Caring for Caregivers

Posted on Tuesday, April 23rd, 2013 at 9:45 am and filed under Caregiving Support

Take care of your loved one’s health as well as your own.

The majority of our society understands the amount of time and care that is required when taking care of an elderly loved one. What a lot of people do not realize, both as an observer and as a caregiver them self, is the toll that it takes on them physically, mentally and emotionally. In many cases, the loved one requires 24 hour care and supervision and sometimes do not even remember simple things like their caregiver’s name. The combination of little to no rest, lack of interaction with others outside the home and worrying about everything from money to their loved one’s well-being is a recipe for depression.

 

Lisa Carson, a Comfort Keepers® franchisee owner in Lubbock, TX says she witnesses this all of the time. “Depression for caregivers is common,” she says and explains that the lack of interaction outside of the caregiver’s home with friends and family pushes them into further depression. Lisa suggests to all caregivers that they make an effort to take some time for themselves. This could be anything from taking a warm bubble bath with some candles and a good book, exercising by taking a yoga class or a long walk around the neighborhood a friend, or meeting a close family member for a cup of coffee. This is where Comfort Keepers® like Lisa come in.

Being a full time caregiver means it is difficult to find time to yourself. Comfort Keepers allows you the freedom to leave your home knowing your loved one is in good hands. Just a few hours of alone time is relatively inexpensive and extremely beneficial to your health. Comfort Keepers like Lisa are here to help – find your local Comfort Keepers office by visiting us at www.comfortkeepers.com/westchesteroh.

 




How Comfort Keepers Can Help You

Posted on Tuesday, November 20th, 2012 at 10:51 am and filed under Caregiving Support, Family Caregiving

There are many joys families experience within the relationships they have with senior relatives. Grandma and Grandpa are often able to tell the best tales of times past. The memories they impart during family get-togethers, along with valuable family history seniors recount, become the ties that bind many families together. Our elder ancestors are the very roots that strengthen each relative’s sense of place, comfort and knowledge of how they came to be in this world.

Along with the joys seniors bring to our lives come hard decisions that may eventually need to be made regarding their ability to live alone. Some seniors suffer mental or physical limitations that make it difficult for them to safely care for themselves. In these instances, family members find themselves in the position of deciding who can provide the best care for their loved ones. Typically, this decision-making process – from recognition to solution – can take approximately a year and a half. Usually a female family member such as a daughter or granddaughter is the one who makes the final decision of care.  In families where there is no daughter, this role often falls on the shoulders of the oldest son’s wife (the daughter-in-law).

There are two types of caregiving scenarios to consider – choosing a willing family member to provide care or hiring a home care company to deliver caregiving services for seniors. Deciding to become a family caregiver can be an incredibly rewarding experience. Family caregivers often find their relationships with their senior loved ones enriched and satisfying beyond words. It feels good to give the gift of time. Even so, becoming a family caregiver can have a negative impact in some ways, as well. Many family caregivers experience financial difficulties by either having to miss work to care for their loved one or by supporting two households. Family caregivers also become susceptible to suffering depression due to the physical and emotional impact caregiving for a family member can have. Careful consideration of all parties involved should be taken before a family member takes on a caregiving role.

An alternative to family caregiving is to hire a professional and experienced agency to provide care and support. Comfort Keepers® is one such home care agency that focuses on  serving the senior population. Comfort Keepers perform duties ranging from occasional housekeeping to daily companionship for seniors who need close monitoring.  Please view the video below and see how Comfort Keeper Seanna helped a Columbus, OH area family.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJilVyqd340




Preparing to Care for Aging Loved Ones

Posted on Tuesday, April 24th, 2012 at 10:39 am and filed under Caregiving, Caregiving Support, Family Caregiving

There are many joys families experience within the relationships they have with senior relatives. Grandma and Grandpa are often able to tell the best tales of times past. The memories they impart during family get-togethers, along with valuable family history seniors recount, become the ties that bind many families together. Our elder ancestors are the very roots that strengthen each relative’s sense of place, comfort and knowledge of how they came to be in this world.

Along with the joys seniors bring to our lives come hard decisions that may eventually need to be made regarding their ability to live alone. Some seniors suffer mental or physical limitations that make it difficult for them to safely care for themselves. In these instances, family members find themselves in the position of deciding who can provide the best care for their loved ones. Typically, this decision-making process – from recognition to solution – can take approximately a year and a half. Usually a female family member such as a daughter or granddaughter is the one who makes the final decision of care.  In families where there is no daughter, this role often falls on the shoulders of the oldest son’s wife (the daughter-in-law).

