When adult children are faced with a parent's sudden health crisis and must make decisions about ongoing care and living arrangements, the need to act quickly can take an emotional toll on the whole family. Alexis Abramson, author of The Caregiver's Survival Handbook: How to Care for Your Aging Parent Without Losing Yourself and vice president of research at Retirement Living TV, talks with U.S. News about the importance of long-range planning, and of keeping your parents in the loop—and their wishes top-of-mind—as they become more dependent.

You warn adult children against sweeping in and taking over for their parents. What's the danger?
When you lose your independence and you begin to have to be dependent on someone else, the emotions about the losses involved become very strong. That's why so many mature adults become depressed and can become angry. We can avoid some of this by respecting how they feel and what they're thinking. Rather than just make decisions on behalf of our parents, we can help them make decisions.

You argue that the decision-making should begin long before anything actually starts to change. What's the advantage?
I cannot emphasize enough the importance of planning. Let's say Monday they're fine, and Tuesday they have a stroke, but you have no idea what their preferences would be—to bring in a home healthcare worker or to move them into an assisted living situation, for example. You need to know what their wishes are. It can be very expensive to have to solve a crisis, which often is what happens when a caregiver doesn't plan. If you want to decrease your financial investment in caregiving, increase the emotional comfort level between you and your parent, and allow your parent to age as gracefully as possible, start talking.

To read the complete article go to US News & World Report.