SALT LAKE CITY — Recent studies show that doctors have more influence on an aging person's decision to stop driving than the person's family does. But how can people speak with their aging loved ones when there isn't a doctor around?

There are a number of topics that, if not handled correctly, can cause division between an aging parent and their children.

• Is it safe for the parent to drive?
• Is the parent taking proper care of themselves or their pets?
• Should the parent consider moving into an assisted living center?

There are ways for the children to handle these topics in a sensitive way.

Home Option Personal Care Geriatric Care manager Natalie Moyle says children need to realize their parents put more weight into what a doctor would say, compared to their own children.

"They suffer from the sense of, ‘Wait a second. I've lived my life for how many years? I'm independent. Who are you to come and tell me what to do and how to change my life?"

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In some ways, these conversations need to be looked at almost like an intervention. Moyle says the children need to show their love and full support of their mom or dad. She adds that children need to validate what their parents are feeling.

"You say, ‘Let's go over here and we'll go to this assisted living [center]. We're going to try lunch.' Then, when she says, ‘I don't want to live here,' you say, ‘I know. You really love your house. You don't want to leave your house.'"

But, in other ways, these conversations shouldn't be like interventions, at all. With an intervention, family members blindside the person whose behavior needs to change, telling that person that they need to accept professional help or they're cut off from the family. Moyle says conversations with aging seniors don't need to be "all or nothing."

"You're not trying to get them to pick up and move, right then, out of their home like you do with an intervention," she said.

The first discussion will feel intense.

"It's really wiser to have a third party in there than an emotional family member," Moyle said.

She says that person can help guide the discussion and cut off any arguments before they get too heated.

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