How do caregivers deal with excessive doctor appointments?

My mom is obsessed with seeing doctors. (And until he was in memory care - dragged my dad around from doc appt to doc appt too). I sometimes think it’s a badge of honor for my mother to see so many doctors. It makes her feel important. It makes her feel special that she’s such a peculiar case that everybody wants to send her to specialists and this test or that test. It gives her something to talk about. I’ve come to determine; she’s driving this.

She sees a doc and says, I can’t sleep and have migraines. Doc checks her out and says I don’t know .. you look okay to me …. So she either asks for/or he offers a specialist. “I mean, we could do an MRI or send you to a neurologist,” and she says, “yes, please!” Next up that neurologist doesn’t see anything so says … “maybe a CAT scan would tell us something … and a different type of neurologist” … I’ll take it, she says. Anything to avoid acknowledging the fact that she’s 80. Things are deteriorating and whatever diagnosis she’s chasing isn’t going to change how she feels day to day. Anything to avoid doing the things we now know have to happen to feel good - sunlight; exercise or movement, real food vs the processed garbage she loves so much.

Look at your parents and consider what’s driving this. Is it a doc who can’t find anything wrong and sends them on to the next doctor? What would happen if after all those appointments something like cancer gets found. Are they really going to have the chemo or radiation? Depending on their age - would whatever it is even get treated? my mother wants to take my dad with dementia to a new cardiologist. Why?!?? He has late stage dementia. His bad ticker isn’t the problem — and even if it is a problem, the dementia is fatal and perhaps a heart attack would take away his suffering quicker than the dementia will.

why are they seeing so many doctors? Whose idea is this? Is your mother obsessed with doctors and pills and procedures like mine is?

Have you explained to them the goal in later life is LESS DOCTOR visits .. not more? My mother isn’t important unless a doctor is giving her attention. It’s an addiction, I swear. Let’s not even get into the money spent on appts, tests, pills, procedures. Even her Medicare out of pocket is insane. She thinks it’s all “free” because she has insurance. If you can’t reason with them about how futile the appts are .. maybe you can get through with the cost angle.

Do you go to the appointments with them? Actually listen to the followup and the setting up of the next appointment?

If not, you should. It is possible that your parents are initiating the request for additional appointments because it is a way to get out of the house and go do something else.

Don't depend upon the doctor's paperwork as it is a summary of the visit, but usually does not include all the other details that determine whether the followup visit is necessary versus optional.

I would suggest that you enroll them in senior day care maybe 3 times a week. That means that the PT and doctors appointments can only happen on the other 2 days and you would get some of your life back on the other 3 days.

The other thing is to start logging the results of their appointments in a book, one book for each. It is possible that the reasons why they are going to the doctor are being confused between the 2. One might say they have problem x and the other one, in their discussion, might indicate they also have problem x, when in reality they had problem x years ago. Included in the book would be everything you heard them say, so that you can ensure that the appointment was for the right reason and discussed the correct ailment. Think of it as a health log for each parent.

Good luck!

You have a tough load to carry for such a young person. Can your parents afford $30.00/ hour for an outside care giver to take them to appointments? This would free up some of your time. Companies like Senior helpers are 30.00-35.00 an hour

I agree that sometimes, doctors want you to return for follow up visits that can be delayed for a few more weeks. If you can, try to bundle 2-3 appointments on the same day if possible (esp, if the providers are in the same facility). Maybe have your parents be seen by a geriatric healthcare group that might provide care for multiple elderly health challenges; these groups tend to have in-home services.

I hope you are scheduling appointment on your own time and not them scheduling them.
Wound care can be done in the home. Ask their doctor about it
I am wondering if PT is the answer. Have they plateaued? Maybe they need someone who privately does excersise in the home. It sound like they do not do the required work daily and just wait for PT. If this is the case, then Palliative care might be an answer.
They are vicitims of their own bodies and the things they did to cause them to have chronic illiness. You are a victim of their will. If you were not there then they have to solve their own problems and change where they live or hire their own caregivers. Yes they can hire caregiving assistants who will drive them.
It is time you put on your own big boots and start backing away. Your are grown up which means you should be on your own. Making your own way into he world and getting out of their home. Stop being a slave and if you feel guilt, then get counselling.

Have their PCP prescribe the PT in the home and also the wound care in the home.

Schedule other appointments remote--over the cell phone by video.

