EPISODE OVERVIEW:

When the roles reverse and your parents need you most, how do you navigate the maze of elder care without losing yourself in the process?

In this heartfelt conversation, Betty sits down with Jenny Reynolds, aging life care specialist and founder of Graceful Guidance Care Management, to tackle one of life’s most challenging transitions. Together, they unpack the raw emotions, tough decisions, and practical realities that come with caring for aging parents.

You’ll discover how to start those uncomfortable but necessary conversations, spot the warning signs that it’s time to get help, and protect your own well-being while supporting your loved ones. Whether you’re just beginning to notice changes in your parents or you’re deep in the caregiving journey, this episode offers both compassionate guidance and actionable strategies.

TIME STAMPS:

[5:05] Advice for Families

• Practical tips for elder care
• Having difficult conversations

[13:32] Starting the Conversation 

• Advice on timing for discussions 
• Introducing long term care

[19:04] Supporting Mental Health

• Mental health in older adults
• Signs of emotional decline

[38:29] Financial Considerations 

• Discussing the costs of care 
• Signs for moving into assisted living

[51:18] Self-Care Professionals 

• Maintaining work-life balance
• Emotional demands of work

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Caring for aging parents – Understand how to navigate the hurdles of having aging parents as you step into the caregiver spotlight
• The Conversation That Changes Everything – Discover the perfect timing and gentle scripts that open doors instead of building walls when discussing your parent’s future care needs 
• Navigating elder care – Learn professionals can become your guide through assisted living, home care, and everything in between
• Signs for intervention – Recognize the subtle (and not-so-subtle) warning signs that signal it’s time to make the move—before a crisis forces your hand
• Addressing caregiver burnout – Understand the importance of self care as a professional, especially for professionals who carry the emotional weight of multiple families

GUEST INFO: 

Jenny Reynolds, Aging Life Care Specialist

• Website
• GracefulGuidanceCM@gmail.com
• LinkedIn
• Instagram  
• Facebook

FROM THE EPISODE:

• Aging Life Care Association
• From Coffee to Caregiving: Fill Your Own Cup Live Blissed Out Podcast
• How to Advocate and Support Older Adults Dealing with Isolation Mavericks of Senior Living Podcast

RESOURCES:

• Join Betty in a free consultation call for your financial goals
• Subscribe to the Betty’s Smart Friends YouTube Channel
• Follow us on Instagram
• Visit my website for more info
• Follow us on LinkedIn

Betty Wang is an investment adviser representative of BW Financial LLC, a registered investment adviser registered in the State of Colorado. Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. The views and opinions expressed are as of the date of publication and are subject to change. The content is for informational or educational purposes only, and is not intended as individualized investment advice. This information should not be relied upon as the sole factor in an investment-making decision. You are encouraged to consult with a financial professional to address your specific needs and circumstances.

TRANSCRIPTION:

Betty Wang 00:00:06 If you are one of the lucky ones, you have one or more parents who are still living their best lives, able to remain independent, active, and care for themselves. Or maybe you are like many of us who are starting to worry about our parents safety and health due to some unsettling incidents, like your mom having a fall or recent conversations with your dad that aren’t quite right. Or maybe you’re like me, and you have a parent who’s been diagnosed with a degenerative disease like Parkinson’s or dementia. I start going down that rabbit hole of what ifs. What if my mom can no longer be living independently? What if my dad can no longer be her primary caretaker? And what about their mental and emotional health? How can I be supportive as a daughter and help when I live in Denver and they live in Chicago? Today’s expert is going to give us answers to all of these questions and more. She’s going to give us valuable tips on how we can provide the best care for our aging loved ones.

Betty Wang 00:01:06 I’m Betty Wang. I’m host of Betty Smart Friends. I’m a certified financial planner who helps women be more empowered and feel less alone in their financial lives. Joining us today is Jenny Reynolds. Jenny is an aging life care specialist and founder of Graceful Guidance Care Management. Jenny helps families navigate the complexities of elder care. She’s known for her compassionate and comprehensive approach. I’m so excited for her to share her knowledge and experience with us. Please welcome Jenny Reynolds to the podcast.

Jenny Reynolds 00:01:38 Oh thank you Betty. I’m so happy to be here and talk with you today.

Betty Wang 00:01:43 Yay! Hi.

Betty Wang 00:01:46 Yeah, I’ve. I’ve actually had friends who are like, could you please get an elder care manager on the podcast? Because it’s stuff that we’re starting to all think about, but we know nothing, Nothing about. I guess maybe. Can we learn a little bit about you and how you found this line of work? It’s obviously very important and very timely and and is needed. But what drew you to it?

Jenny Reynolds 00:02:10 Yeah. Of course.

Jenny Reynolds 00:02:12 Yeah. So for me. So I’m a I’m a clinical social worker by training. And I figured out during my master’s program that I wanted to work with older adults and that I really felt at home in the geriatric population because I did an internship with older adults and independent and assisted living. And what kind of drew me to work in this field was that when I was a kid, my grandfather had Parkinson’s disease, and my parents were his primary caretakers because they were the only adult children that lived locally in Madison, Wisconsin. And I also had a grandmother with physical disability who was pretty stubborn and hard hard to help.

Betty Wang 00:02:54 Let’s say She’s good to Wisconsin stock. I know them well.

Jenny Reynolds 00:03:00 Yeah that’s right. That’s right. And so I watched my parents kind of navigate this maze of figuring out what services to help my grandfather, how to advocate for him, how to let my grandmother receive help for him in the process, and kind of watching him either succeed or fail, whether at home or in a senior living setting.

