Will our kids look after us in our golden years?

A famous American actor, Gene Hackman, and his spouse, Betsy Arakawa, a well-known classical pianist, were recently found dead in their New Mexico home. The autopsy and investigation concluded that the late actor, who starred in movies like Bonnie & Clyde and The Rock, died about 7 days after his spouse, who unexpectedly passed away in a different part of the home from a rare respiratory virus. The late actor had dementia and likely didn't know his spouse passed away; and since she was his sole caregiver, he had no one else to care for him and therefore met his fate(A timeline of how actor Gene Hackman and Betsy Arakawa died at their New Mexico home, 2025).

The story behind their deaths sheds light on a topic that is rarely talked about: The critical role caregivers play in the lives of our aging parents. As we have seen in this unfortunate case, ensuring your aging parents have a caregiver is sometimes not enough. Having a backup plan in case your parents' caregiver becomes unexpectedly unavailable is crucial in today's world. With the daily hustle and bustle and with families of our own, it's easy to forget to call mom and dad regularly.

A 2024 World Health Organization article reported people over age 60 commonly experience unmet health needs whether they live in low, medium, or high-income countries. (Shrestha, 2024) The Gene Hackman story happened here in high-income America, so we can’t assume this is just a problem in developing countries. We also don’t know all the details behind the relationships with their family and kids. It was reported the late actor and his spouse preferred a very private life. (Chang, 2024)One can argue their decision to live reclusively led to their demise. This story not only highlights the importance of having a backup plan for mom and dad, but also realizing that you, yes you, my fellow children of aging parents, are sometimes the only backup plan.

In the United States, over 40 million caregivers provide care to their ailing family members each year(Tan-Ho et al., 2020). If physical geography has not distanced you from your parents by now you’re probably already helping your parents manage their health. If this is you, thank you! You may think you’re just helping your parents, but from a broader scope, you are helping your entire community by keeping the Emergency Room (ER) and Hospital beds reserved for those who need them. Think about it. Every time you help mom and dad get to their medical appointments, manage their medications, or help them understand medical instructions, you are preventing a potential ER visit. You are the silent heroes commonly overlooked as a crucial part of your parents’ healthcare team. Your work is invaluable and you are appreciated(Wolff et al., 2016). For those of you who do not have the honor of caring for your parents, this information may still apply to you if you care for a relative or close friend.

Before we can begin to be a part of our parents’ health, we need to recognize that their health is still their choice. After all, it’s their body… their life, so it’s important to figure out where you fit into this sometimes very confusing puzzle. An article titled “What Older Parents Want from their Adult Children”, details that aging parents want their kids to ask them "what matters most" and how to make it easier for them to obtain or achieve what matters most. (2022) Understanding what matters most to your parents helps you advocate their wishes to their doctor and team of clinicians, who will then hopefully align the care plan with what matters most to them.

You may need to continually gauge how involved they want you to be as you move forward with helping them. For example, your assistance may begin with simply just bringing them to medical appointments, but then now they need to pick up a new prescription and the pharmacy is at a different location, and your parents don’t drive, and they have difficulty getting in and out of the car safely and the list goes on…. Suddenly, you’re helping them more and more, so as you continue to get deeper into your parents’ health care, remind them by asking questions like, “Are you sure you want me looking through all your meds? That’s kind of private….” Based on their response, you'll know whether they're giving you permission to help.

Many of our aging parents are dealing with multiple chronic conditions that require them to not only take their medications accurately but also travel to all their medical appointments safely. When they return home, they must remember the medical instructions they received. Their ability to do this independently becomes challenging with age(Qidwai et al., 2011). However, with permission and assistance, you, yes you (because you love them so dearly), can help them navigate this part of their health journey.

Beyond the Occasional Phone Call: 5 Things You Can Do to Ensure Your Aging Parents Are Safe

1. Establish a Regular Communication Schedule. Don’t just wait for holidays and birthdays to connect with your parents. Set up a weekly text or phone date with them. Calling could tell you a little bit more about your parents’ health versus texting. How long they take to answer the phone and how their voice sounds can give you insight into your parents’ well-being. Weekly phone texts or calls will help you quickly identify patterns that seem off and prompt you to investigate further.

