Navigating Senior Care with Lynn Smargis – Recognizing the Right Time for a Move

Welcome to the Living to 100 Club Podcast. Here's our host, Dr. Joseph Casciani.

Well, hello to everyone joining us today. You're listening to the Living to 100 Club Podcast, and I'm your host, Joe Casciani. I'm passionate about helping people embrace the principles of psychologically healthy aging, staying positive, finding purpose, and making the most of all the years we're given, no matter what challenges come along. Each episode, we bring you conversations that educate and inspire, guiding you to age with resilience, optimism, and a positive mindset. Thank you for being part of this journey with us. Now, let's dive into today's conversation. Today we will be navigating senior care with Lynn Smargis. I welcome Lynn Smargis, an expert in senior home care and transitions. We'll be discussing the challenges families face when making decisions about aging loved ones. Recognizing when an older adult needs additional care is not always easy. Many families delay important conversations struggle with guilt and uncertainty, or don't fully understand the different types of senior living options available. Lynn shares her insights on key warning signs that indicate a move may be necessary, strategies for productive and compassionate conversation, and how families can navigate the complex world of senior care. She also offers practical advice on finding quality senior living communities understanding costs, and ensuring that aging parents will remain engaged and connected no matter where they live. We'll also highlight Lynn's new book, Caring for Your Aging Parents. First, a little background. Lynn works to assist her clients in facing the many strenuous care decisions, whether it be exploring senior living options, finding resources to pay for care, directing you to appropriate community services, or assisting your family about available care choices. She has a wealth of information and resources she's ready to share, including her network of senior care professionals, making your experience more manageable and stressful. Lynn, welcome to our program today.

Joe, thanks for having me on today. I'm really excited to be here to help your audience better understand senior care and senior living.

Great. Yeah, I have a bunch of questions. I know we're going to get into some good conversation. So thank you for being a part of our program. I always like to open by asking our guests to share some of the journey that brought you to where you are today. You've covered a lot of ground, of course, I know. And what are the highlights or what are the pivot points that caused you to land where you are?

So, for being a senior advisor, well, many years ago, it's been almost, gosh, it's been almost 2 decades now, I helped take care of both of my parents at the end of their life. They were actually really young when they passed. My mom was 62 and my dad was 66. They ended up getting cancer within 6 months of each other. So my mom came home with a diagnosis of breast cancer, and then my mom went into remission. And then my dad had a diagnosis of stage 4 adenocarcinoma, which is small intestinal cancer. And then, and then my dad went into remission. My mom's cancer came back and she passed away. And then my dad's cancer came back and then he passed away. So within a 6-year period, I was seeing here both of my parents that had different forms of cancer. Yeah.

Well, and you have immersed yourself in the whole field of aging and placement and helping with options for seniors. Let's, let's just jump right into this. What are the, what are the common warning signs that indicate an older adult may no longer be safe at home?

Yeah, there's a lot of different ones, but I think one of the, there's a few that I'd love to hit on today. And the really big red flag is falling. If someone has fall, the chances are that they're going to fall again. And a fall is a really fast track into having a very poor quality at the end of life. I've seen people who, they don't want to move out of their house, which I understand. But then when people fall, even if they have kids that are 10 minutes from them, I've seen like multiple instances of seniors falling. Their children live within 10, 15 minutes of them, but they don't find them for 8 hours a day. One, one woman was lying on the floor for 3 days after she fell because she couldn't get up. And that leads to really poor quality end of life. So instead of, you know, having a good quality end of life, you're, you're in a nursing— skilled nursing facility the remainder of your life, bedridden. Or like, as in one instance, this man was— he had a stroke. No one found him for 8 hours. And not only was he bedridden, but he also couldn't use his voice.. So that's a really poor quality of life to live out whatever remainders of your years are because you want to hold on to a house. Like, for me, like, personally, I don't— like, I don't see that. Like, if your— if your parents have fallen once, definitely start talking to them about, you know, at least getting some help in at a minimum. Um, another warning sign, a big red flag, was to be if you visited your parents and they don't look like they've showered in a long time. Uh, That's a really big red flag for a couple different reasons. One, it could indicate a few different things. One is it could indicate that your parent is depressed and they're just not showering and not getting out of the house and not wanting to see other people and they're self-isolating. Or another is that they could have dementia and they don't realize that they haven't showered in a week, 2 weeks, 3 weeks. And so either way, your parents looking very disheveled or, you know, not having bathed in a while is another red flag.