Jenny Reynolds 00:03:26 And I saw that it was really stressful in my parents and hard, and they didn’t always know how to handle things or what to do with the caregiver, who they were probably overstressed by my grandfather’s care. And so I knew that, like, they needed some more support and more help, and I feel like they did a really good job in trying to honor my grandfather’s wishes and my grandmother’s ability to, you know, make her own choices. But it was challenging, and I knew they could use somebody that was like me, a social worker trained in the geriatric population to really know what are the options, what are the resources, and how can we get Grandpa David the support that he needs. And so, so that’s kind of what drew me into this field. And, and I love working with families and their older adult loved ones to, to do that.

Betty Wang 00:04:18 Yeah. We’re lucky for people like you to, to help guide us because it’s not something that it’s not a calling for many people.

Betty Wang 00:04:27 so bless you for on behalf of me, somebody like me who’s. That’s not something I could do.

Jenny Reynolds 00:04:33 We all have our strengths, you know.

Betty Wang 00:04:36 Yes, yes. That is I have definitely noticed the weakness there for myself. What advice do you have for families who are starting to navigate this? Or, you know, maybe someone like. Like where I’m at, where it’s like, okay, we can kind of see that something’s coming. and it may happen more suddenly than we think. Right. I you could probably speak to that more. It’s not something like, oh, well, we have years. It’s it could happen any day.

Jenny Reynolds 00:05:04 Right, right, right. Yeah. So some of the things that I really recommend for families is that when it comes to sort of the research of knowing what are the options of services and supports in the area where your loved ones live. Don’t put that on your older adult loved ones because they have enough to deal with. So if if you’re you know, you have a parent that’s dealing with a progressive disease, like Alzheimer’s disease, and their spouse is caring for them, they have a lot on their plates, even in the early stages.

Jenny Reynolds 00:05:38 And so I put it on families to put it up to you to do some of the research, to educate yourself about home care agencies, which provide caregivers in the home, in the area, or, foot care nurses that do mobile foot care or transportation options. So if your parents are no longer able to drive or get to that point, how do they get to their doctor appointments? How do they get to their social outings, as well as senior living community options in the area? So you do your own research so you have a little bit of information when the time comes that you’re not scrambling, and also knowing like who is their primary care doctor and what’s the name of the hospital that they would go to if they had an emergency. And I always recommend getting a release of information on file with that clinic and that hospital, so that you can talk to the staff when there is an emergency, because that’s really helpful. When the time comes, that’s that’s one piece. Another piece is the conversations with our aging loved ones, which are not always easy.

Betty Wang 00:06:44 So yeah, it’s awkward.

Jenny Reynolds 00:06:47 It is, it is. It’s hard.

Betty Wang 00:06:50 And then. Right. And you’ll use these are your mom and dad and.

Jenny Reynolds 00:06:55 Right. You have to know they’re the.

Betty Wang 00:06:59 Yeah, they’re the adults, right?

Jenny Reynolds 00:07:01 They are. And they don’t come to their kids or their nieces and nephews for advice on finances or anything. You know, they want to be the one giving advice. And so that’s why they don’t want to listen to us. And that’s why, you know, you have to come at these conversations, sort of a little bit out of time. So I suggest to, to, to bring it up. You know, mom, I’m a little bit worried about things related to what’s going on with dad, and I wanted to know, you know what? What are your thoughts about this? And or, you know, I’m coming from the place where I care about you so much. And I want you to have the best quality of life at this stage of your life.

Jenny Reynolds 00:07:45 And so I want to ask you some questions. Are you open to having a conversation with me about this. And sometimes people might be and sometimes they might not be. But it’s important to to try and open the door. And if and if you’re not successful and they shut the door on you, that you come back to it in a couple of weeks or a couple of months and bring it up again, maybe in a different way, maybe on a certain topic, maybe if they’ve just had a medical crisis, because that’s sometimes an open door to talk more openly about these hard topics that most people want to ignore until they hit that crisis, you know? So giving yourself grace and giving your loved ones grace in that process, I think, is really important.

Betty Wang 00:08:27 Do you recommend having someone like you being involved in these conversations, or they’re resources for for us to learn how to have these conversations?

Jenny Reynolds 00:08:40 Yeah. So I sometimes it can be really beneficial to have somebody that’s like an aging life care professional there to be that third party to help talk about these things without all of the same emotional dynamics that come into play when it’s family members talking about these topics.

Jenny Reynolds 00:09:00 So there’s a resource. Aging Life Care Association is the professional association of people that do what I do, which were often social workers, nurses or gerontologist, specializing in older working with older adults. And we help families kind of navigate these issues. So the website for the National Association, where you can search for an aging life care professional in your area, you can search by zip code and it’s Aging lifecare.org. And it’s a great place to find somebody who is an aging life care specialist that might be able to help facilitate these conversations and or could be a great support if you live far away from your aging parents or you live close, but you just don’t know what to do.

Betty Wang 00:09:45 Yeah. Is that sort of a gold standard for your industry. Like we have something like Finra Brokercheck so they can check to look up our name. And you know, there’s I don’t know, no arrests or no not no red marks. No black marks on the on the record. Is that sort of does it act like that or is it just anyone can sign up.

Jenny Reynolds 00:10:10 So it’s it’s really I think it’s the national professional association where in general, I probably wouldn’t recommend a care manager across the country unless they were with this organization. And they show on the listing like different levels of the professional. So if they have a master’s degree and they’re certified, you know, if they’re more a basic, lower level professional, you know, they have different designations on the website that help, you know, like advanced professional is the highest level of professional that they can have. And they have, you know, a regular Sort of. We have requirements for continuing education and, you know, active sort of engagement in the profession. And so I think it’s really the best place to start.

Betty Wang 00:10:56 And then I wanted to go back because I’d never heard of foot care services or, or had this kind of, I don’t know, carpool for elderly people. Is that what it’s like? I mean, where do you even begin to to look for that? Is it also at that aging life care work site or is there.

