Willing vs. Unwilling... Setting Guilt-Free Boundaries in Caregiving

In this episode, we dive into the essential topic of creating a comprehensive playbook for caring for aging parents with Justin Boogard, CEO of GoGo Grandparent and GoGo Cares. Justin shares invaluable insights on planning, setting boundaries, and finding solutions for various caregiving challenges, helping listeners prepare for the complex journey of eldercare.

We explore the crucial aspects of understanding your caregiving motivation, differentiating between Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) and Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADLs), and the importance of creating clear boundaries. Justin offers practical advice on making two lists: tasks you're comfortable doing and those you're not, emphasizing that it's okay to have limits and seek alternatives for tasks beyond your capabilities.

Tune in to gain practical strategies, hear personal anecdotes, and learn how to create a caregiving playbook that will help you navigate the challenges of caring for aging parents with confidence and compassion.
 
 Visit: https://www.gogograndparent.com and GoGo Cares

SeniorLivingGuide.com Podcast sponsored by TransMedCare Long Distance Medical Transportation & GoGo Grandparent 855-464-6874 (ext 81714)

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Transcript

Darleen Mahoney [0:02 - 0:25]: And today we are joined by the co founder and CEO at Gogo, Grandparent and Gogo Cares, who are our podcast sponsors. So I'm super excited to have him on today. His name is Justin Bogard. Gogo has helped manage millions of rides, meals, meds and more to help at risk populations live independently and confidently at home. Thank you so much for joining us today, Justin. 

Justin Boogard [0:25 - 0:30]: I am thrilled to be here. Thank you for the invite. This is an awesome opportunity. 

Darleen Mahoney [0:31 - 1:11]: Yeah, absolutely. And we're going to talk about something we've really never talked about before on the podcast. So I'm excited to dig into it. We're going to really talk about forming a playbook for someone who is getting ready to start taking care of their aging parent. Whether they're going to be taking care of them at home or whatever the case may be, whatever the setup is going to be, I think to just kind of do it the right way because it can become something that just can get completely out of control and you just kind of go down a path of crazy town. So I'm excited to talk about this and tell me a little bit why the playbook matters. 

Justin Boogard [1:12 - 1:55]: Sure, yeah. Thank you for that. This is something that we wrote in response to a friend who reaching out and saying, hey, like, I'm a little bit worried about my parents and do you have any tips on like what I should be thinking about? And I thought it was a really good question. There's a lot of resources out there for like how to raise children, but not nearly as much that offer tactical guidelines around what to do with aging parents. And so we put a lot of time into thinking through a playbook of tactical ideas or tips and questions that people can ask themselves and ways that they can start thinking in advance about this problem before, as you said, it gets out of control. 

Darleen Mahoney [1:56 - 2:45]: Yeah, I think you get in over your head. I think you, you come in with an idea of how you think it's going to be and then you realize that's not the way that it's going to be. And, and then especially with aging parents, it can change on a dime. You can go from having an aging parent that's moved in with you that is somewhat self deficient or self efficient. Efficient, not deficient. Sorry. And then at some point, as their medical needs change, as their health changes, their cognitive abilities might make some different changes. You're in a little bit deeper in what their needs are going to be, which is affecting what your needs are going to be and what your family's needs, especially if you Have a spouse that depends on you, and you have children that depend on you. So everything starts shifting, right? 

Justin Boogard [2:45 - 2:47]: Yeah. And the reality. Go on. 

Darleen Mahoney [2:48 - 2:53]: No. So everything kind of changes. It can be just a lot of changing parts consistently. 

Justin Boogard [2:53 - 3:23]: Right. And it is a huge change. But you are not the only person that has ever gone through this change. And I think that reality is that it usually only gets worse over time. And so taking a few moments now to plan out and think through why you want to give care, what that could look like, what are the things that you're willing or not willing to do, is going to yield a huge ROI for you as you commence this journey. 

