The Caregiver Archives - Page 16 of 17

5 Easy Ways to help the Caregiver

Almost everyone knows a caregiver or someone who takes care of a loved one in their own home. With the cost of hospitals and nursing care skyrocketing, many families have a Mom, Dad, Brother, Sister, or other loved one taking care of a family member at home.

My Mom passed away almost 6 years ago, so I’m no longer a caregiver. But I can still remember my very long list of ways that family and friends helped me– so that I could help my Mom.

As a caregiver, sometimes I would lie awake at night too exhausted to sleep. It’s not only the physical but the emotional stress that weighs down on the caregiver. Here’s a very short list of how little it takes to help a caregiver you know.

5 Simple and Easy things that almost anyone can do whether they have 20 minutes to spare or half a day.

1. Ask how I’m doing, then really listen without telling me how you would do it all differently.

2. Once a month or so, bring a big pot of spaghetti for lunch, then sit down and enjoy it with me and Mom. She loves to chat.

3. Once a month or so, make a big pot of spaghetti and invite Mom to your house for lunch. You can pick her up and bring her back within an hour. She seldom gets out and would love the ride, while I would enjoy the break.

4. If you have the time, volunteer to play cards with Mom. She cheats to win but I laugh with her till my sides hurt every time we play cards.

5. Try to think of something that I might need, since I feel guilty when I have to ask. For Certain, I would never ask for a hug– though that’s probably what I need most.

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Caregiver Burnout – Preventing Giving from Draining Your Energy

08/31Leave a Comment

Caregiver Burnout – Preventing Giving From Draining Your Energy

Written by: Dee Cohen
As a licensed social worker and certified yoga teacher, Dee is interested in holistic health solutions for the body and mind.

The term caretaker-burnout is usually used when referring to someone who has the responsibility of taking care of someone else who has a debilitating illness or condition and is experiencing physical or emotional problems as a result of doing this.

Many people balance careers as well as school with taking care of a loved one at home, and it can be a straining task in many different ways. Caregiver burnout can manifest in the form of insomnia, headaches, fatigue, and overall exhaustion. Even though taking care of loved ones is an important job, taking care of oneself is equally crucial. This is also true for social workers, nurses and home health aides.

There are a number of things that people can do to avoid being driven into the ground emotionally.

By setting aside time for yourself, you will be able to better take care of those around you.
Taking good care of oneself can mean doing things like practicing meditation once in a while or getting regular physical exercise.
Both of those things can relieve the stress and frustration that people who take care of others sometimes experience.

It is important to know some of the most common signs of this problem so you will be able to identify them and help yourself immediately.

Feelings of depression, loneliness, or hopelessness are fairly common with people who devote themselves entirely to taking care of a family member or someone who is close to them. Oftentimes therapy can be of help, because you will have an outlet for your emotions. Talking to another person about what you are feeling will help.

When someone begins to withdraw from friends and society in general, this can be a sign that energy is depleted. Spending so much time taking care of someone else can drain you and make you lose enthusiasm. This can also lead to a decrease in regular activities that you once enjoyed. Even increased thoughts about death are common among people who start to get discouraged taking care of someone else.

Guilt can be part of this problem. Thinking that you don’t have the right to be frustrated or stressed may be the reason why you smile even when overwhelmed. It also causes one to become extremely irritable and react irrationally to small things.

Allowing this kind of stress to accumulate for years can result in many emotional and physical problems which can become quite serious. Ways to stay physically and emotionally healthy include making sure you have a healthy diet and keeping all of your daily priorities in order. Having a support system also helps quite a bit.

It Can Be Overwhelming Caring for Others If You Ignore Yourself

Learn more about Social Worker Burnout and Effects of Stress

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What to do when someone with Alzheimer’s has an Illness or Accident

08/23Leave a Comment

What to do when someone with Alzheimer’s suffers an Illness or Accident —

If someone with Alzheimer’s has an illness or accident, it can be a trying time for the patient and the caregiver. No matter how well you monitor their behavior or actions or visitors, accidents happen and germs spread. The odds are, they will be sick or injured at some time while under your care!

