Caring For The Caregiver
How can I care for myself, my family and my parent?
Caring for yourself, your family and your parent can be difficult to do it alone and you shouldn't be doing it alone. There are lots of people to support you in taking care of our children, I think for most of us we're more comfortable doing those kinds of things and we look for the camps, the after-school activities, the daycares and the nannies. Taking care of older adults, we're learning about elder care and all those people that can help. Taking care of ourselves, particularly for women that are working is not so easy, and that boomer age child, that sandwiched generation child has huge stresses that were never seen before.
How common is emotional burnout in family caregivers?
Emotional burnout for family caregivers is unfortunately one of the very common aspects of taking care of an older parent. We find that the amount of depression, the amount of stress, the impact on the immune system, health issues, are huge for people that are taking care of older parents. We're just starting to understand how severe that is, not only on the cost for the person taking care of their older parents, but their families that are involved, and their employers as well.
What are the most common mistakes a family caregiver makes?
Probably the most common mistake that a family caregiver makes is doing it themselves. Most people don't like to ask for help, and what ends up happening, they resent the older parent, they're fighting with them, and they're not getting the chance to be the son and daughter that they were, so that once wonderful relationship is now replaced by doing the work that the parents are often time embarrassed. Who wants a daughter changing her father, her mothers diaper or those kinds of thing? So it can be humiliating, it can break down the relationship with the older adult, as well as the rest of the family that are impacted by having that member of their family not available for them.
How can I avoid the most common problems a family caregiver faces?
Probably the most common ways of avoiding some of the burnout that families face is learning how to say 'no' and learning how to ask for help. You don't have to do it alone and that's the most important thing you can do. You're only one person and you're juggling many many roles.
How can I prepare to be a family caregiver?
The best way of preparing to be a family caregiver is to look at your life and look at if you are preparing for a time that you're going to spend time taking care of an older adult. It's changing your lifestyle, maybe that's the time to start working part-time, hiring help perhaps to take care of your own children, saving money so you can talk to your parents about using money to pay paid caregivers as well to support you, and looking at the other resources in the community. So there's lots of ways but again it's getting the groundwork and getting a roadmap so you know where you're going with this and not just jumping into it.
How do I deal with a difficult parent?
Dealing with a difficult parent, that's something that usually just does not come when they turn eighty, eighty-five, or ninety. It goes to a lot of lifetime experiences. Dealing with it on one level, it may be getting back and learning how to confront your parents, and saying yes and no, and doing what you are willing to be doing. In many cases it takes a professional to help you with these lifelong patterns that are not going to change.
How should I deal with family conflicts?
Usually, the family conflicts that we see when it deals with an older adult are family conflicts that have gone on forever that have not been dealt with. In the best of worlds, we can bring them up and we resolve them. Generally, what happens when there are long-term patterns is that you get a professional that is used to working in geriatrics and used to working in family systems to help you work them out, so we can get a good plan going. This is part of the plan in terms of helping older adults.
How do I prepare my parent for the move into a long-term care facility if it becomes necessary?
Moving into a long-term care facility can be a very positive, or a very traumatic experience. One of the ways to do that is to start early, and to look realistically at what lies ahead. Again, I had talked about looking at the finances. What do they want? If they want to stay home, or maybe it's the time that they want to be social. Their social group is diminishing and their support systems where they are is diminishing, and they want to move next to their children. A great time to talk about that is when it's not in crisis. You can prepare for it. They can go to these places, visit places that may be options, have meals at these places, whether one decision may be to stay in their own community or move to be closer to children. There's not a right or wrong to that, but you have to do these things in advance. Moving once is a trauma. Moving twice is more than a trauma, and we see many people die in the process. You have to get the most appropriate place. If you move into a facility that doesn't supply any assistance, and this is all that you can afford, and you're going to have to move out as soon as you get assistance, it might be better to move into a little bit more restrictive environment, so that becomes your home, and you can stay there and age in place. Again, people want to age in place, and that assisted living can become your home, but the timing is everything on this, and preparation is vastly important.