There are two types of caregiving scenarios to consider – choosing a willing family member to provide care or hiring a home care company to deliver caregiving services for seniors. Deciding to become a family caregiver can be an incredibly rewarding experience. Family caregivers often find their relationships with their senior loved ones enriched and satisfying beyond words. It feels good to give the gift of time. Even so, becoming a family caregiver can have a negative impact in some ways, as well. Many family caregivers experience financial difficulties by either having to miss work to care for their loved one or by supporting two households. Family caregivers also become susceptible to suffering depression due to the physical and emotional impact caregiving for a family member can have. Careful consideration of all parties involved should be taken before a family member takes on a caregiving role.

An alternative to family caregiving is to hire a professional and experienced agency to provide care and support. Comfort Keepers® is one such home care agency that focuses on  serving the senior population. Comfort Keepers perform duties ranging from occasional housekeeping to daily companionship for seniors who need close monitoring.

Comfort Keepers is an expert in helping families make these crucial decisions. As a leader in the home care industry, the company has devised a list of critical questions for families to ask when interviewing caregiving companies. That list can be found here: http://www.comfortkeepers.com/information-center/news-and-highlights/in-home-care-for-mom-and-dad. Choosing a company that best fits a loved one’s needs and facilitates a safe environment for a senior in his or her own home is essential for success.

Comfort Keepers conducted extensive research among families and other home care resources to determine the best way to broach caregiving with a senior loved one. Simply initiating the topic can cause tension and unease. This decision can inspire guilt for the person making the decision as well as resentment from the senior who needs care. Visit http://www.comfortkeepers.com/family-education-center/starting-the-conversation to find ideas that help families understand the core issues surrounding caregiving. This article also gives helpful insight as to how to discuss the matter without hurting feelings or making a senior feel uncomfortable.

 In any event, deciding a loved one needs additional care can be a daunting experience. Deciding who can best care for a senior loved one is a very important decision. The end result should make everyone happy and provide peace of mind for all involved.

 




Recognizing the Need for Outside Help in Caregiving

Posted on Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012 at 10:30 am and filed under Caregiving Support

Caregivers often don’t recognize when they are in over their heads, and often get to a breaking point. After a prolonged period of time, caregiving can become too difficult to endure any longer. Short-term the caregiver can handle it. Long-term, help is needed.  Outside help at this point is needed.

A typical pattern with an overloaded caregiver may unfold as follows:

  • 1 to 18 months – the caregiver is confident, has everything under control and is coping well. Other friends and family are lending support.
  • 20 to 36 months – the caregiver may be taking medication to sleep and control mood swings. Outside help dwindles away and except for trips to the store or doctor, the caregiver has severed most social contacts. The caregiver feels alone and helpless.
  • 38 to 50 months – Besides needing tranquilizers or antidepressants, the caregiver’s physical health is beginning to deteriorate. Lack of focus and sheer fatigue cloud judgment and the caregiver is often unable to make rational decisions or ask for help.

It is often at this stage that family or friends intercede and find other solutions for care. This may include respite care, hiring home health aides or putting the disabled loved one in a facility. Without intervention, the caregiver may become a candidate for long term care as well.

With the holiday season upon us, caregivers feel even more stress — with planning, shopping and participating in holiday activities. This is a perfect time for family and friends to step up and provide some respite time and caregiving help.  Whether it is provided personally or arranged as a gift of services to be provided by a professional respite company or home care provider, it is a welcome gift.

An article in “Today’s Caregiver” states:

“Nearly one in four caregivers of people with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias provide 40 hours a week or more of care. Seventy-one percent sustain this commitment for more than a year, and 32 percent do so for five years or more. One of the best gifts you can give someone caring for Alzheimer’s is something that relieves the stress or provides a bit of respite for the caregiver.
The Gift of time: Cost-effective and truly meaningful gifts are self-made coupons for cleaning the house, preparing a meal, mowing lawn/shoveling driveway, respite times that allow the caregiver time off to focus on what he/she needs.”

It is also important to note that hiring professional care provider services can provide valuable ongoing support to an overloaded caregiver. A financial planner, care funding specialist or a reverse mortgage specialist may find the funds to pay for professional help to keep a loved one at home. A care manager can guide the family and the caregiver through the maze of long term care issues. The care manager has been there many times — the family is experiencing it for the first time.