Sure. So that's part of the ADLs, activities of daily living, showering, eating, self-care, other hygiene procedures. So how do you have that conversation? How does that, how do the adult children or another spouse start to talk about maybe needing some help in home or maybe needing to move? How do you, that's a delicate topic. How do we start that conversation?

Yeah, that's actually my most— that's my most popular podcast episode on my podcast, Caring for Your Aging Parents. So what I tell people, what I recommend, because I had this conversation with my parents as well, they had to sell their house and they ended up moving in with us because they couldn't no longer take care of themselves. So what we did was we, you know, just asked them like, how are you managing your house? Like, you know, and really ask them questions. Don't, don't go in saying things like, oh, you know, you clearly can't take care of your house. We need to move you because no one likes to be told what to do the last time I checked. So you really have to just ask them questions like, hey, Mom or Dad, how are you managing the house? How are you keeping up with, you know, your 10 acres you have? How are you keeping up with all the animals you have on the farm? Or maybe it's something to the effect of like, how are you managing to get to the, you know, the supermarket every week? Or if it's your dad and your mom has passed, a lot of the times the men don't understand how to even food shop or meal prep, and they start losing weight. And losing or gaining weight in a fast amount of time is also a big red flag. So if you see that, ask your parents, like, hey, how are you managing meals? Are you going out to restaurants? Are you getting TV dinners? What are you doing for meals? So just asking them a lot of questions about where they are. As far as care and not going in assuming you know the answers. Because a lot of times as the child, we might think we know, but we might know what they're doing, but we probably don't know why. Because everybody has such a different reason why they're doing something. And it could be something completely that you don't understand or that you never knew about your parent as to why they're doing something. And it may or may not make sense to you. So just going in there really with curiosity and asking them and a lot of patience, a lot of patience, because they, they may get frustrated with you really easy because no matter how old you are, you're still their child.

Yeah.

Um, and, and if they do get frustrated with you, I always recommended people, um, or if you don't have like that close relationship with your parents or you're having a hard time talking with them, like enlist a trusted friend who can help you like, you know, um, really dig into what the real issue is with your parents. So it might be maybe a priest or, uh, a clergy person that they're really close to. It might be their medical doctor, might be a close friend. It might be their bus driver. Like, you just don't know who it is that they're close to, but somebody who you feel like will be a good person to talk with that also won't completely side with your parents. Like, for example, I get this a lot from my clients. Well, I try to talk to my mom's friends about she needs to stop driving, and her friends, every time they see me, say, oh, you're the child who's trying to take her car keys away.

Yeah, so the fence will often slide. You know, I think, well, you know as well as I that denial is pretty common with, you know, with this age group. And we don't like to admit our limitations. We don't like to talk about what's wrong, or we put those walls up. And I think your point is a good one, that we don't want to point out what mom or dad is doing wrong or what they're not keeping up with that. I like to kind of suggest that you say to Mom or you say to Dad, gee, Dad, this is, this is such a big house and a big yard. How are you, how are you managing all this by yourself? How are you taking care of all the repairs and all the things that need to be attended to? Because that, that, that helps to kind of recognize where they are and maybe avoid some of the walls, some of the denial that that comes up. So we know there's a lot of emotional difficulties and challenges with recognizing our limitations and recognizing, you know, when it's time to bring in some help or maybe look at relocating. So what are, what are some of the big emotional barriers that, that you encounter when you're helping this population?