Darleen Mahoney [3:25 - 3:57]: Yeah. So I think sitting down with whoever's going to be in that same household and really decide why you want to provide the care. Is it out of, you know, the love that you have for that person? Is it out of duty? Because sometimes really that that can be what it is. It's out of the duty of, you know, you know, someone that's maybe raised you that you. You want to take care of. Gratitude. I mean, what are the different things? Sometimes it's cost. So what are some of the different things that people really have to kind of understand their reasoning for doing it? To just jump start. 

Justin Boogard [3:58 - 6:07]: Yeah. I think that you've already touched on a few of them and putting this into like the frame, it can sometimes maybe feel a little bit Machiavellian to ask yourself this question, why specifically do I care? But it will help you sort of realize how you need to show up for your parent over time. Are you trying to pay your parent back for everything that they've given you? Would you want to be helped in their place? And therefore you are doing this because you are hoping that someone will do it for you at some point. Are you hoping that taking care of your parents will teach you more about your yourself? Do you want them to know that you are caring for them? Because sometimes at some point in that aging journey, they might not be able to put that together. And so by asking yourself, what am I doing this for? Upfront, you can start thinking about how that motive and what that mantra that you'll come back to shows up for them at different parts of their aging journey, which is important for the next step, which is trying to figure out, given that motive, your mantra and reason for providing care, what are you prepared to do? Because the first step needs to be like, how do I avoid? Or thinking about when caring for your parents starts to go wrong. And most commonly I see that it starts to lead to Resentment. And now you're entering a situation that you don't want to be in. You're changing your dynamics or impression of your loved ones. They might be thinking about you differently. You're getting resentful. They're getting resentful. The best way to avoid that is to, is to fulfill your why as to why you want to care for them and understand what your boundaries are that could otherwise lead to resentment. And start to plan around the types of activities that would push you over that boundary. Because it is predictable. It's predictable. Everyone's journey through aging is different, but the general themes are the same. And you can spend a little bit of time asking yourself now what you are and what you might not be willing to do. 

Darleen Mahoney [6:09 - 6:41]: We did a podcast quite a while ago and it's actually one of our most listened to podcasts. And the name of it is taking care of someone you don't like. Because you could take care of a parent that you really never got along with. And that can build into that resentment that you just mentioned. So it really is trying to understand how to manage that. Because that is never going to end well if you have that off the bat without recognizing it and working through that. 

Justin Boogard [6:42 - 7:16]: Right. And I think that tying into resentment, I mean a lot of this, sometimes there are personality changes as people age and develop dementia. Taking care of someone who's in an advanced age or disease progression isn't the same as taking care of someone who has suffered a temporary medical emergency. The level of care is gradually going to increase over time. And if you're not looking out for it, it's possible that you could slip into providing more taxing forms of care without realizing it, without having a plan. So what we're trying to do is just help you look around some of those corners. 

Darleen Mahoney [7:18 - 7:53]: Right. And you mentioned it as well. The cognitive side. People that do have cognitive issues that continue to decline, it can affect their personality and they can become people you don't recognize. So if you did have an amazing relationship beforehand during those changes, they can be a little bit more aggressive and those types of things. And you have to understand that, I think before going in and understanding that, you have to, you can't take it personally. And you have to be able to manage some of those things and understand it and love them through it regardless. 