An elder law attorney can help iron out legal problems. And an elder mediator can help solve disputes between family members. There are also cash benefits for Veterans, who served during a period of war, that pay for home care or assisted living.

If you are the one providing daily care for a loved one, you owe it to yourself to seek help.  Take care of yourself and your needs, both physically and mentally.  Seek out professional help that will ease your burden and look for community service organizations that offer respite help.

The National Care Planning Council’s website www.longtermcarelink.net contains hundreds of articles with tips and advice for caregivers and their families.  Take a few minutes to find the help you need and enjoy this holiday season.




In-Home Care: A Solution for Baby Boomers Now & In The Future

Posted on Friday, November 18th, 2011 at 10:35 am and filed under Caregiving, Caregiving Support, Technology

Baby boomers started reaching retirement age in 2011. With 78 million of them in total, they will make a significant impact in their senior years, as they have at every phase of their lives.

How will baby boomers influence how senior care is delivered?

First, consider the general characteristics of baby boomers. They are:

•       Independent and self-reliant, having grown up in a time of change, challenging the status quo

•       Expected to live longer than previous generations

•       Health conscious and physically active

•       Accustomed to technology, having grown up in a time of non-stop technological change

Because they are independent by nature, baby boomers are likely to look for alternatives to traditional facility-based senior care. In fact, many of the 13 million baby boomers now caring for their aging parents have discovered in-home care. Many are providing at least some of the caregiving themselves, relying on professional caregivers for the rest, as they help their mothers and fathers “age in place” in the comfort of their own homes.

A 2006 study at the University of Southern California’s Leonard Davis School of Gerontology reports that baby boomers are more committed to caring for their parents than were their own mothers and fathers. (This research followed two generations of 333 families in the USC Longitudinal Study of Generations.)  As they help their parents, baby boomers are seeing the advantages of aging at home and thus may be more likely to choose in-home care for themselves when the time comes.

However, baby boomers may not be as fortunate as their parents to have children to care for them. Many baby boomers have never married and as a whole have had fewer children. For instance, the Urban Institute reported in 2007 (“Meeting the Long-Term Care Needs of the Baby Boomers: How Changing Families Will Affect Paid Helpers and Institutions”) that women born between 1956 and 1960 had only 1.9 children on average, compared with 3.2 children for women born between 1931 and 1935. And between 1980 and 1998, the portion of women ages 40 to 44 without children almost doubled, to 19 percent.

This means baby boomers will have to rely more on professional in-home caregivers, since they may not have family caregivers available.

Baby boomers will be ideal candidates for in-home care because they have pursued active lifestyles and preventive health practices—and are likely to enjoy better health than previous generations of seniors. According to Health, United States, 2005, a report issued by the Department of Health and Human Services, baby boomers will age more slowly due to healthful habits that have contributed to such indicators as 60 and 70 percent drops since 1950 in the death rates for heart disease and stroke, respectively. Further, the cancer death rate has declined 10 percent since 1990.

Baby boomers will particularly feel at home with in-home care like Comfort Keepers’ Interactive Caregiving, which builds on seniors’ life-long activities and interests, helping them stay engaged in physical, mental and social pursuits that heighten their quality of life.

In-home care technology will further aid in making in-home care the ideal senior care solution for the baby boomer generation. Throughout their lives, baby boomers have been faithful adopters of the latest gadgets that have come along to make life better. Plus, in-home care technologies, such as SafetyChoiceä by Comfort Keepers, can help bridge the family caregiver gap for those boomers who don’t have children.

These technologies, which are continually being developed and improved, monitor seniors’ movements and vital signs and can alert help in emergencies when caregivers are not present in the home. Other examples include medication systems, which remind seniors to take their medicine as prescribed, and GPS tracking devices that help locate a senior who has become lost.

So, just as they have throughout life, baby boomers will make their own distinctive mark on senior care – and in a big way.




Caregiver Depression…It Could Happen to You

Posted on Tuesday, November 15th, 2011 at 2:56 pm and filed under Caregiving Support, Family Caregiving

More than 65 million people, 29 percent of the U.S. population, provide care for a chronically ill, disabled or aged family member or friend during any given year and spend an average of 20 hours per week providing care for their loved one. Thirty six percent of family caregivers care for a parent and 7 out of 10 caregivers are caring for loved ones over 50 years old.1

Providing care for a loved one is a noble, caring and sometimes necessary thing to do. It can bring great joy to give your time to someone who is rehabilitating after an accident, disabled, or suffering from a terminal illness or disease. Caregiving can also become a vicious cycle that may one day cause you to become the person receiving care from a loved one.