One of the big ones actually is with sometimes with the children, like they feel like they have to do everything their parents ask, and that's not, that's also not okay, right? Like So supporting your parents, yes. But I had one woman and she said, I'm retired, but I've literally spent 40 hours— like, I spend 40 hours a month driving my parents every place because they want me to do everything for them. Now, that's not fair, right? Like, so you do have to put up boundaries. But like, going back to the emotional things, like, especially in the older generation, a lot of people, like, they see their car as their form of independence. So that's really hard. Like, giving up driving is really hard, especially if they don't know where they're going to get their rides from. So if you, you know, have a service that you can get for your parents, it's like a senior ride service, not, not Lyft or Uber, because senior citizens will not typically trust a Lyft or Uber ride. But if they— if you can find solutions for your parents, that's also really helpful. But that, like, the driving piece is really emotionally charged and moving out of the house just in general is really emotionally charged. If you, if you can find, if they have a friend who's moved into a retirement community or a friend that has in-home care that they really like, that also helps. So you can talk to that friend without your parent and say like, hey, what do you like about this in-home care? Can you talk to my mom about it? Or what do you like about this retirement community? I mean, that retirement community specifically might not be a good fit for your mom or dad or both, but maybe your friend can tell them like, hey, these are the benefits. Like, I have friends all the time. I always have something to do. Like, I always have some really great, you know, activities and friends to hang out with. Like, I don't have to look for people because they're right here in my community. So all of these things are really emotionally charged. And it's, again, just, you know, approaching it with like a lot of care and empathy too, because yes, your parents are losing their abilities, even generally as you age, right? Even if you don't have dementia or you don't have a chronic illness. And, and again, illness and aging are different. A lot of people associate the two. Your body does get less efficient as we age, right? We can, we can all feel that. But it doesn't necessarily mean that you're sick. I mean, I, one of my clients, his mom was 100 years old and she lived at home all the way up till the end and she was perfectly fine. And then there's people who are 70 who are not fit for living at home. It really just depends on your circumstances and your your health and wellness. A huge one is your lifestyle. Like, do you lead a healthy lifestyle? And even just trying to get your parents to change basic lifestyle habits is really hard, especially if they've been doing the same lifestyle for 20, 30, 40 years. So those are all like, pretty much anything you talk about with your parents is going to be emotionally charged just from the aspect of you're their child and they don't want you telling them what to do, no matter, no matter No matter what expertise you have. Like, for a perfect example is my husband's brother is board certified in 3 different medical practices. So he's a doctor and he's board certified physician in 3 different fields. And their mom wouldn't listen to him. So clearly he was an expert. So it's just really hard to get your parents to listen to you, but just trying to keep your emotion out of it is really hard, but definitely is helpful. And trying to keep as objective as possible a perspective when you're talking to your parent.

Yeah, yeah, that's really important to keep the emotion out of it because parents know how to press our buttons, right?

Yes.

And when our buttons get pressed, we react the same way we've always reacted. So that's getting, getting control of that and being very observant of where we are emotionally. That's key. Yeah, that's good information. Thanks. Yeah, I mentioned your book, Caring for Your Aging Parents. It's a relatively new book, right? It's out recently, and I read it, and I love the section on living options, senior living options. You know, we hear a lot about independent living, retirement homes, assisted living, skilled nursing. Can you break down that continuum for us?

Yeah, yeah. And so, so the— my podcast is Caring for Your Aging Parents, but then my book is called Sensible Senior Solutions.

Ah, Sensible Senior Solutions. Okay, sorry.