Justin Boogard [7:54 - 10:34]: Yeah. And just to be concrete so that people are understanding kind of the types of trade offs that they might want to be thinking about as they're analyzing why they want to be providing care, what does that mean for them? What would their boundaries be? You maybe are totally comfortable calling your mom every day, but you're not willing to quit your job to drive her to medical appointments or to be there. That's a totally reasonable thing to desire. And it comes back to why are you trying to show up to provide care and your relationship with your parents. Maybe you aren't able to provide physical care, but you would have no problem handling some of the finances that your parents might be struggling or experiencing with. Those types of trade offs are the sorts of questions that it's better to be honest with yourself now about before you're asked to make those trade offs and have a plan in place so that you can avoid those trade offs entirely. And I think part of that comes from understanding what pairing means. And fortunately, there has been quite a bit of research into this. Like I said, everyone's journey through aging is different. But there are these broad categories of activities that are similar across the aging experience. There's two, there's two buckets, and they're poorly named. I didn't come up with these names, but they, they sound a lot alike. So one is maybe what we're all a little bit more familiar with when we think of caregiving, the activities of daily living. Walking, bathing, dressing, eating. A lot of times that is beyond the limits maybe of someone's boundaries, of what they're willing to do, getting into the shower with their parent to help them shower. A lot of people choose to bring in a caregiver or explore maybe community living options. But that's, that's what that is. That's the activities of daily living. And most people eventually start to struggle with that. Again, those were walking, bathing, dressing, eating. But then there's also these instrumental activities of daily living. And personally, I think that these are the ones that creep up on people. These are the things that an older adult needs to be able to do to live in their home independently. Not just their home, but their community. And so there's transportation, being able to get around, being able to manage meals, being able to manage groceries, and those are a little bit different. So managing meals might be planning your meals, cooking your meals. When that starts to break down, that looks like someone is eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich three times a day. It might slowly be impacting them. 

Darleen Mahoney [10:37 - 10:43]: That's exactly right. I'm picturing, you know, someone sitting there eating crackers out of a box for dinner. 

Justin Boogard [10:43 - 13:07]: Right. They, it's, it's not that they know it's wrong, it's just that there might be things that are in their environment that they can't do anymore to eat something that's better or more varied for them. Whereas grocery shopping, that might be like being able to lift heavy bottles of water, being able to lift gallons of milk, taking that up the stairs, it might be that that's becoming harder, and then that's forcing your loved one to make uncomfortable changes about what they like or what they are eating, how regularly they're able to go to the grocery store. Those sorts of breakdowns can lead to big emergencies. So going back to the IADLs, there are seven of them we've talked about transportation, meals, grocery management. There's also managing medication. Especially as we get older, we have to start taking different types of prescriptions. Average older adult, last I heard, has something like nine different prescriptions that they're managing daily. Those have to be taken at different times. They have to be refilled at different times. If they miss one, that can have serious downstream consequences. Those sorts of things can speed up someone through their aging journey and reduce the amount of years of independence that they have. There's also, though, managing surfaces in your home. Some horror stories that we at Gogo have heard is someone moved out of their home because they were anxious about the fall leaves accumulating on their roof and that during a rain, their roof would fall in one, one, one season. It didn't happen. They were just worried about it. And it's like, well, that's the sort of thing where if a family had hired someone to clean the roof, you know, rather than that older adult who had done it themselves every single year, they might have been able or to be comfortable being in their home longer, which is what everyone wants. So these IATLs, they are. They are predictable. And you can imagine that they will all break down eventually. And you can think in advance of what you will want to do or how you can best set up your loved one before they start to happen. And there's solutions for those, and we can go through that. But I've just been monologuing for the last three to five minutes. I'm sorry, darling. 

Darleen Mahoney [13:08 - 13:27]: No, you're perfectly fine. And you're absolutely right. All of those things will come with age. You know, I never even thought, you know, I thought about the grocery thing. I have never thought about not being able to physically carry, like, the bottles of water or the jugs of milk and those. Oh, never thought about that before. 

Justin Boogard [13:27 - 13:40]: Yeah, it's one of the most common reasons why people start using our grocery delivery service at Gogo, it's not because they don't want to go to the grocery store, but if they're buying a gallon of milk, that can't. That's not something that they can do anymore. 

Darleen Mahoney [13:41 - 14:36]: Yeah, I mean, the. The water, sometimes I'll leave in the car and have somebody else go get it. I mean, I'm even doing that now. I don't want to carry that in sometimes. It's just so heavy. So I could absolutely relate to that to a very small extent of it, but you're absolutely right. And the, the. The medication management, there's so many of them, and some. Sometimes you want to put them in the little pill reminders, but some folks can be very stubborn, and they don't want to do that. So it is really hard to make sure. You go over. Hey, mom, hey, dad. Are you. Are you taking your medications to really know if they're properly taking them or not? I know that my dad used to make me crazy because he absolutely refused to do the. I think he thought that would make him an old man if he put him in the reminders. So he puts sticky notes. What happens to sticky notes? They lose their stickiness. 