   
   

2. Enlist a Support Network. Get extended family and close friends to also participate in weekly texts and calls, but have them do it on different days of the week. That way, your parents receive attention throughout the week. It’s not a bad idea to find family and friends who live near your parents to visit them regularly. There’s nothing like another set of eyes, ears, and boots on the ground to help identify potential issues you may not have noticed during your visits.

   
   

3. Schedule Regular Visits. If you live near your parents, visit them regularly. If you have a decent relationship with mom and dad, there is no excuse for not visiting them. Being with them in person and regularly will help you observe their living conditions, their functional and cognitive abilities (Sannes, Yeh and Gray, 2020).

   
   

4. Be Observant of Changes and Take Action. During your visitations with mom and dad, take note of changes in their behavior or environment that might seem off. For example, maybe you notice that their home is more cluttered, while growing up, you remember mom and dad always kept the house immaculate. This should raise an eyebrow. If they're open to you helping them with their health, go with them to doctor’s appointments as this will help establish a relationship with their Primary Doctor and office staff, who are there to help keep mom and dad safe, too.

   
   

5. Have a Back-Up Plan In Place. In cases like the late actor, Gene Hackman, a caregiver could unexpectedly and suddenly pass away, leaving those in need of care without it. (Aamodt et al., 2023) Having a backup plan may include exploring potential family and friend resources to see who might be available just in case something unexpected or untimely happens. This ties into #2 "Enlist a Support Network" above.

   
   

Your parents have every right to live as they choose. They can choose to live a life private from the rest of the world, away from everyone… including you, and that’s their choice. But maybe you're just starting to notice them struggle with their health. This may be a signal that they need help. They’re not getting any younger, and with that comes a general decline in their ability to care for themselves, which means they will need greater support from those available and in many cases that support is you- their pride and joy, the one that will be their silent hero in times of medical need(Modig et al., 2017).

Life is short. If we want to spend time with those we love a little longer, we'll need to check in with them more frequently and regularly. Examining our current relationships with our parents and how we care for them, or not, should provide insight into a more critical question we need to ask ourselves: Will our kids look after us in our golden years?

References

A timeline of how actor Gene Hackman and Betsy Arakawa died at their New Mexico home (2025). Available at: https://apnews.com/article/gene-hackman-death-timeline-2ebc8079e1840d637a44415ccf684a3c.

Aamodt, W.W. et al. (2023) “Caregiver Burden in Parkinson Disease: A Scoping Review of the Literature from 2017-2022,” Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry and Neurology. SAGE Publishing, p. 96. doi:10.1177/08919887231195219.

Chang, D. (2024) “Gene Hackman seen with wife Betsy Arakawa first time in two decades.” Available at: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13255065/Gene-Hackman-wife-Betsy-Arakawa-seen-photos.html (Accessed: March 20, 2025).

Highgate Senior Living (2022) “What Older Parents Really Want from Their Adult Children.” Available at: https://info.highgateseniorliving.com/what-older-parents-really-want-from-their-adult-children-pillar (Accessed: March 22, 2025).

Modig, K. et al. (2017) “Payback time? Influence of having children on mortality in old age,” Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health. BMJ, p. 424. doi:10.1136/jech-2016-207857.

Qidwai, W. et al. (2011) “Frequency and Associated Factors for Care Giving among Elderly Patients Visiting a Teaching Hospital in Karachi, Pakistan,” PLoS ONE. Public Library of Science. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0025873.

Sannes, T.S., Yeh, I.M. and Gray, T.F. (2020) “Caring for loved ones with cancer during the COVID‐19 pandemic: A double hit risk for social isolation and need for action,” Psycho-Oncology. Wiley, p. 1418. doi:10.1002/pon.5466.

Shrestha, P. (2024) “WHO calls for urgent overhaul of care systems for older people as population ages.” Available at: https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/10/1155236 (Accessed: March 17, 2025).

Tan-Ho, G. et al. (2020) “Blessings or burdens: an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) study on the motivations and their impact on end-of-life caregiving among Asian family caregivers,” BMC Palliative Care. BioMed Central. doi:10.1186/s12904-020-00638-6.

Wolff, J.L. et al. (2016) “A National Profile of Family and Unpaid Caregivers Who Assist Older Adults With Health Care Activities,” JAMA Internal Medicine. American Medical Association, p. 372. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2015.7664.

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