7 Warning Signs Your Aging Parent Needs Help At Home

Your parents are aging and may begin to exhibit a decline in their ability to live safely at home and stay healthy without some extra help. It can be difficult to tell the difference between normal, age-related decline in your parents and something more serious, like dementia. Let’s face it, we all forget where we placed our car keys from time to time. However, there some telltale signs that should raise your internal alarm bells that something more serious could be going on.

Here are 7 signs to look for during your next visit

1. Missed Appointments Failing to meet a friend or doctor without canceling in advance, or and not attending family events that they would not usually have missed. 2. Decline in Personal Hygiene Pay attention to body odor, grooming, incontinence and whether or not your parent is dressing according to the season. 3. Easily Become Disoriented A failure to recognize familiar spaces, wandering, or getting lost in well-known areas are early signs of Alzheimer’s disease. 4. Spoiled Food or Repeated Purchases If food is left unrefrigerated or kept around long after it’s “sell by” date can indicate mental instability. Purchasing the same item multiple times or unusual items may indicate abnormal thought patterns. 5. Unopened Mail is Stacking Up Watch for unpaid bills or other neglected household duties. 6. Increased Forgetfulness Forgetting something at the store is a sign of normal memory loss. Forgetting something at the store and not remembering that you did when someone reminds you of it is a sign of memory impairment. Don't brush these instances off. 7. Scorched Pots and Pans Inspect your parent's cookware and see if the pots and pans are scorched beyond usual use. This may indicate the inability to cook safely, and could pose a bigger fire or injury hazard.