Michelle Cottle

but also like younger families who need help.

And so everybody works together to kind of, seniors take care of the kids while the parents are working or help drive them.

I've looked at all these different models and I have started looking at these models with an eye toward, okay, what am I going to want to do?

One of the biggest concerns with older people is that they will become isolated, which is incredibly bad for their mental health, but also just dangerous.

So...

I am very mindful of the need to remain social and active.

And when I visit these places, the people who are the happiest seem to be those who just kind of have thrown themselves into this next phase of life.

And so I'm already planning.

For other people, you know, everybody has their own preferences.

But I think...

my biggest advice is to don't ignore this until it becomes a problem.

So I just like can't stress enough how much you need to

Plan ahead of time.

Talk to your families about it.

It's awkward, it's not fun, but it is necessary if you want to save yourself and your loved ones a lot of extra pain down the road.

And also, there are a lot of things that I learned from friends in the medical field who deal with older patients, but also from the doctors themselves about what not to do with Alzheimer's patients.

So trying to correct them or make them remember hard facts, like when my dad thought his dead brothers were there with him, you don't correct them.

There's a lot of little things like that that you don't know because why would you?

So don't grind this out by yourself.

That's my number one piece of advice.