Justin Boogard [14:37 - 14:37]: Oh, no. 

Darleen Mahoney [14:37 - 14:44]: So you go over. Because he would have like 12:00pm, 1:00pm Mondays. I mean, whatever the case may be. 

Justin Boogard [14:44 - 14:49]: He was creating a pill management box, but with sticky notes. 

Darleen Mahoney [14:50 - 15:02]: Oh, my gosh, it was so mad. And there'd be sticky notes on the floor, sticky notes in the basket. What does this belong to? I have no idea. So it was just. Yes. So it was a nightmare. 

Justin Boogard [15:02 - 15:04]: That seems tough. Yeah. 

Darleen Mahoney [15:04 - 15:34]: Yeah. And then. And then seniors in general, they will start when they start having some of these medical issues. Sometimes the doctor's appointments becomes the job. I started seeing that with my parents even. So what are you doing this week? And it would be, I have this doctor's appointment on Monday, this one on Tuesday, this one on Wednesday, this one on Thursday. It became. That became their schedule, that became their job, is what it kind of felt like as they got older. 

Justin Boogard [15:35 - 19:48]: Absolutely. My grandma is 94. We started Gogo for her when she was 85. And she is predominantly now talking to me about the final instrumental activity of daily living, which is socializing within a community. Loneliness is a real epidemic amongst older adults. It has serious health consequences. There's research published equating loneliness to the equivalent of smoking a pack of cigarettes each day. And. And so when I talk to my grandma, it's always really important. She socializes at church. And then most recently, she's been socializing with her doctors and their various staff. It got to the point actually where she told me yesterday that she was excited about seeing her one of her doctors for her leg because she wanted to catch up with his front desk associate. And that's great. I mean that is a community. It is a sense of socializing. If she didn't have that, that would be something. But it speaks to just how frequently I think that she is going to doctor's visits. And someone has to deal with that. And it's not my grandma. It's a combination of my grandma does have a caregiver as well as it's a combination of that caregiver and my mom who are trying to keep track. These two folks are not medically trained, but they're trying to keep track of my grandma's diagnoses and how certain things, you know, might influence the medication that she's taking. Different doctors might not be talking to each other. All of that has. And it scales exponentially. It's the sort of thing where you go into a room and you give the room just as one person giving that person a handshake. You've given one handshake. You go into a room that has four people and everyone's giving a handshake. Now you have 16 handshakes going around that room. I think I did that math right. I don't actually now I don't think I did that math right. But it scales exponentially. Imagine having 12 doctors and having been all have to talk to each other. That's a lot of conversations. And managing sort of those medical appointments, managing insurance, it's a full time job. And again it's something that you can think about in advance. So coming back to the playbook, you've already, you now have your caregiving mantra. You know why you are taking care of your loved one and you know in what ways you are trying to show up for them. And then you've defined what boundaries you don't want to cross. And now we've just shared a little bit more about the things that you can start thinking about in advance as far as like, well, when this starts to break down, how will I handle that? Or what can I do to set up my, my loved one for success in that, in that situation. And then that kind of brings us to finding solutions for the things that you decide are past your boundary. So you've maybe made a list of things that you are willing to do and then maybe there's a list of things that you're unwilling to do. And all of these things Again, can be sort of thought about in advance. And then for the things that are on your I don't want to do this list, or it could lead to resentment, or it could lead to a change in the relationship with my loved one. You can think through alternatives today that you can start planting the seed with with your loved one. Services that they could be using, public services they could be using, such that when you reach that point, you, you know, well, I'm not going to take off work or I don't want to skip my child's birthday party for this. I'm going to let this. Well, in Gogo's case, you can use a service like Gogo, but I'm going to let this company get my mom her groceries today. Or you can enroll other people into the support of that. We have a ton of clients who, their neighbor has just known them for a long time and when asked, is very happy to go pick up incremental groceries for them. So we can start talking more about that. But the idea is you have this list of things that you've decided you don't want to do or you don't want to do too much of or whatever it is for you. And then you can start thinking through the various solutions or you can start brainstorming solutions for everything on that list. 

