I'm going to leave my comfort zone and both review and recommend a movie that I just watched. It has been out since Jan 2008, but under the radar. It is called "The Savages" staring Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman. The title is deceptive. It isn't a war story, not a cops and robbers, no monsters, not cowboys and Indians, not even aliens jumping out of someone's chest. Savage is the last name of the family. It is about the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about: aging and dying. Read the summary from the link below.
The movie is significant on two counts, it addresses the fact that caregivers (read adult children) have their lives abruptly and drastically interrupted by a chronic event to their parents for which they weren't prepared, and it shows the inevitable twin emotions of guilt and depression that accompanies such an event. Let's face it; Americans are in denial of aging, so we just don't deal with it. No one wants to be a caregiver. I never heard of a 7 year old when asked what they wanted to do when they grew up to say, "I want to be a caregiver for my parents!" And there are no schools, no adult education classes, nor college courses to teach us to be caregivers. So this movie highlights what the 60% of us have either gone through, or will go through. It accurately displays the events that could happen, the nature and atmosphere of a typical nursing home, and the normal range of emotions and actions that an adult child goes through. It also includes finding the proper care type, qualifying for it, financing it, estate planning, having "the" conversation with the parent, and managing/monitoring the care once it is set in motion. So the movie has struck the balance between a reality TV show of a family facing a long term care situation, and a good Hollywood chick-flick tugging on the heart strings. Keep the Kleenex close by. I like to call it education and entertainment. Most likely, it was written by someone who went through this kind of event.
Being in the Senior business, I am grateful for this movie because I can point to it and say that this is the template for almost every caregiver's probability of what to expect. 49% of 60 year olds in America still have at least one parent alive. The decisions that a child will have to make for the parent at a time when there is much stress, emotions, and unexpected problems, are critical to not only the parent's life, but the caregiver-child's too. Remember, it seldom is the person needing the care that suffers. They will get the care no matter what, but it is the caregiver who really suffers the most. The idea is to manage the care, not provide it.
It is never too early to plan and be educated on such matters. I hope the movie will motivate people to look into the role of caregiver and plan out the long term care event that they most likely will one day have to face. It's just doing the fire drill. The sources for such education and planning are many and varied. But a plan needs to be done. Watch the movie, you will see.
The details of the movie can be found on this link:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0775529/
and it can be rented at the usual places like Blockbuster, Hollywood Video, and Netflix.
Please feel free to copy and distribute this information for clients.
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