What is the first thing I should do if I believe my parent needs long-term care?

What is the first thing I should do if I believe my parent needs long-term care?

Karl Steinberg (Associate Medical Director, Sharp Mission Park Medical Group) gives expert video advice on: What are the signs my parent is ready for long-term care?; What is the first thing I should do if I believe my parent needs long-term care?; Who can help me implement a long-term care plan for my parent? and more...

The first thing to do if you're starting to get a feeling that your parent or parents might need to move to a place where they're going to have some assistance is talk to them about it. Just talk to them directly and probably, 95% of the time, you're going to meet a lot of resistance, but you need to have an open and frank conversation about your concerns and the kinds of things that you don't want to see happen. Then you go from there, and if necessary you will bring in other people who are experts and just stick to your guns. Sometimes it can take a while to convince your parents that they really don't belong in a home setting. And at times you can get them to hire somebody to come in part-time, or you can hire somebody to come in part-time and help them, and a lot of times that's a great temporizing measure and some people never wind up having to go to long-term institutional care if they can just get some small amount of help in the home.