobility limitations appear before making accessibility upgrades, but earlier planning usually leads to safer and less expensive outcomes. Installing wider doorways, better lighting, non-slip flooring, and step-free entries before they become medically necessary allows modifications to occur gradually rather than during emergencies.

Early preparation also gives families more time to coordinate renovation agreements, liability protections, and future caregiving documentation without making rushed decisions under medical pressure. During that process, some homeowners rely on services that offer legal documents and guides across consumer, employment, family, and business law.

As you work with your parents on their aging-in-place plans, it’s worth reminding them that making appropriate updates proactively, rather than when their mobility has already started to suffer, also give them much more flexibility to choose designs that match both long-term safety needs and personal style preferences. This may make them more willing to consider the process, versus resisting it as a sign that they’re getting older and becoming less capable.

Getting Around

With so much of the United States built around automobile travel, losing one’s ability to drive can deal a crushing blow to independent living. Thus it’s important to think about how realistic it is for your parents to remain at home if they can no longer drive:

Do they live in a place where it’s easy to get groceries, prescriptions, and other necessities delivered?
Can you and your siblings or children, friends from church, taxis, Uber/Lyft, or public transport help them get to and from doctor’s appointments? Are they tech-savvy and alert enough to manage ordering a ride share or navigate buses and subways?
Can they get other services – such as hair stylists, physical therapists/personal trainers, and concierge doctors – to come to them?
Or are they currently well enough (and in an appropriate setting) to get around in a walkable community?

Managing Tasks of Daily Living

Probably the biggest consideration in your parents’ ability to age in place involves managing the tasks of daily living. Those annoying things we call “adulting” – paying bills, staying on top of meals and laundry and home repairs, etc. – become harder as we age.

Which daily activities your parents can no longer do for themselves will help you determine what additional supports they need. Once you have a list of needed supports, you can determine (ideally with your siblings, even if they don’t live nearby) which tasks you can manage amongst yourselves, and which you can outsource to others.

Besides driving, these are some tasks your parents may need help with as they age:

Buying food, preparing meals, and cleaning up afterward (see if there is a Meals On Wheels program in their area)
Washing, folding, and putting away laundry
Staying on top of day-to-day home cleaning (clearing dishes, throwing away uneaten food, taking out the trash, changing sheets)
Bathing, dressing, brushing teeth, and other basic hygiene tasks
Taking care of pets (buying food, feeding them, emptying litter boxes/walking the dog, etc.)
Going through the mail each day, including tossing/recycling junk and making sure all bills get paid on time
Home maintenance tasks involving trips outdoors (bringing out trash/recycling, shoveling sidewalks, mowing the lawn)
Staying on top of minor home maintenance (changing lightbulbs, replacing empty toilet paper and paper towel rolls, putting phone handsets back in the charging cradles after use, restocking supplies as they run low)

Managing their health and well-being

Parents who are less mobile can find it harder to take care of their own health and well-being. This is especially crucial for our older parents because the older we get, the more health needs we are likely to have. That’s why managing one’s own health may be another area where your aging parents can use some extra help.

Consider whether your parents may need assistance with

Scheduling, getting to, and handling follow-up from medical appointments, whether with their primary care provider or specialists;
Scheduling, remembering, making it to, and managing follow-up for any labwork or surgeries;
Taking daily prescriptions at the appropriate time;
Scheduling, remembering to get, and keeping track of needed screenings, immunizations, and follow-up care;
Wound care if they get injured, as well as
Physical therapy following surgery or acute conditions; and
Day-to-day management of chronic conditions.

And for those of us who live in the United States, your parents may also need help staying on top of their Medicare plan and any yearly changes or updates. A quick chat with a Medicare expert can help you review your parents’ options, and give you – and them – peace of mind.

Other things to consider when caring for parents at home

Finally, no caring for aging parents checklist would be complete without considering other details of caring for aging parents, whether you’re trying to help them age in place or transition to a retirement community where they can receive a higher level of care:

Are their affairs and finances in order?

Do they have a will? Do you know who their lawyer and financial planner are, and how to get ahold of these people? More importantly, do you have permission to talk to them?

Have you discussed powers of attorney and privacy forms with them?

There are several different types of power of attorney – healthcare power of attorney, financial power of attorney, etc. There are also those privacy forms we all have to fill out each year at our doctor’s office, stating to whom their staff can talk when discussing OUR health situation. Getting your parents’ written consent to speak to their doctors and specialists, lawyer, financial planner, and accountant will make your life much easier.

What level of care DO they need?

More than once, I’ve watched loved ones try to balance their parents’ wishes to age in place against their parents’ declining physical and mental capacities. This is why it’s so important to start having these conversations with your parents ASAP, if you haven’t already. Otherwise, your parents may not be fully able to give consent (yet still with the program enough to think they’re not cognitively impaired) when the time comes that they really can’t live independently anymore, without more support coming in to help.

When your parents need more advanced care:

At some point, if your parents live long enough, they may no longer be able to manage life at home, even with outside help. This is especially true for parents with declining physical or cognitive abilities.

When the need for comprehensive care becomes critical, their parents’ increasing difficulties can present insurmountable obstacles for caregivers, as the need for coordinating round-the-clock at-home becomes unmanageable. This is why it’s critical to start researching assisted-living options for your parents long before they need this level of care. As I’ve seen with family and friends going through this process, finding a decent-quality placement that your family can afford is almost impossible on short notice; the places your parents would actually want to stay will either have months-long waitlists or be prohibitively expensive. (This is also another reason, as noted above, to start these conversations with your parents when they’re still capable of participating in them.)

Things to consider as you research assisted living options:

As you explore options for your parents, make sure you understand how their care will progress through the facility at different stages. For example, if cognitive decline is a major concern, does the facility have an appropriate memory care unit? Are there options between fully independent living and 24/7 skilled nursing care in a hospital wing? And what happens when your parents have exhausted their financial resources – will they end up on the street?

Finally, as your parents’ care needs evolve, it’s important to stay in close communication with all members of their care network, including your adult siblings/other relevant family members, their doctors, and any other professionals they work with. Ensuring clear communication among all members of the care team is crucial for maintaining consistency, as well as making sure everyone understands your parents’ evolving needs. Regular meetings or updates with the healthcare providers can enable optimal care coordination, and regular check-ins with their financial and legal representatives can ensure that other aspects of the life details they can no longer manage are dealt with appropriately.

Your turn:

Have you had these conversations with aging parents already? How has your experience gone with caring for elderly parents at home? What did I miss above? Let us know in the comments!

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