Jenny Reynolds 00:11:18 No, no. You wouldn’t look there. so, for example, for something like transportation options. So there are a lot of private companies that do transportation. And while you can use something like Uber or Lyft or Gogo Grandparent, those are places to start and they’re probably some of the cheaper options. some people aren’t comfortable with that because they don’t feel technologically savvy or it’s cumbersome. And so it might be great to have just a private transportation company that they can call and say, I’m going to this doctor in a week and I need a ride there. I need a ride home. It’s probably going to be about an hour and a half. I’m not sure, you know, and then they can set up the transportation ahead of time. So it’s not a stress to find the right Uber button the day of.

Betty Wang 00:12:05 Yeah.

Jenny Reynolds 00:12:06 And you can just Google, you know, private transportation companies for seniors. And and then you can call and ask for their rates and get that information. another is foot care because I think a lot of times people neglect foot care for older adults.

Jenny Reynolds 00:12:19 But if you have a significant medical condition that causes swelling or, diabetes, it’s really important that you have good foot care and a lot of people can’t reach to their toes any longer at a certain point, or they’re injured and they can’t. So Mobile Foot Care is basically a nurse that comes in and does provides foot care. They might have a little foot treatment, but they can do it in home, in a lot of metro areas or in smaller communities. They have foot care clinics where a nurse comes and you pay $25, whatever it may be, to get your feet cared for. And it just, you know, saves the older adult from discomfort as well as is a way to just take better care of their health in a small manner. But yeah, it’s a great resource.

Betty Wang 00:13:07 Yeah. No, I mean, I already feel like I’ve learned a lot. Yeah. This is already very practical when we’re talking about the emotional aspects of talking with our parents or older loved ones. I think all of us try to put it off as long as possible.

Betty Wang 00:13:23 Is there a certain age, you know, some of us need like, okay, as soon as my parents turn 75, we have to have the talk. Or of course, if, you know, unfortunately some something medical happens, then maybe that would bring it up faster. But a lot of us are leery to even have that conversation is there. I guess earlier is better is maybe what you would say.

Jenny Reynolds 00:13:47 So when you say, can you be more specific in terms of have that conversation and what you mean by that.

Betty Wang 00:13:53 When we’re talking to parents about, you possibly needing extra care, I think you might. We need to think about this. how do you want to approach that? Yeah.

Jenny Reynolds 00:14:06 Yeah. So I would say I mean, I think if you’re a parent is, is is 68 or 70, it’s reasonable to bring up this topic and it doesn’t have to be perfect.

Betty Wang 00:14:15 See that’s helpful. Yeah.

Jenny Reynolds 00:14:20 Like specific in this moment. Like okay. Like you have Parkinson’s disease. You’re declining.

Jenny Reynolds 00:14:27 You need to get a caregiver in the home. That’s not how you should probably approach it. But if your parent is that age, you could say something like, you know, what do you envision for your 70s and 80s and how you want to live? Like, do you want to live at home as long as you can? Mom, are you thinking that you would be somebody that is likely to want to move into a senior community where there are lots of people? Or if dad died or if mom died? You know what? What would you what do you what do you picture for your future? And have you thought about that? And they may not have pictured anything yet, or they might be sort of avoiding it like most of us do. But it’s important that, like you ask that question to start planting the seed, and so maybe then you can come back to it in three months and say, hey, you know, I just want to come back to this topic. Like, what do you envision? Like, do you think you could have somebody come in and help you? And, and if you lived at home that that would be most ideal for you and that your backup plan might be to be in senior living, but but just talking about what their wishes are and what they envision for the future of their life.

Jenny Reynolds 00:15:31 And it may be that, you know, again, thinking about decline in physical and cognitive decline that often comes with aging that people don’t want to think about, that they would like to shove it under the rug and certainly not talk to their children about it. But but you’re planting a seed and starting the conversation. And that’s the important part, because there will come a time likely that you do have to say, okay, well, things are changing, mom, I’m really worried about your stress, and I care about you, and I want to support you in the best way possible. So can we talk about this? You know, potential service or potential move or what you want that to look like, you know, in the next year of your life?

Betty Wang 00:16:13 Yeah. Because on the flip side, I have friends who have parents in their 80s who are very, very healthy, very, very active. And these conversations have not come up yet. Right. There’s I mean, how do you.

Betty Wang 00:16:28 How do they approach that situation when their parents are doing fine? Better than fine, probably better than healthier than all the rest of us. It’s hard to kind of be. The the black, the black cloud on it. Right. Like, yes. You’re doing awesome. But age is age.

Jenny Reynolds 00:16:53 One thing like in those kind of situations which is great right. If you’re your loved one is 84 and they’re, they’re doing amazing right. But you can bring it upon yourself and say I, I worry about what. What if something happens to you. What if you guys are in a car accident or what if you had a bad fall and I don’t really know what you would want if if for some reason something very scary happened and, you needed more help or you needed help at home. and so I wanted to talk about that. And I think it’s if we bring it from a place of like, this worries me. You’re taking care of me by having this conversation by talking about this. I worry about this.

Jenny Reynolds 00:17:40 And, you know, we we don’t want our children or our nieces and nephews or brother and sister to worry about us, right. Or worry about, you know, we want to take care of them. And so to say, like, I worry about this. And so in order to help me like, feel like I would know what to do. Can we talk about this and just see if they’ll let you open the door a little bit to start the conversation?

Betty Wang 00:18:05 Yeah, that’s good advice. And we’ve talked about sort of the physical and bringing up talking about the conversations. What have you been saying with emotional and mental health for the elderly community? Because we’re all very isolated. I mean, with all the technology and not living as close. what have you seen? How can we help? Should we what? What are signs of that? We should be on the lookout for with our loved ones?

Jenny Reynolds 00:18:39 Sure. So in general, I feel like mental health is kind of put on the back burner for older adults because when something comes, well, two reasons.