Darleen Mahoney [19:50 - 20:09]: I love that. So I do want to mention, I feel like you can kind of say, this is what I. Like you said, this is what I'm willing to do and this is what I'm not willing to do. But it's okay that I'm not willing to do that. There's. There should be no guilt involved in that. I don't. You know, I heard once from a doctor who said to me, guilt is a gift you give yourself. 

Justin Boogard [20:11 - 20:13]: So well said. A wise. 

Darleen Mahoney [20:13 - 20:14]: Right. Right. 

Justin Boogard [20:14 - 20:14]: Yeah. 

Darleen Mahoney [20:15 - 21:19]: I do feel like you should really say, I need to. I want to do these things because these are the reasons why. Because we've already decided. Is it out of love? Is it out of gratitude? Is it out of duty? What are these different reasons that I've made these decisions, but I'm not going to do these other things because I cannot risk the caregiver burnout, which is incredibly real and it can be incredibly detrimental to multiple aspects of your life in general. But I'm also deciding not to do these because I need to maintain a good relationship with my spouse, with my partner, with my children, or, you know, I have a career and I have these different things that I'm still working goal, different goals that I'M working towards. So. So there's no guilt in that because that's okay. So I think really separating that list out is fabulous. And I don't know that anyone's ever sat there and said, this is what I am doing and willing to do and these are the things I'm not, but I'm going to find solutions for these other things and this is how I'm going to do it. 

Justin Boogard [21:19 - 22:49]: Yeah, I think I equate it to a conversation that my wife and I have been having more recently, which is, do we want kids? If so, how many kids do we want? And we're certainly privileged to be able to have that conversation kind of in advance, but we are in a way signing up for a lot of personal sacrifice. And by walking into that lifestyle clear eyed, it makes it a little bit less difficult to do those things. No one has that same conversation around aging for their parents, but they could or should. I think what makes it hard is that you're not in control of when it happens. But in the same way as you can decide like, all right, between my spouse and I, I will be the one that takes the kid, picks up the kid from school versus I will be the one that plans dinners. You can have that same conversation. And not wanting to do everything is absolutely reasonable. There should be no guilt associated with that. Imagine if someone came to your door one day, knocked on the door, you answered and said hello. Your life is fundamentally going to change right now. Are you in, like, come on with me or not? It would be a really hard thing. And I think if people give themselves a little bit more grace and maybe a little bit more foresight, they can navigate what that journey is going to be like in a way that makes everyone happier. Including your aging parents. 

Darleen Mahoney [22:50 - 23:10]: Right? Exactly. Now, no one's going to say that there's not going to be like bumpy roads, there's not going to be some curve balls, there's not going to be some roller coasters along that journey. Even though you've, you've made your playbook, so you might have to have some flexibility for that. But really sticking to some of those things and coming up with solutions are definitely going to avoid a lot of that. 

Justin Boogard [23:11 - 23:30]: Yeah. And so I don't know what would be the best way to do. We have some kind of things that people can think about for each of the problems that will come up on the aging journey. I don't know if it makes sense to kind of run through examples, maybe just a few, or go through the whole list what do you think? And driving. 

Darleen Mahoney [23:31 - 24:30]: Yeah. So what's some things that as a caregiver. So what are some trade offs? So with some of the ADLs that you mentioned, there are multiple different opportunities. You know, home healthcare offers some of those for sure. Some of the things coming into, you know, as you mentioned, washing hair and some of those they can come in and take care of some of the light housekeeping, those are definitely some options, but they're very limited into what they can provide. So that's just something that you can maybe consider. Adult daycare. Sometimes those are options that are during the day. I think everyone needs to kind of look through what best suits them and what's available in their area for some of those basic social and you know, the personal ADL's for, you know, the bathing and the. Those types of things. So what are some other ones that you might suggest? 