Once an overlooked category, caregiver depression has now been deemed a crisis by the National Alliance for Caregiving.  The health of the caregiver has garnered widespread attention over the past decade due to the discovery that a family caregiver is more likely to develop major depression than the rest of the population.

Many caregivers hold full-time jobs yet spend at least 20 hours a week caring for a loved one. Caregivers pay a financial price due to missing work or out-of-pocket expenses relating to the care they give. Hence, caregivers find they have neither the time nor the money to seek adequate care for themselves. Many report not practicing healthy eating habits or exercising on a regular basis. Caregivers become isolated because they have no time or energy left over after caring for someone else. These factors can cause psychological distress, affecting the ability to provide proper care for another. When caregivers become depressed, they find it hard to perform duties such as cooking, cleaning and remembering to give medication on a timely basis.

Caregivers themselves are sometimes unaware they are clinically depressed. Feelings of sadness and stress are viewed as being natural in the course of watching someone you love suffer or deteriorate. Balancing caregiving with their own lives – raising families, working and maintaining their own households and expenses – compounds anxiety.  More often than not, caregivers place their needs last, increasing the chances of negatively affecting their health.  

In the past, the greatest barrier caregivers faced in getting help was that their depression was often not diagnosed and equally under-treated. However, greater awareness over the years has caused doctors and health institutions to research causes, treatments, and most importantly – prevention – of depression in caregivers. Of special note in the area of prevention is the recommendation to seek respite care…having family or community members give caregivers breaks from caregiving responsibilities. In-home care companies, such as Comfort Keepers®, provide respite services tailored to meet the needs of both the caregiver and the special person needing care. Comfort Keepers can be hired to do things such as laundry and light housekeeping, or as daily companions for those in need of constant care.

It is essential for caregivers to become well-educated and proactive in recognizing and fighting depression. Caregivers should follow nutritious diets, exercise regularly and make time for socializing. Learning to share feelings with family, friends and doctors is a big step towards maintaining a healthy balance in caregivers’ lives. Asking for and accepting help from others is crucial. Because, in order to give the gift of time, the most important thing caregivers can do is to take care of themselves first.  

1Caregiving in the United States; National Alliance for Caregiving in collaboration with AARP; November 2009

 

 




Finding Trusted Support for Caregivers

Posted on Thursday, November 10th, 2011 at 4:17 pm and filed under Caregiving, Caregiving Support, Family Caregiving

There are over 50 million informal caregivers in the United States who provide care for someone 20 years or older who is ill or disabled.[1]  According to the Family Caregiver Alliance, a caregiver is generally defined as “anyone who provides assistance to someone else who is, in some degree, incapacitated and needs help.  While the definition of a caregiver is simple, its meaning is broad and can affect every facet of the caregiver’s life. 

Levels of caring depend on the need of the care recipient, and can be as simple as running occasional errands or as complex as assisting the loved one in eating, bathing and other personal acts of daily living.  The complexities of being a caregiver may also include dealing with attorneys and estate planning, perhaps actually planning the last phases of someone’s final years – to speaking with doctors and other health care providers to be fully informed and able to assist in making decisions regarding the care of a loved one. 

Many caregivers have their own households, families, and jobs and balancing these responsibilities is stressful.  Caregivers often become depressed and isolated, which can lead to their own poor health and inability to care for others.[2]     Caregiving can become a daunting task, but the good news is there are many local and national resources available to guide caregivers through virtually every aspect they might encounter, including care and support for themselves. 

Finding trustworthy sources may seem hard, but a great place to start is at a local level, with agencies such as Health and Human Service Departments, Area Agencies on Aging, Public Health, and Mental Health Departments, and medical boards affiliated with area hospitals.  Doctors and faith-based agencies have knowledge of reputable organizations such as support groups or psychologists and other counseling services.  It is also a good idea to contact the local chapter of a disease group that pertains to the care recipient (such as Alzheimer’s Association or Parkinson’s Foundation), and reach out to home health and respite care companies like Comfort Keepers® for advice and assistance.

[1] Family Caregiver Alliance – National Center on Caregiving.  Selected Caregiver Statistics.  Accessed 10/8/10 at http://www.caregiver.org/caregiver/jsp/content_node.jsp?nodeid=439.   

[2] National Family Caregivers Association; September 2010.