Elderly Adolescence

I use the term "elderly adolescence" frequently. I either coined the term or unknowingly absorbed it from a long-forgotten source. It is when old people get rebellious against doctors, nurses, their grown children, etc who place constant restrictions or limitations. Just because an old fart gets a little confused does not mean they are incapable of making any decisions for themselves. They get frustrated at having their remaining capabilities ignored to a total loss of control over their own lives. I get frustrated like that a lot, often because people with GREAT intentions INSIST on helping rather than asking if help is needed.
Often, the help hoisted on me is not what I wanted or needed to do. Sometimes, the presumed help actually makes what I wanted or needed to do more difficult. Think of someone moving my drink closer to me. What they have done is moved something around on a blind guy, thus increased the chance for an accident.
The whole social phenomenon makes old people into crotchety old people, and/or worsens people who were crotchety as young people.
Imagine being elderly but still in possession of a strong set of teeth, and being put in a nursing home. You will never be served a fresh apple or corn on the cob again, because "no one" in the home can physically eat those things. You miss those luxuries and ask the nursing home staff for them. They get tired of hearing this same complaint that they consider an "unreasonable" demand from anyone in a nursing home. They will soon have you labeled as one of the difficult patients and be warning every new employee against you.
The elderly have too much opportunity to look back on their lives and remember what they used to do for themselves, how they used to do things in ways that are no longer allowed by caregivers, whether due to the oldster’s decline or the caregiver’s convenience.
Getting old, or in my case going gimp, is a loss of function and independence and freedom. Neither of my two disabling problems, blindness and Charcot Foot, developed overnight, so I am perhaps too empathic to the plight of the declining elderly. Month by month over a period now approaching three years, I have had to accept more and more things I just can no longer do comfortably, if I can do them at all.
Yes, an oldster with visual or reactionary impairments may have to have a grown child take their car keys away because the oldster is a public danger who won’t stop driving on their own. But this does not mean their house key should also be taken away "because they might lose it" or "you’ll never go anywhere without one of us anyway."
The "best" way to determine the extent of exertion needed over an elderly grandma is the individual’s willing to compromise to rational argument.
Just keep in mind that "rational" cuts both ways, and the caregiver’s convenience should not always be the top priority.
Someone may need help dressing; that does not mean they should be told what clothes to wear every day. I need restaurant menus read to me. That doesn’t mean someone else has to order for me.