Justin Boogard [24:30 - 30:33]: Yes, so I think that's a great point. I think that if someone's beginning to struggle with their activities of daily living, those fundamental. If someone can't do a couple of these, they'll end up in a hospital within three days. You have to be thinking about caregiving. Adult daycare, actually moving to a retirement community. And depending on your parent situation, there are a lot of options out there. Depending on your state. Medicaid can sometimes be something where you get a certain number of hours through a state agency. That Medicaid income restriction is pretty tough in a lot of places. And so that's not always an option, but it could be and it's something worth looking at. Adult daycare is usually a cheaper option than hiring full time caregiving, but both of those things can be expensive. So if finances is one of those things where you're comfortable putting in more time, but not necessarily money, then you might be looking at a family member that's able to come in and sort of fill that role. I actually ended up moving in with my grandmother when she was 82, shortly after my grandfather had passed away. It worked out for both of us. I needed a place to live that wasn't as expensive. Rent. We were in la, Grandma was in Torrance. And then my family thought it'd be good for her to have someone around after my grandfather passed away. And maybe there's a family member that that makes sense. Or maybe you're realizing that your loved one has to move. Typically, I should have said this earlier. Typically people are losing their activities of daily living after they have lost the. What's called the instrumental activities of daily living. And so what we see is that it will take about seven years for someone to work through the instrumental activities of daily living. Those again, are the things that people need in order to live in their home. AARP says that if someone can't do two of those things, then over a period of six months, they might end up moving into some sort of institutionalized environment. Contrast that to the activities of daily living, walking, bathing, dressing, eating, where if someone can't do two of those things in three days, they'll end up hospitalized. So the INDLs usually come first and then the ADL's later. And so if you're listening to this episode and you're thinking about your parent and your parent is actively struggling with ADLs, you're probably at that point thinking now about caregiving, having a family member move in, moving that person in with the family member, looking at retirement community options. And I had seen that you haven't. You guys have already extensively discussed retirement community options on this podcast. So there's other episodes that people have the option to listen to about that. The instrumental activities of JD Living come before the ADL's. There's seven of them and it takes about seven years for an older adult to run through that process. And if you can support an older adult in their iadls, you can help them live in their community longer, which helps them stay, helps you manage your own resources, is better for finances. So I like to focus a lot on the instrumental activities of daily living. And there's a ton of solutions out there that can, that can support an older adult. For meals. You can get someone signed up with a ton of different county level nonprofits or organizations. Meals on Wheels is a famous one. They have like a national arm and then a lot of local chapters. So that's an option to see if your loved one would be able to get that. It's also a lot cheaper usually than buying or preparing food yourself. And so that's something that sometimes it's nice to talk to an older adult about that. It's usually easier to talk to them about managing, making positive financial decisions than it is to sometimes talk about aging. But even if you're not talking to them about it, just knowing that it's there, such that it becomes, when it becomes a serious problem for your loved one, you know who to call or what to do. That alone is worthwhile because that call, it's going to come to you when you're in a work meeting, when you're choosing between preparing food for your family or now you're getting a call from your loved one and it's going to be good for you to have a little bit of the lay of the land mapped out before that call comes in, rather than when it's now happening to you and you have to be stressed and decide how to, how to handle it. Some other IATLS that people might be able to think about. Colleen already mentioned home upkeep. It is remarkable to us to see how often like a two hour cleaning a week and both help that loved one feel like they're living in a, you know, tidy home, but then also give you a pair of eyes in that loved one's home that you can talk to and see what the situation on the floor really is and help kind of measure their progress over time. It gives someone that can raise the flag to you maybe even before your loved one does that. There might be some more changes coming down the horizon pretty soon. And then again, I think I would just, you know, share that. Helping enrich that loved one's community of people that you can call upon, making sure, you know, if they've lived in the community for 60 years. Do you know their neighbor's contact information? Do you know the church that they go to? Even the hair salon? My grandma today goes to doctor's appointments. She goes to church and then once a month she goes to her hair salon. She's been going to that hair salon for longer than she's been going to doctor appointments or her church. And so they, they know each other really well and it's a huge part of her, of her world. 