Yeah, I know it's a lot of names. So, so yeah, so in my book Sensible Senior Solutions, there's, uh, you know, basic types of care you can get for your parents. So the one a lot of people are familiar with are in-home care. And so there's a lot of different types of in-home care you can get. So like you can just have somebody come over and do housekeeping., and some general things. Like, it doesn't have to be medical, or you can have somebody come over and do like bandage changing and medical things for your parents at home. Um, many of these services, depending on what it is, are covered by Medicare and other different health insurances. So definitely check in. I always tell my clients, call your parents' health insurance to find out what is and what is not covered and what type of deductibles they're going to pay first before you hire somebody, so you, you can financially plan going into that situation. Um, but as far as retirement living goes, the first phase of retirement living, what I call the first phase is independent living. So you, that's for people who, I mean, you can have a walker, you can have housekeeping services come over, you can have people help you in independent living, but you have to be able to mainly perform all of your daily tasks on your own. So independent living is fabulous for people who want more community. They don't want to have to like drive everywhere to find community. It's a great building community where you can usually find people who have a lot of similar interests to you. They have a of really great activities, uh, whether that's like armchair travel or, um, they do like scenic tours or cooking classes. And it really depends on the community. So some communities, like I saw one that was very art-centered, so they had like acrylic classes and ceramic classes and a lot of different type of artistic classes. But I, you know, but if you're not into art, that wouldn't be a good retirement community for you. But, uh, a lot of retirement communities are, uh, have a ton of different activities centered around all different types of topics and things that people love to do. And then the next step after independent living would be assisted living. And assisted living is a really good fit for people who need some help with those activities of daily living that we were talking about before, Joe. Like, you need help with bathing and dressing, even if that's just somebody standing by to make sure that you're safe. You may need some help with eating. You might need some help with toileting. You might need some help with um, like, you know, getting your hair washed, because you can wash your body but you can't wash your hair. So if you need help with 2 activities of daily living, and it can be any 2 combination, then assisted living is probably a good choice for your parents. Now, I will say, because a lot of people have this misinformation, they think that Medicare will pay for assisted living, and it does not. However, if your mom or dad is getting services such as PT or OT, those services are covered by Medicare, and they can come into the retirement living that your parent is at and give them those services which are covered by Medicare. But assisted living in and of itself is not covered by Medicare. So that's something to note for people who are listening to the podcast.

Nor is independent living. Of course, that's all private pay.

Yeah, right, right. And independent living, yes, is not also not covered by Medicare. Also too, I have a lot of people ask me, well, because assisted living has two prices. So the one base price is your rent that you pay every month depending on the size of the place you get. And then the other price you pay, other monthly fee you pay for assisted living is your care. And typically a retirement living place will have care levels 1 through 7. And when you sign up for the retirement living, or you're considering the retirement living, their nurse will evaluate you along with your doctor's medical records and say, okay, you're at care level 3, so it's going to be $750 a month for your care, or whatever it is. And there's no, there's no scale to, like, there's no central scale or regular scale to this. It's all private, so everybody has different scale levels and different prices for their scale levels.

Sure.

And then the next level up would be memory care. And you have to be— you have to have a diagnosis of dementia to get into a memory care. You can't just say, oh, my mom's forgetful, she needs memory care. So in order for that to happen, a doctor has to get a medical diagnosis. And I always recommend to my clients to go to a neurologist or a gerontologist who specializes in older adult healthcare or brain health to get that, that type of a diagnosis. Because I've seen GPs diagnose it wrong because GPs just don't have the background to really diagnose dementia well. And there's also 15 different types of dementia which people don't know. So you can have a combination of 1 or 2 types of dementia going on, and that can be really hard to diagnose, especially for a neurologist. So definitely go to a specialist to get that diagnosed. But memory care is the same as assisted living, but it's definitely a little more pricier because you have a higher level of care. Memory care is what's called a lockdown unit. So there's typically a central hub where all the, like, medication offices are. And then there's like typically 4 wings where they'll have a number of bedrooms that people with dementia all share that space. So they can—

you know, I'm sorry, memory care is always secured. It's always locked.