Jenny Reynolds 00:18:48 First, this is a stage of life that often is accompanied with decline, physical decline, cognitive decline. And like really hard times in your life like these are, you know, we all deal with hard times in our lives. And when someone is aging and getting to this stage of their life where their body is not cooperating or their brain is not cooperating in the ways that it always has. It’s very hard on us emotionally. And so there’s that piece that’s difficult, not to mention the grief and loss associated when our friends are getting ALS and dying or our friends are, are really declined and changing. And then there’s also the piece of so if there is a medical crisis or an emergency. The focus is on the medical. So say your mom, Jenny falls and fractures her hip. She has surgery and she goes to rehab and then comes home and is dealing with PT and physical therapy and is slowly getting better. But the focus has completely been on her medical health and on recovering that fracture. When in the background, what’s going on is Jenny is no longer getting to her weekly game of bridge, and she’s not going to her church anymore.

Jenny Reynolds 00:20:06 And she isn’t getting together with her friends because it’s been too hard to go to their, you know, monthly gatherings once a month. And so in that sense, Jenny might be feeling depressed and isolated, but the focus has been on her hip and recovery, and that’s all anybody asks about. So it may be sort of overlooked. So, you know, in terms of bringing that up, I think it’s sometimes about bringing someone to the doctor and talking about what you’ve observed with them. So if you can go with your parent or loved one and being their advocate and saying, you know, I’ve noticed this is these symptoms or these things going on with my mom. And so and sometimes the doctor might say, oh, you know, I wonder if they’re dealing with some depression and do you feel that way and ask them more pointed questions about it? And also that, you know, there are different resources and things you can do to support them. So three different resources that are out there that exist are therapists or counselors, and many of whom who can do in-home therapy in metro areas especially.

Jenny Reynolds 00:21:12 So that’s one resource. If somebody is open to that. Another resource is just including them in there, some social activities that they used to do or enjoy. So maybe it’s a matter of figuring out transportation to get to their weekly bridge game. Or maybe it’s a matter of transportation and somebody’s there with them to go to their church. Or maybe it’s a matter of asking their friend, you know, Barb, to come over for lunch once a week and bring lunch for Jenny. And it may be something small, but those small, small things that offer more opportunities for social connection for someone can really make a difference in their mental health. And so it’s not a matter of saying, Jenny, why don’t you call Barb and have her come over for lunch? Jenny’s got enough to deal with. It’s okay for you as the daughter to say, hey, I’m in a text, Barb. Or call Barb and say, hey, Barb, I think my mom is having a hard time at this point in her recovery.

Jenny Reynolds 00:22:11 Do you think you could come over for lunch once a week and pretend I never called you or shared this? You know, but Barb would be like, I’d love to because I didn’t know how to help. But, you know, I wanted to help because people wanted help. They care, but they don’t always know what to do. And so sometimes just facilitating that type of opportunity for your loved one. To have social connection can help with their mood and their mental health. And if it is really severe or it’s been going on for a long time, sometimes medication can be really helpful, but that person has to be open to it and they may or may not be. And so that’s where a doctor can be a good ally for you, but also that, you know, having more social connections and support, whatever that looks like, whether it’s therapist or counselor coming in or whether it’s physical therapists coming in or whether it’s a friend coming over for lunch, that that can help their mental health and their mood, too.

Betty Wang 00:23:09 Are there any is there any criteria like should we say, okay, mom needs to see somebody every other day that’s, you know, not dad? Or is that just person dependent? I don’t know if there’s studies that show like okay, if you if a senior has something social or something. On their calendar, at least every other day. That’s very helpful. Are there statistics like that or it’s just more, you know. Just try as much as we can to get get them social.

Jenny Reynolds 00:23:41 So. Well, one study has talked about how the primary predictor like a really large longitudinal study that has studied people for like the last 82 years, the primary predictor for someone’s longevity is social connectedness. And so, you know, from that standpoint, what I would suggest to families is to say, well, what what was their social life like before? And it might be before this disease process started. It might be, you know, when they were just working. or it might be prior to their fall and injury and, and start there to say, okay, well, if they were getting social interaction seven days a week, maybe we want to start training for 2 or 3 days a week, you know, and build up to seven.

Jenny Reynolds 00:24:31 But if they were only really being social like three times a month, because some people are more introverted and that’s just not their personality, maybe it’s a matter of of putting in more subtle things like, okay, let’s start with once or twice a month. That’s something they can maybe look forward to. Right. And then also we’re going to add in some extra FaceTime calls with with the kids. And so, you know, my brother and his children are going to call on Saturdays and I’m going to call on Monday nights. And that’s how we’re going to add in a little bit of extra support, starting small, but trying to build up to what might be most ideal in the same thing. Like for example, if their caregiver so say Jenny had a fall and her husband is her primary caregiver and now he’s not getting out and going to any of his, he’s not going to the gym anymore. He’s not doing any of his regular things. Well, that’s a problem. So then how can we give him some support so he can do some of his regular social interactions and events that support him, while Jenny has help at home during that time? Or Jenny has somebody coming to visit so he can get a little break.

Betty Wang 00:25:42 This is so helpful. Thank you. And so how do we, you know, with the kids, right? How do we know when it’s time for us to get involved? Right. We know that our parents want to be independent. They don’t look to us for help. They don’t want our help. But like I said, some of my friends and I clients, we’ve had conversations with our parents. We’re like, that’s not okay, right? Or I don’t know if, like, maybe we should talk to a different doctor or, you know, just something just doesn’t seem right. But we’re trying to toe that line of giving them their independence and the respect as our parents, but also not quite comfortable with the level of care or or maybe, you know, your parents not taking care of themselves, right. They’ve just kind of given up. How do you frame those conversations, especially when you’re not there, right. When you’re not physically there?

Jenny Reynolds 00:26:42 Yeah. So in that sense, I, I usually think about it in the sense of when something changes in the system.