Darleen Mahoney [30:34 - 31:14]: I love that. Yes, that is something that my grandmother did. I don't know if that's something that is still continuing to trend with some of the older folks that are younger than your grandmother's age. But I think that it, I think that it is to an extent to go to get their hair done. I just, I love that that just there's something about that that gives me a warm and fuzzy that she's able to do that. I know us ladies, I don't know about the men, but we all have very good relationships with our hairdressers. I know I've been going to mine for nine years and she knows everything about me. She's like my bartender, so that's awesome. She probably knows more about me than she really would like to for sure. 

Justin Boogard [31:14 - 31:16]: So I think similar thing for guys too. 

Darleen Mahoney [31:16 - 31:57]: Yeah, I think it's good. I think that's good that you have that one person that you can talk to. One of the things I did want to mention as well, that's also important and could actually be an entirely podcast on its own, is making sure that you have all of the paperwork in order. And as I mentioned that, you know, any power of attorney is super, super important, especially before there's any cognitive issues that needs to be set up prior to that should not be something you wait till you start having some, some of those issues. Any healthcare proxies have that conversation with your loved one. As far as any end of life conversations as well. So what are your thoughts on that? 

Justin Boogard [31:58 - 33:59]: Yeah, I think that stuff absolutely is critically important. I think difficult sometimes to talk to a loved one about, but not difficult to again think about in advance such that when you need it, it's a plan that you can pull out of a folder rather than a thing that you're trying to figure out on the fly. Building the airplane as it's crashing, for example, things that we have found to be maybe easier to navigate with loved ones. And it's a way to maybe bridge that conversation to the power of attorney is their resuscitation preferences. The vast majority of older adults are not interested in extensive life support options, and yet it is the default for insurance providers to put someone onto life support. And so I think it's a conversation worth having with a loved one. And it's usually a pretty good place to start. Oh, what would you, you know, what would you do if you were, if you were incapacitated? And how would you want us to handle those things? Oh, you know, it leads naturally to like, okay, and so for your finances, like, how would you want those to be managed? Would you want like a power of attorney? Is that something that we should think about setting up now or if not, like, when would be a good time for us to start doing that? It's a great way. Leading with the resuscitation preferences is a great way of leading into that end of life conversation. And, and yeah, and that's something that you definitely want to be doing somewhere around the time that you're noticing the ADL's beginning to decline, because that can sometimes happen a lot faster than the length of time it takes for the instrumental activities of daily living to start declining. And so that, that would be sort of at least when I would recommend thinking about having that conversation with folks. 

Darleen Mahoney [34:00 - 34:43]: Because it also empowers them to be the decision maker, not you be the decision maker. So with them being the ones that are in on the conversations on what they want to do the resuscitation all those things, they're the ones that making decisions about their own life versus you coming in and guessing what they would want. I think that that is really important because it's. Because with that then you may start second guessing yourself. And I think that's hard as well if you're making a decision one way or the other. Did I make the right decision? Or if you've had the conversation with them on the up front, you know that that's what they wanted and you have that confidence that you're, you're in a good, good space because you've already had the conversation with them. 

Justin Boogard [34:43 - 36:20]: So that is a great point, that peace of mind for yourself. And maybe that's like a great place to close out. Like once you have your action plan in place and you've identified your resources for the things that were on your list of things that you've decided would be beyond your boundary. You can't call your day complete until you also think about how you're going to take care of yourself during this time with your parents. What are your non negotiables? What are the things over the next potentially seven years that you absolutely want to be doing for yourself? What would be or who would be your support network that might be a good time to call up those cousins that you haven't talked to in a while and let them know what's going on because you're going to need some respite care too. Sometimes it's totally worth. Even if your loved one is saying that you. Even if your loved one is saying that they're going to be fine and they can get their groceries that week without you, totally worth making sure that there's a support network there that can just be aware of that. So that if you want to say, okay, you know what, yes, I would prefer to go to the groceries or I'm actually able to help you, you're able to call a neighbor and they're able to take care of that for you for that week, which again, kind of what we started with, you shouldn't feel guilty about. You're in this for the long haul. Caregiving is a marathon. Even though a lot of us try to turn it into a sprint, that's not really how it works. And so be ready to take time for yourself is the final ingredient for a really successful aging parents playbook. 