Mom had the sniffles a couple times and we dealt with her arthritic knee more times than I care to remember, which I’ve spoken of many times here. That knee was a constant pain to mom, and me. We wrapped it, heated it, froze it, salved it and soaked it. We tried anything we could think of to stop the constant ache in that knee– but ache it did despite all our efforts. Her Physician said there was nothing he could do that wouldn’t cause her more pain than she already endured. Fortunately, Mom seemed to accept it as a fact of life, without question.

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Mom was not so accepting of her 82 year-old skin that hung in fleshy ripples on her arms. That drove her to anger every morning as soon as she awoke. Since she didn’t remember her age, neither did she remember her aging skin from the day before.

Mom was fascinated by these wrinkles and would hold her arm aloft and shake the loose skin. Her thought was that she was shriveling away and no matter how many times I told her otherwise, she would ask me about it every 10 minutes. “Why am I shriveling,” she would say. “Do I need to eat more? My skin just hangs.”

Mom eventually forgot her loose skin, though she did remember the mean arthritis that settled in her knee for as long as she lived. I guess when something causes you so much pain for so long, you don’t forget it easily. But every morning was a new day with her skin until her mind wound slowly backwards into her youth, and she no longer thought of her old skin. She didn’t like it one bit but no longer thought she was shriveling and dying from lack of food.

The most difficult illness for Mom, and me as her caregiver, was something as simple as Vertigo. I’d heard the word and knew it meant dizzy, but had no idea what a sad impact it could have on someone with memory loss.

When Mom had a spell of Vertigo, it literally looked like someone grabbed her arm and slung her to the floor. She had no warning (at least none that she recognized as a warning) or control. If she wasn’t near a chair or something to break her fall, she went sprawling to the floor. The doctor wrote a prescription but could not guarantee the spells would stop right away since Mom had issues with her inner ear. So we bought a walker.

To our way of thinking— it would prevent a serious fall since Mom would be able to catch herself by holding on to the walker.

To Mom’s way of thinking–a walker was for old and handicapped people and she was neither. As soon as she stood upright from being tossed to the floor by a Vertigo spin, she simply forg0t it happened.

She thought we were quite ridiculous for suggesting that she might need a walker. For two days I stayed on “High Alert” near her side every minute, ready to “catch” if she was thrown to the floor. Finally, the medicine began to work and the Vertigo spells became farther apart until they were finally gone.

As caregivers, we do the best we can. We can’t kill all germs, they may occasionally get sick. We can’t control an illness such as dizziness, they may fall. We can’t stop their aging aches and pains, though we certainly wish we could. Without guilt, we do the very best we can to keep them happy and safe and comfortable and loved. And that’s all we can do.

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Best Alzheimer’s Digital Clock keeps time for those with Alzheimer’s

08/2128 Comments

Best Alzheimer’s Digital Clock Keeps Time for those with Dementia

An Alzheimer’s Digital Clock Keeps Time for those with dementia.

Before my Mom’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis she lived alone and called me first thing every morning to ask the day and the time.

Actually, she often called 5 or 6 times in the morning to learn the day, date or time. I thought she was lonely and needed to hear my voice to feel better.

After awhile, it became a real nuisance. I loved my mother dearly but really… I knew mom had a big, colorful Cukoo Clock that crowed way too loudly every hour 24 times a day.

Now, that was a nuisance! But it announced the time–Loud and Clear. I couldn’t imagine why it didn’t catch her attention for day, date and time.

Now, as I look back, I can hardly believe that I was so annoyed that Mom would not take her medication on time. In hindsight, if she couldn’t remember what day it was or what year it was or never knew what time it was, how could she possibly remember whether she’d taken her pills on time?

The person with Alzheimer’s not only forgets to look at the Calendar, but often forgets how to read a calendar or the round face on a clock with hands.