Jenny Reynolds 00:26:50 So in the family system, it could be that you as the daughter are losing sleep at night because you’re spending so much time worrying, or you are feeling really overwhelmed and stressed because you have to spend three hours on the phone with doctors or with your mom or whatever’s going on every week. And so in in that system, even if you are the adult child that lives far away from your parents, but you’re trying to help them, if that caregiver is more stressed, that’s a sign that some sort of more help is needed. And it’s the same thing in a couple. If the spouse of the person that has some sort of significant disease process going on is more stressed. So maybe you notice they’re not sleeping very well because they have to get up in the middle of the night and give their spouse pain medication. Or maybe they just whenever they talk to you about it, they they sound a little exasperated or like they’re it’s getting harder. Things are changing with your loved one and it’s getting harder for them.

Jenny Reynolds 00:27:53 Things like weight loss can be a sign that it’s really time to get more help. So maybe they’re not able to make meals as well, or they’re not getting decent nutrition to sort of maintain their weight. And also, I think when someone is needing help with physical daily care tasks, things like getting dressed or going to the bathroom or taking a shower when someone starts to need help with those tasks, I think it is time to start talking about how can we support their caregivers, or how can we bring in help to help them. And I, I know that it’s a very like this can be a really long process for families. This can be five years before this has to happen. Or it could be, you know, a month, right? But I do think that another piece that we have to be really aware of is that when our loved one is cognitively able to make their own decisions, they don’t have significant memory loss. They don’t have a disease court that that is causing dementia symptoms.

Jenny Reynolds 00:28:58 Then we also have to respect their level of risk that they’re taking in their life to a degree. So, for example, it might be that dad, you think dad needs like three different things of help. Like, dad, why aren’t you doing physical therapy? And why aren’t you getting help with putting on your support stockings? And why aren’t you, you know, getting this mobile. Letting this mobile foot care nurse come and care for your feet, right? Like so. So you’re getting frustrated?

Betty Wang 00:29:27 Yeah. Sounds amazing to me, right? Yeah, but I guess if my kid told me that I needed that, I’d be like, no, no. Hi, there. Thanks for listening to Betty Smart Friends. Here’s a quick money tip that I share with clients. Automate your savings. Set up automatic transfers to your savings accounts to ensure you consistently save a portion of your income. This can help you build an emergency fund and save for future goals without having to think about it. Remember, you’re not alone.

Betty Wang 00:30:01 Now back to the show.

Jenny Reynolds 00:30:05 Yeah. So see you pressure with your dad. He won’t do any of these things that you’re saying. Oh, that’s a really good idea to do. And I know of these great resources because I look them up. But your dad can make his own independent, Cognitively able to make his own decisions, then it may be that he would rather deal with the risk of not doing these things which may affect his health in the long term, or may not, and have his independence and hold on to that for longer. So it won’t be forever. And but at a certain point, we have to respect our loved one’s ability to make those choices that I would rather have greater risk in my life of getting seriously injured than I would to getting extra help in and and then as a daughter or as an a caregiver, you bring it up and again in 3 or 4 months because it’s not something that goes away. The need doesn’t go away, most likely. Sometimes it does.

Jenny Reynolds 00:31:06 But but then you you know that, okay, we’re going to circle back in May or whenever the next visit is or whenever there’s an opening that this a conversation we’re going to come back to. And knowing that you’re not a failure if you don’t get your parents to convince them they need, you know, this help and they’re going to accept it now, but that you’re a caring, loving child or niece or nephew or sibling and that you’re doing your best to support them in, and you’re also honoring their independence, too.

Betty Wang 00:31:39 Yeah. I mean, that’s such a delicate line.

Jenny Reynolds 00:31:44 It is.

Betty Wang 00:31:45 There’s no right answer. So let’s say that the loved one, the elderly loved one says, okay, I think I do need a little more help in the home. I mean, how do you even go about finding help for that? I mean, the internet sounds super scary when you’re thinking about somebody who’s coming in and dressing your mom or helping your dad go to the toilet. Right. It’s it’s a very personal business.

Betty Wang 00:32:16 Like, are you doing massive background checks or what? What are some resources for us to look at or to start with? I mean, or do we just go directly to someone like you who knows the lay of the land? I mean, for those of, again, we’re kind of just lost and only know what we’ve seen on TV, which is elder abuse. And, you know, we hear all these terrible things. And to put your parents in the hands of, you know, somebody who’s less than savory is just a scary idea.

Jenny Reynolds 00:32:53 So I, I generally recommend that you go with a licensed and insured home care agency. it might be home health depending on the need. but that, that is what you would look up in searching for an agency. of course kind of like gold standard would be if there’s an aging life care professional in the area, I would call them and just pick their brain. Like, we’re generally always willing to give out resources and say, hey, this is going on.

Jenny Reynolds 00:33:21 I just need a referral for a home care agency. This is what’s going on with my parents. This is what I think they need. Is there an agency you recommend and why? You know, and then and I think that’s kind of gold standard, right. But if you don’t have that access to that person, then it would be sort of like using the internet or calling their primary care doctor and saying, hey, do you have a recommendation for a home care agency in the area? Because I want to, you know, get a good one. And then I actually have a list of questions that you can ask when you’re interviewing a home, home health or home care agency. And I’d be glad to send you that, Betty, so you can post that with the podcast link.

Betty Wang 00:33:59 That would be great. Thank you. I think listeners would really that’d be really helpful.

Jenny Reynolds 00:34:04 Yeah. But sometimes knowing knowing a couple things like that when you start working with an agency, what I like about an agency is if somebody’s sick or they’re on vacation or they get a flat tire, they will send a backup caregiver.

Jenny Reynolds 00:34:17 And that’s really important when your loved one really needs help. Right. And and then another piece is that you want to make sure that it’s a good fit. So knowing that the first caregiver that your dad or mom or aunt or uncle receives may not be the best fit. So it’s important to give them a chance to try them out. But if their personalities clash for whatever reason, it’s okay to ask the agency for a different caregiver. And that’s that happens a lot. And and sometimes just, you know, it’s important to have a good match. So you want to be diligent in knowing that it’s okay to ask for that and paying attention to how is that, you know, relationship going as they start to get to know each other?