Yes, memory care is always in a secure facility and they can freely walk around. And that's why it's secure. They can go out into the garden whenever they want. All the plants in the gardens are edible because people with dementia don't understand, and they'll just take plants and start putting them in their mouth. So everything that they can get a hold of is edible, so they don't have to worry about people getting sick from eating things outside. And it's really— they do a lot. They still do activities in memory care. They just do a lot of times, they don't do outings where they take people on a bus. Some memory care facilities do and some don't. So you have to find out from that memory care facility. And the last level is like a rehab or skilled nursing, and that is a very high level of care. It's very similar to a hospital where, like, you can't be in an assisted living because they don't have enough care for you. Or if you're in a memory care and you have some type of, like, stroke or heart attack and you need a hospital-like setting for care and you're getting out of the hospital but you can't go back to your memory care, assisted living, skilled nursing would be that in-between step where you're there for a number of weeks or months, and then you get discharged to either your home, assisted living, or your memory care.

Yeah, a lower level of care.

Yeah, right.

Yeah. Interesting. And CCRCs, continuing care retirement communities, is that the whole continuum, the whole span? Yes. People can move from one level to another, right?

So the difference between a continuing care community and the retirement communities I just mentioned is that they— continuing care retirement communities, or CCRCs as they're known, has every different level of care. So they have all the way from independent all the way to skilled nursing and everything in between. So they have memory care, assisted living. So the benefit to being in a CCRC is that if you are in assisted living and you get diagnosed with dementia, and especially if you have a partner or a wife or a husband, one person can live in the memory care in that community and the other person can still live in the assisted living. So you have every level of care. So say, for instance, you're in assisted living and one of your parents who is in assisted living has a heart attack and they go to the hospital. Well, they don't— you don't have to worry about finding a skilled nursing facility when he comes out because they have one there. The downside is, is that a CCRC is a very high amount to get into it. Like, so with any non-CCRC retirement living community, you're typically paying somewhere between $1,500 and $3,500 for the registration fee. And that's a one-time fee for your registration. And then you just pay your monthly fee after that. Well, with the CCRC, you're typically paying anywhere from $50,000 to $2 million to enter that CCRC because you get these levels of care. So I don't recommend CCRCs for anyone that has under $10 million of assets because I have seen people get into CCRCs thinking they're going to love it, and then they spend a half million dollars getting into it. And then they decide after they get into it, a couple of years down the road, they don't really like it or it's not a good fit for them. And so they just lost that $500,000 deposit. So if you don't have a good amount of liquid assets available or assets available, that can really hurt your bank account in retirement. So that's why I never recommend a CCRC unless someone has about $10 million available to spend at the end of their life, at the, at the, you know, when they're ready to move into retirement.

Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for that. That's a lot of information. Where can people learn more? And I know your book does a really good quality outlining this.

Thank you.

Sensible Senior Solutions.

Yes.

Where else can we— I mean, we'll get your book addressed in a few minutes, but where else can people get this information?

Yeah. So, you can also go to my podcast too, caringforyouragingparents.com, which has your interview on it, Joe, which I'm really excited to publish. So, that's coming out soon. And then, you can also go to my website, Pacific Northwest Senior Care. But definitely I would say, I would recommend go to the podcast website first, caringforyouragingparentspodcast.com, because that has all my episodes and a lot of really good blogs and information about a lot of the different things we talked about today.

Are there some hidden costs that come into play when we're evaluating a possible placement site, things that we should be looking out for?

Yeah, I would say make sure it's clear, like, especially if you're getting into assisted living or memory care, that you're clear on A, what the evaluation is for your parents and what they're going to do for your parents. So, like, make sure you know, like, this is the amount you're spending and this is exactly what they're offering as far as services for your parents. So that's one thing, because some people get caught off guard. They think like, oh, okay, I'm paying this much money. But, but what my parents actually need is this. So they actually need more. So make sure that the services that you're getting are the services that are the best fit for your parent and that they actually need them. And the other— I think the other hidden cost is just, you know, making sure you ask about registration fees. And then, and then are there any other additional fees other than, you know, the care fees? Because sometimes they have maintenance fees, sometimes, you know, they have, and they have like service fees. So if you want your parents to get housekeeping, that's an additional service fee. So make sure you get a breakdown of all the fees and know exactly what you're paying for so that you don't get blindsided with, oh my gosh, I didn't know that there was $100 service fee for cleaning every month. I thought that was included in the rent. Mm-hmm. So make sure you're just really clear and understand anything. Um, also another thing I would always tell my clients is if you put down a deposit before you put down a deposit on a place, ask them, if I decide I don't want my parents to move in here, can I get my deposit back? And if so, how does that work? Because like some places say yes, you can get your deposit back within 3 days. Some places say you can't get your deposit back. So just make sure you're clear on if you put a deposit down, what are the terms of that deposit and can you get it back?

