If you live far away and are busy juggling your own career and family, it can be difficult to care for an aging parent. Whether your parent needs help with laundry and errands a few times a week or requires daily care, you’ll want to find an experienced caregiver you can trust. Successfully managing a long-distance relationship with this person can mean the difference between a good night’s sleep and endless worrying.
Whatever your needs, there’s an in-home caregiver that’s right for your family. But finding that person depends on clearly understanding your aging parent’s condition or disease, and defining the specific care he requires. For instance, in addition to specific daily care skills, Alzheimer’s caregivers should possess an extra dose of patience and compassion.
Before you begin interviewing Alzheimer’s caregivers, here’s what you should know:
Whether you stepped in to help an elderly relative out of love, a sense of responsibility, or financial necessity, caregiving can sometimes feel like a burden – even for the most devoted family members. What frequently starts as a small role, perhaps doing some grocery shopping or cleaning, often becomes much more demanding over time.
It’s common for your loved one’s needs to change over time. If you’re lucky, you have a trusted caregiver who really connects with your senior, understands his or her needs, and is responsive to your input and concerns. But even the best caregivers may need some guidance and direction when a new set of medical circumstances arises. Helping your caregiver understand changes in care, and giving them the tools to handle them, benefits the aging adult, the family, and the caregiver, too.
Though providing care for an aging parent may start as a sprint, it often becomes a marathon. Perhaps an injury or illness sends you scrambling for emergency care, but you soon realize that your senior won’t recover fully. Instead, she’ll need ongoing and likely, increasing, care. Or maybe you get a bit more warning; you notice your parent’s declining health and put a care plan in place over several months.
Burn marks, bruising, poor hygiene, and broken bones are the telltale indicators of physical elder abuse and an astute observer can typically spot these signs easily.. But physical abuse, as horrible as it may be, is not the leading cause of elder abuse.
If you don’t have a holiday pay plan in place with your caregiver, this season is a good time to decide whether you’ll offer holiday pay throughout the year.
If time is running out and your gift list just seems to grow longer every day, we've got some quick suggestions for thanking a special caregiver. A thoughtful gift can go a long way and we have three simple but meaningful ideas for spreading joy to your home aide this winter holiday season.
Peloton, the definition: “A pack of bicyclists saving energy by riding close to other riders. The reduction in drag is dramatic.
At a time when so much is uncertain, LeanOnWe continues to make certain to fulfill its annual pledge to give heartfelt thanks and support to those in need this holiday season.
Some seniors, particularly those in the early stages of dementia, may have a hard time trusting anyone other than the family member they rely on most. Yet being solely responsible for an elder’s care can quickly become a heavy burden for that family caregiver -- no matter how loving and committed he or she may be. Reliance on a single caregiver isn’t in the senior’s best interests either, since it can lead to isolation and in some cases, may even increase the risk of elder abuse.
Realizing that your parent has become incapable of caring for herself or making reasonable decisions about her property is a heart-wrenching discovery. And if you postponed getting legal documents in place -- a power of attorney and living will -- your only option may be guardianship.