I think the best way I'm handling it now , is realizing, all the complaining I do, there will be a day that I will be very sad that I have no appointments to take Mom to anymore, because she will be gone

Sorry to be personal, but what plans do you have for your future? Do you work now? Or study? Are able to go out with friends & have relationships?

Or does helping run the houshold & care for your parents absorb all / most of your time?

I sincerely hope there is room for your life too.

You can cut back on these appointments. With my mom, her doctors were always saying things like "come back in 3 months" or 4 or 6. For NO reason. I stopped making those appointments after I saw what an utter and complete waste of time most of them were. Instead, I started making appointments when they were NEEDED. Not just to "check in".

There are PT services that can come to the home. Do that ASAP. I have used Genesis' Vitality to You. The patient does not need to be homebound as Home Health Services requires.

At your very young age, you need to start living your own life. You are not their slave. Your brother is right to say no. Your parents would be much better off, especially for you, if they were in AL.

Also can try to get appointments on the same day when you really have to go to one. Really, time to get working on your own life. Do you have a job? If not, that's a good place to start. Or with taking some college courses to build a path to a nice career.

Best of luck.

When my parents, with 15 or so apts a month some months, moved in with me, I asked the Dr here what HE could take over. He is a geriatric Dr and turns out he could take over most of the visits except for the eye Dr and later the cardiologist. Have their dr get them set up for home PT and OT, and that alone should help. And it is past time to let the older sibling know you need help, or you will have to move on/go to school/ whatever. Unless they travel ALL year this is doable, maybe not what they want, but what they NEED to do! You need to be looking ahead at your future, and not be possibly unpaid help. Good luck!

Kathryn, perhaps an easy (and appropriate) way to get your head around this a bit more would be to send a letter (yes a letter in the post) to your older sibling (sister?) to make your own contact. There is no need to wait for a contact made through your parents. Ask what her own experiences were before she left home. It seems that she has made quite a clear break, with you and with her parents. She would have been around for the discussions about whether and when to adopt you, and might have experience of your parents' expectations when their health was not so far advanced. If the sibling is a brother, that’s an interesting twist but still worth a look back into the past.

If your parents aren’t keen on this contact, it doesn’t mean that you don’t make the contact. Why shouldn’t you? If the three of them don’t get on, a contact doesn’t mean that you are planning on ‘ganging up on the parents’. Your sibling is one of your very limited number of family members, you really ought to be in touch.

When it became difficult to take my husband to an appointment, I found out that our medical practice of choice could provide care in our home. The nurse practitioner came for a visit every month for three months and then the doctor came on the fourth month. They also provided lab work, x-rays, vaccinations, etc. It made life so much easier. There is also a health service called Dispatch Health (DispatchHealth.com) in many cities. They come to your home and provide many services. They bill your insurance company for the visit.

You need to work for 10 years in order to get money after age 65. You need to reevaluate your situation.

You need to look at these doctor visits. The PT can be done in home as well as the woundcare. Tell their doctor to order it. That its too much getting 2 wheelchair bound people out of the house. Maybe there are exercises you can do with them to cut down on PT visits.

Your parents are not being unfair. At 24 you should be finding a way to support yourself. At 32 you need to be earning a decent salary so you get a decent amount of Social Security.
Your parents, with diabetes, will probably lose a limb. That will make even harder to care for them. Diabetes effects every organ in the body. Especially heart and kidneys. Their care will be more and more. If I was caring for them, I would make sure I received the house in the Will. That there was money set aside so when they are gone I would have money to start a new life. Your future is important.

Kathryn, I think this may anger you, but perhaps someone needs to say it. You were adopted when your parents were in their 50s, and you have one sibling who is 25 years older than you and largely absent. The way you write makes it seem possible that your parents have brought you up to think that you are responsible for their care. At worst, that is why they adopted you.

Your parents certainly have some health issues. However the way it reads is that these are not overwhelmingly heavy. In fact if they did require an around-the-clock carer, you would not be able to do it for two people. You wouldn’t be able to take them out three times a week for serious physiotherapy, even if it was 'yes, a help'. You are doing what they ask. It would be a very very good idea if you could get an independent assessment of their care needs, in order to see if what you are doing is the best for them and for you. This level of care time commitment is not something that anyone should just drift into, at the cost of writing off their own needs at the age of 24.

Why not get an independent assessment? Not just from one health professional, because of course they will say that what you are doing is a good idea for the part of the problem that they deal with. What you really need is an assessment of the total situation.