Betty Wang 00:34:58 I think that’s a great point. I, I know friends who’ve said, oh, well, grandpa fired the last three helpers. So we’re really having a hard time, right? So it’s I think it’s good to know that there’s it’s like anything in life.

Betty Wang 00:35:11 It’s a little bit of chemistry and clicking.

Jenny Reynolds 00:35:15 Yeah, and sometimes I think families can give an agency background information and saying, you know, my mom is a really practical person, so she needs you to have a task list that I’ll help you with, you know, and she you need to look busy. This caregiver needs to be busy all the time.

Betty Wang 00:35:32 Yes.

Jenny Reynolds 00:35:35 Because nobody wants to pay somebody to just sit there. Right. So so it’s important to also, you know.

Betty Wang 00:35:41 Right. Yes. I don’t I don’t know if that’s just Midwestern folk. Asian folk. But yeah, we want to get our money. Yeah. You’re not here to just sit.

Jenny Reynolds 00:35:50 Of course.

Jenny Reynolds 00:35:51 No, no. But then, rather than having, like, your, your parent who’s already dealing with a hip fracture or whatever, come up with this list, like you can help or your, their spouse can help, come up with this list of things that this person can do and, and and that they know it’s important that they’re busy and that the agency knows it’s important to find somebody who’s good at that, you know, and skillful in that area.

Jenny Reynolds 00:36:17 Or if if your mom is really hard to get along with, it’s important to say, this is my mom’s personality. I need somebody who’s really a strong willed person and and can, you know, put up with her or or maybe argue with her, or I need somebody who’s really gentle and will just listen to her and do whatever she says or whatever that is, you know, but that matches is important. So the agency needs to know about your loved one and their personality and so that they can make a good fit.

Betty Wang 00:36:48 It’s a little like dating, You just have to. Sorry. I don’t know if that’s fun. Sorry. Anyway, I mean, a little bit. So then. Okay, so that’s normally not normally, but I would imagine that’s a next step because everybody wants to stay in their home. They want to be comfortable. What should we look out for? As you know, the caretakers or the the second generation to say, start having conversations about assisted living or nursing home care.

Betty Wang 00:37:21 What are the signs and how do we approach that?

Jenny Reynolds 00:37:24 Sure, certainly. So a couple different things. One is well, finding finances are always a really big piece of all of these decisions, right.

Betty Wang 00:37:34 We’ve we’ve left a lot of that out. Yeah.

Jenny Reynolds 00:37:37 Yeah we have.

Betty Wang 00:37:38 But talking about kind of like the ideal and of course we all want the ideal but it care costs money.

Jenny Reynolds 00:37:46 It does, it does. And so when it comes to like sometimes that important piece is, is talking about the finances and being very open and saying, okay, so given that we are paying so just say just take some numbers. Assisted living might be anywhere from 6 to 9000 a month in the Denver metro area. Say so we’ll take $7,000. So somebody needs to pay $7,000 to be an assisted living, or stay at home and get a caregiver to help them for certain amount of time. So when you sort of divide it out, you know, you minus your expenses that you’re paying to live in your home and say, okay, I’ve got about $4,500, whatever that might be, to pay for care.

Jenny Reynolds 00:38:29 And so you can look at it from that financial perspective of saying, okay, once I if I am spending this much money in a in a week and that times 52, is this much money in a year. I’m exceeding that 4500 a month that I, that I have or that would put me under this threshold. And that’s for a very practical person, of course, who pays attention to the finances.

Jenny Reynolds 00:38:54 Right.

Jenny Reynolds 00:38:55 And also so, so that that’s a piece in terms of when somebody so say somebody has a caregiver, they are seeing them, you know, five hours a day, five days a week and they’re needing more care, you know, so if you’re looking at upping hours and you’re slowly increasing hours, increasing hours, increasing hours, I would look each time to sort of do the math and say, okay, well, what is it worth to me to keep living at home? And it’s going to cost me this much more than if I were to move to a senior living community.

Jenny Reynolds 00:39:26 So that’s that’s one piece to consider. But other pieces to consider are really knowing things like if if somebody is really missing their medications. So say they use a medication box or a medication a reminder box. And they’re missing five doses in a week and they take some medicine are pretty important. I mean, it’s not just, you know, supplements or some vitamin or something, right? But something that helps prevent stroke or that kind of thing that if they’re missing a lot of doses in a week, it may certainly be time for them to think about moving to an assisted living where their meds can be administered by the staff. Or if they take meds 3 or 4 times a day and they’re missing doses because of their memory, or because the system they have is not working. even if it’s a medication reminder box, that could be a sign. Other, you know, signs that might be time to consider are if they’re losing weight, they’re not eating enough meals. And or maybe a caregiver is making meals for them, but they aren’t getting them out of the fridge, or they’re forgetting to eat or, you know, because they’re losing track of like the time of the day that it is.

Jenny Reynolds 00:40:37 So oftentimes when there’s some degree of cognitive decline in their brain starting to go on, you know, you just want to pay attention to some of those things, like, how are they eating, how are they taking their meds, and if they’re needing a lot of help with those things, it probably means their caregiver hours are going up and up, and it may be time to start looking at this and looking at what are the options for an assisted living. Also convincing your loved one to move is another thing. But again, it’s it’s not always about convincing them. Sometimes it’s like knowing what the options are and being on a waitlist or, or saying, okay, like we’re going to readdress this in six months because this is getting worse, you know, or whatever that looks like.

Betty Wang 00:41:22 Well, we’ve talked about the aging parent, but what about, you know, the the the caregiver or it’s, you know, studies show that it’s usually a female. It’s usually the daughter or the wife. Right.