Yeah. Well, good information. Good information. Thank you.

Thank you.

Where does Medicaid come into the picture? We know Medicare doesn't cover independent or assisted, at least for the placement. How does Medicaid come into the picture?

So Medicaid is a federal program for people who are considered low income. And so there's two, there's two ways you can get Medicaid. So you can get Medicaid before age 60 or 65 if you have a disability, and you can apply to get on Medicaid, and it is an application process. Or if you're an older adult, like over 60 or over 65, you can get Medicare and Medicaid. So what Medicaid does is Medicaid pays for, like, it'll pay for assisted living, it'll pay for memory care. The problem— there's a couple different problems with Medicaid, though, or challenges, I should say. One is that it is a very lengthy process to apply for it. And if you mess up on the application, it takes another few months to reapply. Also, the one biggest misnomer a lot of my clients have had with Medicaid is they think Part of Medicaid is you have to have a certain amount of money. You can't have over that amount. So some people think, oh, I'll just give my money away to my kids or this charitable organization, and it makes me, quote unquote, look poor. Well, the problem with that is, is that Medicaid does a 5-year lookback, which means this is a perfect example. So one of my clients, her dad needed to be in memory care, and but her mom, 2 years, like her mom had recently passed away, and 2 years before her mom passed away, she gave a quarter million dollars to each of her children. To make her dad look poor. But now the problem is, since her mom gave that money away to her kids, they can't get their dad on Medicaid because it was gifted money. And so when Medicaid does that look back, they'll say, well, you gifted the money, you're not— you don't qualify for Medicaid. And so now her husband had to leave work and take off work, his full-time job. He had to quit his job to stay at home with her dad because her mom had gifted them money. So he couldn't get on Medicaid and they couldn't place him in a memory care. The other thing with Medicaid is that not all places accept Medicaid. There's no requirement for private entities that run these retirement facilities to accept Medicaid. So it's very limited in what you can find. So there are some good places that do accept Medicaid patients, but they're few and far between, and they're really, really hard to find a good one. I know of a few ones here in the Portland area just because I'm in this— I'm in the network. But if you don't know of one, I would highly recommend if your parents are going on Medicaid, two, two things. One is to get somebody to help with the Medicaid spending on an application because they're going to save you a ton of time, money, and hassle. And the other is to find a really good certified senior advisor in your area that can guide you to those places that are going to be better. They can suggest some places that might be better for if you are planning on putting your parents on Medicaid and Medicaid is going to be paying for their retirement living.

Yeah, well, now back to the Medicaid and assets, personal assets, aren't there? Some exemptions, or can we still own a house and that doesn't qualify as an asset, or—

Yeah, so every state is different. So even though Medicaid is federally funded and run, um, it— or federally funded, it's actually run individually by state. So I always recommend people to hire an attorney who specializes in Medicaid and to explain to them what they can and can't do, or a spend-down specialist. So someone who is a specialist specifically in Medicaid spend-down. Because every state has their little loopholes and their little things you can and cannot do. And so to get that advice from somebody in your state is, I feel like, is totally worth the investment.

Well, yeah. Are there some steps that we can take in advance of a potential crisis or urgent placement? I mean, prevention is always better than—

Right. Yeah.

Something last minute. Yeah.