These folk needs assistance, sure. At present you are it. Living with them in this Assisted Living for Two - with staff of?

What other people come to help them during the week? What services to they have to help out?eg Meals delivery, housecleaning, personal care help?

Mom & Dad can 'age in place' if they can arrange enough support for themselves. But doesn't sound like they can. Sounds more like they are very dependant & in denial.

Make plans for a weekend away. Go visit a friend or something. Sometimes the physical space can help with mental clarity. To see the bigger picture.

If one or both of them have chronic, serious medical conditions, they should qualify for palliative care. One of the goals is to decrease doctor appointments and a provider will come to the house, arrange for in-home lab draws, etc. Also, request a home health referral from their primary care physician for nursing/wound care and physical therapy. Be sure to request a social work referral for community resources because you can’t continue this alone.

Kathryn, how are you a daughter aged 24? Your mother was over 50 when you were born? You are an only child? Why did they choose to have a baby so late in life – I sincerely hope that it wasn’t to provide themselves with a caregiver!

Being in a wheelchair does not in itself mean that either parent needs care. I have worked with ‘wheelies’ long enough to be quite clear about that! Don’t believe that you don’t need a career because you will inherit the house. It’s one more step along the path to insanity.

I am ‘in my late 70s’ and have some quite difficult physical conditions. I cannot imagine expecting either of my daughters (in their late 40s with school age children of their own) to be a live in maid/carer! They are not ‘responsible for me’. That is ridiculous, as it is for you. I think you need to see a counselor to get your head around this bizarre situation.

Use telehealth visits whenever you can rather than in-person visits. A visiting nurse specializing in wound care can come to the house (my BIL had one for almost 2 years). Use the doctors’ patient portal to make, change and cancel appointments rather than calling on the phone to do it. Check to see if there is transportation in your area based on the Americans With Disabilities Act.

We have had many past posts saying ‘Look very carefully at those appointments. Many times they are not necessary'. The doctor/s, perhaps in the past, said ‘I’ll need to see you in a month’s time’ – or 3 months or 6 months – and the appointments kept being made long after they were needed. Sometimes nothing would be done, no matter what turned up in the check – the possible procedure would be too distressing, risky, probably not worth it. Sometimes specialist appointments are made, when the GP could do basic monitoring at the same time as another appointment, and only send you on to the specialist if necessary. Your parents could book a double appointment, where both their needs are looked at without the need for two separate visits. Someone posted “If the doctor’s opening words are ‘what are you here for today’ ", a repeat appointment probably wasn’t necessary. Don’t go with what your parents say – they may actually like the multiple appointments. They see more of you, get more outings, life is more interesting, and they get to obsess about themselves.

Kathryn, at age 24 if you are organising appointments 5 days of the week, you have no time for a life of your own. No time to work, study, date, have fun … in fact do anything worthwhile to set up your own life. If this is the level of care that your parents genuinely need (and it probably isn’t) they need to pay for some sort of care that doesn’t involve ruining you. Be a bit more hard-nosed about this. An old expression says 'the life you need to save may be your own'.

More information would be helpful .
For example , what their conditions are , what kinds of doctors they go to . Their ages .

The answers may be in deciding if it’s really necessary to go so often . Perhaps they would qualify for a visiting nurse to come take blood pressures etc . Perhaps the lab could come to the house to draw blood tests .

Are you not able to work because of this ?
Do your parents have money to hire someone to take them to the doctor ?

If they moved to assisted living many provide transportation to doctors as well as they have many services there , primary doctor . Podiatry . Vision , dental , PT, OT , speech , psych therapy , lab , portable X-ray . They could possibly only need to leave to see specialist like cardiology , neurology , etc .

You are too young to be tied down to this . You need your life .

Do your parents take care of themselves otherwise . What else are you helping with , shopping , cooking , cleaning , laundry. Do you live with them ?

Oh yeah that's the worst part part of all that for me. It's constant.

When you look at a calendar and see a week with no appointments, something always comes up.

I don't understand it. I don't get it. And I vowed to myself I'm not living just to go from one appointment to another.

Sorry that turned into me venting back on you.

As for how do I handle it. I guess the answer is , not very well. I'm only taking care of one parent. I don't think I could handle 2.

I once experienced a week with 5 appointments.

I advised my LO needed other solutions. A new plan for transport. Maybe Assisted Living where the Doctor came to them.

Then I quit.

PS Then my LO did find other solutions.