Betty Wang 00:41:34 And that’s what can we do to to help them with caregiver burnout.

Jenny Reynolds 00:41:39 Yeah.

Jenny Reynolds 00:41:40 It’s a really important topic. And and I think it’s sort of, you know, the primary issue is always caring for the older adult. And then the caregivers are just feeling more and more stressed. Right. And and can easily lead to burnout, especially if you’re in the sandwich generation. You’re caring for kids or, you know, working full time, right? Very much so. So one of the biggest mistakes that I see people make is being thinking that they’re the lone Ranger, that they’re the only person that can take care of their loved one. They’re the only person that can do all of these things that need to be done for their loved one. And so what I suggest is a couple different things. One is that you have to start building the team. So that team can’t just be you. So I in my work I always kind of talk about how we’re all on team Bob, you know, or we’re all on Team Betty.

Jenny Reynolds 00:42:35 You know, and and how we may disagree on what they need or what kind of help they, they should get today. But we’re all on the same team. And so if you’re the lone daughter or the lone, you know, relative caring for your older loved one, it’s important that you start building that team. And that team might consist of their primary care doctor who needs to, like, get on board with what’s been going on so they can be supportive of you. That team might also be a therapist, or it might be you getting support from a coach that helps people caring for their aging parents. It might be an aging life care professional. It might be a caregiver. It might be a neighbor of your loved one who checks on them once a week or was good friends with that, is, good friends with them, and can sort of be a support for you too. Because we can’t do this alone. And like, like anything, it takes a village. But it’s important to start building that team.

Jenny Reynolds 00:43:35 And even if it’s like, well, you know, my brother lives there locally or my brother is three hours away, but he’s not very competent to help. But his wife is really good at this. You know, maybe it’s a matter of enlisting his wife to help with something or a piece of this that can be taken off of your plate. So that’s really important. Also, I think it can be really draining to see our loved ones. Sometimes when they’re dealing with these things and we want to help and they’re resisting our help, and then you get into this role where you’re like the parent and they’re like the child and then no longer feels like this mother daughter or father son relationship that you have always had. Right. So what I suggest is that you decide on the frequency that you want to visit your loved one. That might be if you live far away, it might be that you see them every three months or every six months. And that’s what I’m doing. I’m going to go visit every six months, and I’m going to visit for a long weekend.

Jenny Reynolds 00:44:34 And that’s, you know, that makes me feel like good. And I’m going to decide on this frequency and you stick to it for a certain amount of time until you feel like that needs to change or whatnot. And then also that when you visit that you limit the amount of time. So it could be that you could go over to your mom’s apartment and help for four hours with different things getting groceries, tidying up, going through her mail, whatever that may be. Right? And then you don’t get any time to have coffee with your mom, which is something you’ve always enjoyed. So I always recommend to limit it and to say, okay, I’m going to I’m going to see mom once a week for two hours and for an hour we’re going to spend on the mail and the groceries, or I’m going to have King Soopers deliver the groceries or whatever that looks like, so that I can have coffee with mom this time. And for an hour, we’re going to have coffee. And then when I leave, I’m going to go do something for myself, whether it’s call a friend or go for a walk around the block, something small.

Jenny Reynolds 00:45:40 But just to like, take a minute that like, I just put all this energy in love into my mom because I want to and I need to then take a minute for myself.

Betty Wang 00:45:51 It’s draining. It can be very draining.

Jenny Reynolds 00:45:53 It can be. It can be the same.

Betty Wang 00:45:55 That’s really good advice.

Jenny Reynolds 00:45:57 Yeah. Thank you. The same thing if you’re visiting from out of town, you know, you might be like, I’m going to spend three nights here instead of five, and I’m going to stay in a hotel because then I can take my own space when I need to. Rather than being in their spare bedroom and being with them 24 over seven, which may be stressful for some adult children or many adult children.

Betty Wang 00:46:16 Yeah, right. In our in the bedroom we grew up in. Yeah. Yeah. Talking for a friend. Tell me a little bit about, like, how people can engage with you and how you what’s your role on this? Because I don’t think I had ever heard of, you know, aging life care specialists.

Betty Wang 00:46:36 Like, how does do you kind of we kind of we call you and say, can you just we can just offload most everything to you or are you like, how does again, asking for a friend. But you know, I just like I mean, I wouldn’t even know how that works, right? Like how does that. What is your role?

Jenny Reynolds 00:46:58 Sure. So as an aging life care professional. My primary role is really kind of looking at like three different areas for people. So that’s like their safety, their medical and mental health, well-being and their quality of life. Those are like the three areas I cover. I don’t cover finances and bill paying, and my profession doesn’t usually do that, but that. So if you need support, it’s important that you can call an aging life care professional and say, hey, this is the help I’m needing. This is or this is what’s going on with my loved one. And I don’t know what kind of help I’m needing. And so and so for me, like, I offer ongoing services where I’ll go out and do an assessment where I meet with the older adult in the Denver metro area a couple of times, 3 or 4 times.

Jenny Reynolds 00:47:44 And then I make recommendations. I talk with their support team, and I make recommendations and meet with either them to discuss the recommendations or the family or both. And then I work with people ongoing where I check in on them every week. And I see how is this support going? Is it going well? Is it going poorly? Do they need someone at this specialist appointment? And then I would go as a medical advocate for them if they do. And sort of yeah. Like making sure that their medical issues and mental health issues are being followed up on appropriately and that if they’re needing nudges to make changes in their care or to get more help, then I can be the one to nudge them who is not their daughter and not in their family, you know? But who’s that third party that knows about all the resources out there and can nudge them other things? Ageing life care professionals do is just offer consultations so you can do like a one time, 1 hour or 2 hour consultation and say, hey, this is what’s going on with my loved one.