Folks with Alzheimer’s dementia lose their “sense of time” in general and the hands on a clock are totally useless. A digital clock, referred to as the Alzheimer’s Clock, tells them the time in a simple way. There is no determining the time yourself, like with hands on the face of a clock. A digital clock is a simple Numbered Clock. Or, Alzheimer’s Clock (we often call it.)

Mom would suppose that the 6th day of the month on the calendar referred to the 6th month of the year. If it was the 10th of January, Mom would point to the 10 on the calendar and ask, “So it’s October now?” Numbers, Dates, Calendars all caused colossal confusion for Mom. A standard calendar became useless.

It was easier for Mom to call and ask the day, date and time every morning! than to struggle with numbers circling around on the wall.

The problem with that solution was that Mom would quickly forget she had called— then call again and again and again throughout the morning. The bigger problem was that Mom was too confused and embarrassed by the situation to tell me that she could no longer read a calendar or clock or watch.

Once I understood that she could no longer use a calendar or read the hands on a clock, all of our confusing conversations about day, date and time finally made sense. Regrettably, this didn’t occur until Mom finally came to live with us. Mom gets a Watch that can Really Tell Time!

Since some of you have the same issue with your loved one, I’ve had many requests for digital calendars and clocks and watches without hands, so your loved one can keep time!

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A Sad Anniversary, Birthday and other Memories

07/165 Comments

A Sad Anniversary, Birthday and Other Memories

As we near my Mom’s birthday, she would have been 85 this week of July 18, 2010. we also near the anniversary of her passing only weeks prior to her birthday. As I write this, my thoughts are more and more about her and those sad days three years ago.

((This article was written in 2010))

I’ll never forget a few weeks before the end, when my brother and I sat in her hospital room and waited as she was wheeled away for more tests. In a subdued voice, as though he didn’t really want to know, my brother asked, “Does she remember you?” I could tell from the slight dampness in his eye that he prayed I would say No. My brother worked long,hard hours and was devastated by Mom’s worsening mental state. I knew that. I knew he could barely handle the knowledge of her suffering, much less see it on a daily basis. His visits with her became more and more limited, yet he suffered the price as well. She seldom recognized anyone anymore.

On this day. we sat in Mom’s room at the hospital. Her breathing had grown shallow and she’d been plagued by a deep, dry cough. A slight bout with the flu, we all surmised, but her doctor ordered tests to make a correct diagnosis.

My brother looked tired and sad. He was 3 years younger than me, yet for all our lives I’d felt like he was older. Mom had quite obviously NOT known him when he arrived a few hours earlier. She argued that he was her older brother who lived in Oklahoma come to visit. “No,” I argued with her. “He’s your son, Mom. Your firstborn son.”

“No.” I was brought back to the present and felt the need to reassure my brother. “No, I don’t think she does.” Mom called me by name, as though she knew me–but I knew she did not. I could see it in her eyes. I’m someone who takes care of her and for that she is grateful. She looks at me with gracious gratitude, but not a mother’s love.

I’m too old to be her daughter now. She often asks my age and is incredulous. In her mind–I’m a much older woman than she. Mom is young again, she no longer recognizes the woman in the mirror who follows her around all day. Now, she pines for her own mother…long into the night she cries and wails, afflicted with Sundowners. She wants to “Go Home” to her own mother who is waiting for her.

“No,” I tell my brother and I see his moment of sadness mixed with a deep sigh of relief, a release from guilt that he visits too seldom.

“She doesn’t know me either.”

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If you’re grieving or suffering through a loss, this book may help you as it did me. Like a road-map, it offers a step by step guide to what grieving and mourning is all about and how to work through the process.

A Review from Publishers Weekly

Many readers will rightly welcome psychologist’s Neeld’s seven-stage, step-by-step guide to mourning and recovery, accompanied by a description of phases necessary to complete the “grieving process.” Based on the author’s own experience and that of 60 others, the program requires the mourner to knowingly choose to undergo each stage as it occurs.

The book also discusses with compassion physical and emotional traumas to expect and offers sound advice on how to adjust to change and form new life patterns and human bonds.

Seven Choices: Finding Daylight After Loss Shatters Your World {Learn More}

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