Right. And I find a lot of my clients, like, like, they're the children, the adult children, like, who are the Gen Xers, like my age, want their, their mom or dad to move into retirement living because they know it's going to be better for them. But a lot of times their parents are resistant. Um, but one of the things you can do is you can actually go and tour these places without your parents. So if you find, uh, I always suggest people find a senior advisor in your area, um, because, um, they, uh, as a senior advisor, we get paid by the, uh, retirement communities that we place in. So it's a free service to our clients. So you can even call a senior advisor in your area and say, hey, my, I see my mom's health is on the decline, you know, and do an interview with a senior advisor. They can find out information about your mom or dad and or parents, and you can go and tour facilities and see what's out there just to get ahead. I had a client do that and he toured some places. We found a really great place for his mom. At that point, she wasn't ready to move in, but she ended up in the hospital and she had no choice. She couldn't move back home. So instead of having to scramble last minute, we had already found a place for her and it was a very seamless transition just to move her over.

Yeah. So the planning, advance work and preparation, checking out— is there a database, a national database of CSA, Certified Senior Advisors?

Yeah. So you can go to the Certified Senior Advisors of America online, or if you need help finding somebody, you can always reach out to me on my podcast website, caringforyouragingparents.com, and I've got a contact form. And if you just reach out to me on there with your phone number, I can give you a call and recommend some senior advisors in your area.

Great, great. Okay, thanks. A lot of information, and a lot of it does come down to kind of planning, right? And yeah, preparation and getting information, checking places out, talking to different— I know some of the specialists with Medicare and Medicaid, and they really know their topic very well. They're very thorough, especially with the updates and changes. Both of those systems are changing frequently, especially with the managed Advantage plans and a lot of that. So yeah, good information. Yeah.

Yeah. And I would say definitely one other piece of information I will give your listeners is if your parents are getting to the age where they're applying for Medicare, have them sign up for a prescription plan even if they don't have currently prescriptions. Because one of the things I've seen my clients get into is they're like, oh, I'm healthy, I don't need prescriptions. And then next thing they know, they need an expensive prescription that they can't afford. And they can't get on a prescription plan until the next open enrollment. So just have your parents even spend the basic amount, which is like $10 a month for a prescription plan. It's well worth the investment. It's not expensive, and it will save your parents when and if they do need a prescription in the near future.

Yeah, that's good advice. How do families— how do adult children and spouses stay connected with the individual who's moved into a senior community or even assisted living, how do they— what's best for that connection and keeping that relationship alive? What do you think?

So I actually have seen a few different scenarios for that. Um, I've seen one where, um, both spouses were on Medicaid, um, and I, uh, I can't remember how both spouses got it, but anyway, both spouses were on Medicaid, but in order for them to be on Medicaid, they had to live in separate apartments in this assisted living. Um, so they would literally live next door to each other and would basically sleep over each other's apartment. So that's, that's one way. Another way I know people do is that for, especially if one's in assisted living or one's in memory care and one's not in memory care, the person that's not in memory care can very easily go over to memory care. They can do activities with them. They can spend time with them. It's just that the person from memory care can't go out unless they're with a family member or, you know, a legal guardian because they have dementia. But just literally going over and spending time with them because it doesn't matter if you're in independent assisted living or memory care or a skilled nursing facility, you can have visitors. You can— a lot of times you can have grandkids sleep over if it's not memory care, but usually like in assisted living. So there is a lot of options for people to come and do activities with you at, at your community and or you go out and do activities with them. So it's really just a matter of setting up a schedule or setting up times and being proactive about setting up and putting aside that time, that special one-on-one time with your loved ones.

Yeah, that connection is really critical, isn't it, to staying, staying positive about ourselves and our family?

Oh, absolutely. I actually seen people who have moved into assisted living, and, and they actually ended up moving backward, like up into independent living, because they were isolating themselves so much that, that self-isolation caused depression, and that causes a lot of like physical illnesses, or if you have a physical illness already, right? That's self-isolation, and that will actually take you down that road even further. So yeah, so being around people, really, really important, especially as we age, because the older we get, the harder it is to find and keep friends. Yeah.

Yeah, social engagement is one of the keys, right?

Yes, absolutely.