Darleen Mahoney [36:22 - 37:21]: Absolutely. And one thing I do want to add, there are support groups out there for people that are caring for their parents. So if you find that that's something added that you need Please look for that. And I can actually look and see if I can find some support group links. I'm sure that I can to add into the podcast as well. Some of them are online, some of them are in person where you can connect. Some of them, they're actually in Facebook groups too, where you can connect with other people that are taking care of aging parents. So sometimes just that added supportive camaraderie can be a game changer as well because caregiver burnout is 100% real. And so really trying to set yourself up for success in the very beginning to avoid that is key. But even if you start feeling it, having that additional support is a good idea as well. All right, well, is there anything else that you wanted to mention before we signed off on this podcast? 

Justin Boogard [37:22 - 37:36]: No, I think it was a lot of fun covering this. The full playbook with more detailed examples of trade offs that you might be willing to make or might be eventually asked to make is available on our website, gogo grandparent.com. 

Darleen Mahoney [37:45 - 38:38]: The link will be in the description. And I did want to mention before we signed off that at Gogo Grandparent, a lot of these services are actually offered and it's nationwide. So I think that that's a really good opportunity for some of our listeners to jump on. Take a look at that. Because you do provide transportation and you do provide medication and groceries as well. And those are things that I think to kind of take a look at how you are set up that provides those specifically for seniors, I think is an incredible opportunity for people to take a peek at because that's where the overwhelming comfort and relief on getting those services, other than just calling someone random or doing, you know, just doing a random app, I think is completely big game changer. 

Justin Boogard [38:38 - 39:40]: Yeah. We pride ourselves on being the number one safe and affordable solution for helping older adults manage their instrumental activities of daily living. In a lot of places, we've been able to partner with government agencies to provide free or subsidized support services paid for by a local agency. And so I would absolutely recommend that people call the number to call if they're interested. And I'll say it twice. 855-970-6294. Again, that's 855-970-6294. And they can call and see if we're available in their area. If so, if there's any government partnerships there. It's not everywhere. We're doing our best to grow that as much as we can. But then also the services that are available, transportation, meal delivery, grocery delivery, medication delivery, helping people with the maintenance on their home, managing medical appointments. All of those things are sort of our product offering and what we put onto the roadmap for helping people in this moment. 

Darleen Mahoney [39:41 - 39:45]: And the other thing I like about that is you don't have to have a smartphone to do it. 

Justin Boogard [39:45 - 40:03]: That's right. It's all a single phone number that you call. Then the same number that you call to request to see if we're available is the number that you would call to actually request services. Either you, your loved one, their neighbor, whoever is part of the support network, dial the same number and be active on that person's account. 

Darleen Mahoney [40:04 - 40:11]: It's an incredible service. So check it out. That will absolutely take care of some of these issues when you're doing your planning. 

Justin Bogard [40:12 - 40:13]: So thank you so much. 

Darleen Mahoney [40:14 - 40:18]: Thank you so much for joining us today, Justin. This was awesome. I really enjoyed this podcast. 

Justin Bogard [40:18 - 40:26]: Yeah, my pleasure. I really appreciated getting a chance to talk through some of these things and really nice to join you today. So thanks again for the opportunity. 

Darleen Mahoney [40:28 - 40:38]: Absolutely. And if you enjoyed this podcast, please check us out. We have over 100 podcasts available anywhere you enjoy podcasts such as Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and so many more. Thank you for listening.