It depends on age, independence, distance and help already in place. The planner turns those four inputs into a suggested rhythm, and the honest general guide is: the more risk factors, the shorter the gap between checks — from a monthly pattern for a fully independent parent to a daily one for a fragile parent living alone.

The small shifts that announce change early: mood and appetite, whether the home is tidier or more cluttered than usual, missed calls and appointments, weight change, and any new difficulty with tasks that used to be easy. Write the shortlist down with the family so checking in is about noticing, not nagging.

Write the roster down with named days and named jobs: who calls, who visits, who holds the medication and document list, who is the backup. A plan that lives in one person's head is a plan that burns that person out — a written, shared roster is what actually spreads the load.