Surely a lot of these locations have holiday events, parties, and the more we can stay connected with our loved ones, I think that that's good for both sides. And, you know, it just maintains that social connection. And because otherwise it's so easy to withdraw, as you say, to isolate, and we start to put up those walls again and, you know, pull back and maybe stay in our rooms and not get involved with activity. So, we need to keep reaching out to mom or dad or whoever's in. Yeah.

And going back to the red flag thing, I have had adult clients say, well, my mom's not a shut-in, but she stays in her house all week and watches TV. So if you're saying my mom or my dad stays in their house all week, they are a shut-in. So that is the definition of being a shut-in. So, and, and, and don't feel like, like a lot of pe— a lot of adult children might see their aging parents and be like, oh, well, they're older. They really don't want to do anything. That's not true. They do want to do things. They might not know where to go or where to find activities to do or how to approach that, especially, especially if it's the male left alone. Females are much more socially active with other females than males are with other males. Actually, the highest rate of incidence in Oregon, where I live, is males over the age of 80 in rural areas because they end up there, they lose their spouse and they're depressed and they don't have any human connection and they end up committing suicide, which is really sad. So yeah, make sure that your parents are getting out and getting that human connection, whatever, in whatever form they like. It might be knitting, it might be like going and volunteering at an animal shelter, it might be volunteering at the library, like whatever it is, they need to get out of the house and they need to feel purposeful.

Yeah. Well, of course, for some people, this is not the norm. They're not used to activities and programs and music and cooking sessions. So, it is different. And I, I've experienced this myself as I've gone to some of these communities that it's difficult for people to kind of reach out and jump into these activities because they didn't do that at home. Right. You have to be mindful of that. Yeah.

And another thing is too, is that they don't have to do all the activities. Like people think, oh, I'm in this retirement community, I'm required to do act— you're not required to do the activities. If you just want to go and sit and watch the activity, That's better than not going because at least you can be there with friends or meet people, right? Dining, another great way to— everybody has to eat, right? So go down to the dining room when everybody is there and meet people. I mean, there's so many out— you don't have to do the activities, especially if you're introverted. Like, a lot of people don't like to be in areas with a lot of people. But even if you're at a dining table with 4 or 5 people, you're still going to have the chance to meet people on your own level, right?. So it doesn't have to be overwhelming with a big activity. And there's also smaller activities. There's also like just the library where people go and sit and read, where you can just go and meet someone else who loves to read. There's a lot of different options to meet people.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wrote, as you know, this whole series of modules, and one of the modules is just on increasing engagement and connection. And it's setting up programs and setting up opportunities and walking gingerly with some of those people that are not accustomed to being very social and very active. But we do need that connection. We do need that connection, right?

It's about taking the baby steps.

We find it. Yeah, baby steps. Yeah. Well, this is great conversation, Lynn. Um, tell us again your website. Where can people get more information about you?

Yeah, so the best website to reach me at is, uh, or to get more information is caringforyouragingparentspodcast.com. And then you can also pick up my book on Amazon. All you have to do is just throw in the search bar Sensible Senior Solutions. You'll find it. It's a white cover with a retired, uh, a retired couple holding a house. Um, yeah, it's really easy to find.

Yeah, great. Good. It's a good book. Well written and it covers a lot of territory. I love that.

Thank you.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, it looks like we're out of time for today, but before I wrap up, I just want to remind my listeners to visit my website, livingto100.club. Sign up as a club insider, as a longevity insider, you'll enjoy benefits and including free copies of many of my documents and live discussions and a private group forum we'll be setting up. And if you're affiliated with senior living community, be sure to explore my Better, Longer, and Happier card deck series. I just mentioned one of the modules. That's at livingto100.solutions, a powerful resource designed to promote positive aging in senior living communities. Lynn, thanks so much for being a guest on our program.

Thank you so much, Joe. I really appreciate that, um, having the time on your show, and I, I love your show, and I love your club, and love what you're doing. It's really fabulous.

Yeah, thanks so much. Thank you very much, and thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in. Hope to see you next time.