Jenny Reynolds 00:48:44 How do I start? What do you recommend? What comes to mind? How do I find these resources in, you know, Chicago or in whatever, you know, other part of the country where my loved one lives. And then that person, then, you know, I would then connect you with resources there and get you started and say, okay, based on these things, these are priorities. I would suggest, you know, to start here and then go here and then go here, you know. But yeah, just providing that advice.

Betty Wang 00:49:10 Which is what we would need because we have no idea. Right. I think that’s the prioritization and that you’ve been through this before and you know, you know what we should be looking for and in what order. I think that’s really helpful. This must be a rewarding and sometimes draining job because it’s a lot of heart, right. How do you maintain your personal.

Jenny Reynolds 00:49:37 Yeah, sure.

Betty Wang 00:49:39 Peace and balance and and taking care of yourself and your family?

Jenny Reynolds 00:49:45 Yeah, definitely.

Jenny Reynolds 00:49:47 It is. Well, and I love my work and I’m very passionate about it, so it very much fills my cup, you know, in who I am. And it’s very fulfilling in that. And, and for me, it’s so important that I, I don’t work with more clients than I can manage. So I feel like I want to have this level of integrity with people. I want to do what I say I’m going to do and follow through and look at all these different areas of their lives that are impacted by aging and disease and decline. And so I don’t work with more clients than I can physically do a good job with, you know, so that I set my boundaries in that sense. But, you know, of course, there are other things that like, I had a client die last week and that’s just a part of my life is that in my work is that I walk with clients sometimes until death. And so it’s making sure that I take time to grieve and I take time to process that loss.

Jenny Reynolds 00:50:40 And I’m going to have lunch with some of her support team to, like, honor her because she doesn’t have a memorial coming up, you know, so things like that. You know, exercise and. Yeah, I have two young kids. And so it’s it’s a busy life, you know.

Betty Wang 00:50:57 Oh, yeah. You’ve got a lot. I mean, my next my next question is what hobbies are interests. But I don’t even know when you’d have time for that. What do you like to do? Yeah.

Jenny Reynolds 00:51:11 Oh, I have at least one. I have, I, I go to a a hip hop dance class on Wednesday nights in Denver, and it’s so much fun and I love it and it’s yeah, really good for me. So that’s one thing I do.

Betty Wang 00:51:25 Oh my gosh, I that’s always been something I like. I always think people who can dance, it’s just amazing. I wonder if there could be a spot in the back where there is.

Jenny Reynolds 00:51:36 It’s it’s a it’s an inclusive class.

Jenny Reynolds 00:51:39 You don’t have to like, know all the moves or anything.

Betty Wang 00:51:42 I wouldn’t hurt anybody, I’m afraid. My my arms flail things, kick them where they’re not supposed to. That’s really fun. I love imagining you doing that.

Jenny Reynolds 00:51:54 Yeah, that that and watching watching Bluey are pretty much my hobbies with my children, you know?

Betty Wang 00:52:03 Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember those days. Yeah. It was a lot of that. Is there anything else that we haven’t covered today that you want to be sure to share?

Jenny Reynolds 00:52:13 I think I think one thing I just wanted to relate to people is that there is help out there and that there. If you’re a caregiver and you’re feeling really stressed or you’re in the sandwich generation caring for parents and children or adult children and very older parents, that there is help out there and you don’t have to do it alone and just, you know, googling aging life care professional in my area, like is a good way to start, but that you don’t have to carry this whole burden by yourself.

Jenny Reynolds 00:52:44 And and you really can’t. If you want to maintain your level of sanity that that you need to keep going in life. So that would be just my parting words, probably.

Betty Wang 00:52:55 Absolutely. Oh, I think that’s amazing. And how can people find you if they’re in the Denver? I mean, I assume you you really only work with people in our area. How can people find you?

Jenny Reynolds 00:53:08 Yeah, so they can find me. My website. It’s Jenny and NY, the care manager.com. And just fill out my contact form and to reach out with, you know, whatever help you’re needing at this time. And I also have an email list where I send out a monthly tip on caring for your aging loved ones. So it’s like a tip sheet that might give you tips on how to provide great care when your loved one is in a memory care community, or how to help care for a loved one with dementia during the holidays, celebrations or something like that. And so you can also get on my email list as well.

Jenny Reynolds 00:53:49 And you can send me a note just saying, please add me to your email list or in about a month I’ll have a button that says, you know, click on this to get in my email list. So that’s another way of just like getting some free tips that might be helpful in this process.

Betty Wang 00:54:02 Well, you also share tips on LinkedIn too.

Jenny Reynolds 00:54:04 I do. Yes. Yes.

Betty Wang 00:54:08 Are you anywhere else on social? Yeah. No, I mean, I, I thought they were great. We’re. Yeah.

Betty Wang 00:54:14 Yeah.

Jenny Reynolds 00:54:15 No, I, I’m on LinkedIn a lot. So please feel free to connect with me or follow me on LinkedIn. Jenny Reynolds and then I’m on Instagram as well with graceful guidance is the name of my company. And so it’s graceful guidance found here. You can follow me on Instagram as well.

Betty Wang 00:54:30 Oh okay. That’s amazing. Thanks so much for your time. This is I feel like I have so many more questions, but I think myself and I’m sure listeners have a lot of good tips to walk away with and things to think about.

Jenny Reynolds 00:54:43 Welcome, Betty. Well, it’s really a pleasure being here. And it was lovely talking with you, too.

Betty Wang 00:54:49 Thank you. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Betty Smart Friends. I hope you enjoyed today’s conversation and that you learned something new. You can connect with us on social media to stay updated on future episodes. Share your thoughts and join our community of smart friends. You can find us on Instagram at Betty Financial, and don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode! If you are feeling ready to be more empowered and less alone in your financial life, please schedule a complimentary 15 minutes with me. The link is in the show notes. Please see the show notes for important disclosures regarding BW financial planning and this episode. Until next time, remember you are not alone. We got you.