Guilt Helps Nobody

If the job of being a caregiver only involved giving help to your aging parent such as doing the dishes and helping fill out the Medicare paperwork, your life would be considerably easier. And if that were the case, even if there was a lot to do, the problem of caregiver burn out would not be such an issue.

But the real drain on you and even on the senior citizen you are taking care of comes in the emotional toll that the care giving relationship brings with it. Because the “assumed understanding” of the care giving relationship is based on the extended giving of a very large favor, guilt becomes a common element in every aspect of the time you spend with your aging parent.

It’s very easy for the senior citizen to feel guilty for asking you for the work you do to take care of him. It’s a strange situation because in most cases, they never asked. You may have stepped in because you saw your parent’s life beginning to unravel and you knew that someone had to help get his retired life organized. And yet, the senior citizen feels a lot of guilt because you are giving him huge amounts of time and that is time away form your family and maybe your work to do things for him unpaid and very often without thanks.

It doesn’t help that the time of transition from independence to assisted care is one of huge loss of self esteem for your aging parent. There are a lot of tremendous changes that happen in rapid order for y our parent and they happen in areas of life that have remained unchanged for decades. If inside of a year your mom or dad go through a loss of their home to go live in an assisted living facility, loss of mobility because they cannot drive and loss of independence because everything is being done for them, that causes a lot of negative emotions. Guilt makes its appearance because they feel irrationally that if they had not grown old, this would never have happened.

But guilt also is an issue for you, the caregiver. There always seems to be something more you could be doing for your parents. It doesn’t help that the senior citizen you work so hard to care for also inflicts guilt on you by whining, “I wish you never had to go home” or by complaining about their lives and getting angry.

So what can be done about all of this guilt? Guilt doesn’t make the relationship better and it doesn’t improve the quality of life for the caregiver or from the senior being cared for. So whatever we can do to shut it down would be a positive step for both parties.

Probably the most proactive thing you can do about guilt is confront it directly. Sit down with your aging mom or dad and get those guilt feelings out in the open. It’s not their fault they got old. Your parent should not feel guilty about being cared for by you. After all they cared for you for decades when you were just a child and young adult.

Bu taking the teeth out of guilt, you have a real chance of getting that out of your relationship. By learning not to put guilt on each other, you become a team in care giving, not combatants. And these are positive steps toward a healthy senior citizen and caregiver relationship.

Going to a Better Place

There are some momentous events in the life of a senior citizen. And few can compare in terms of the tremendous change of lifestyle to the moment when your aging parent moves out of their home and into an assisted living facility. It’s a very emotional decision. If your mom and dad have been living in the same house for decades, there is a bond with that place that runs very deep. So convincing your elderly parent to move to an apartment or assisted care facility can be difficult.

Once you have gotten mom or dad on board to make that big move, the next major step is to find a facility that would be just the right thing. There are a number of factors that go into this choice. So when you set out to find the next home for your parent, you should have a fairly detailed check list for what you are looking for. And when you enter that facility, don’t be ashamed to be darned fussy about that checklist. This will be your parent’s next home and a place you will be spending a lot of time at during your visits. So make sure that when mom or dad move from their home to this facility that they truly are going to a better place.

The design of the facility. This criteria is where your checklist will get quite specific. An assisted care facility for an elderly population is different from a run of the mill apartment complex. And how the facility is designed both in terms of the physical plant and the way the facility is run will tell you if they are a good place for your parent to live. Some items to include on your checklist are…

§ Safety
§ Food service.
§ Emergency preparedness.
§ Ability to respond.
§ Look and feel.

The society. One of the selling points of moving is that your parent will be around other seniors and have more human contact to combat loneliness. The facility can do a lot to speed that process by holding regular social events for its residents. So interview some of the residents and get a feel for if they are friendly and if there are people there your mom or dad would enjoy becoming friends with. You can even arrange for your parent to spend a day or a weekend at the facility to get a feel for what it will be like to live there.

Proximity. Where the facility is physically located is a qualification for which assisted care locations will make the short list. Those close to where you, the caregiver, live should get a priority look. You are going to be running back and forth to this place dozens of times each week. So if mom or dad live close, that proximity will help your care giving efforts tremendously.

Even before you began talking about this big step with your parent, you no doubt have been thinking about it and discussing it with family and those close to your parent. You may have even done some preliminary walk throughs to get a feel for what kind of facilities are available in your area.

When you start the formal search for the next place for your parent to live, it’s vital that you take your parent with you on those visits. After all, no criteria will be more important than whether your mom or dad will like the facility. And if they get out there looking at facilities and interviewing the staff and management of different places around town to be considered, your parent will begin to get enthusiastic and begin to see this move as their next great adventure in life. And once they cross that threshold in their minds, you will be well on you way to being successful in this move and making it a reality to help your parent go to a better place.

Giving Thanks for Being a Caregiver

Much of the adjustment that goes into being a caregiver for your aging parent goes into dealing with the stress and the emotional drain that role can bring. In addition to the issues of how to care for her in the best possible way, there are the emotions of anger when programs don’t work right or when the facility she is in has problems. There is resentment at other siblings or even at your aging parent because of the demands this job has on you personally.

There are other adjustments that are a huge drain on you emotionally. Balancing work, home and private life with the demands on your time being a caregiver requires is a juggling act that will involve as many “dropped balls” as successes before you ever get it right. And about the time you do get a good balance, the demands of your elderly parent might change and you are again pulled back into that stressful situation.

So you have to think about ways you can offset the demands on you and try to take some time for you and for your family. These are all difficult emotions which may be why it takes a real adult to be a caregiver for an elderly person. But there is one emotion you may wish to foster and dwell on as much as you can to offset the worry, the anxiety, the anger and the resentment. That is the emotion of thankfulness.

Now it may seem impossible to even ponder how thankfulness could become part of your emotional reaction to this demanding situation you find yourself in. But if you can find ways to be thankful that you are the caregiver for your parent, that positive emotion can do wonders to drive out those negative emotions in your heart. And when you think about it, there are quite a few great things you can be thankful for BECAUSE you are the primary caregiver for your aging parent. Some of those are…

. You are able to give back a bit of the sacrifices they made to raise you. The amount of time and money and emotional effort your parents used up on you as a child is something that can never be repaid. But you are giving a little bit back in caring for them when they are old to say, “Thank you for raising me and never giving up on me. And now I am not going to give up on you.”
. There would be anxiety if you were not here. If you were far away in another state, you would be a basket case if you didn’t know your mom or dad’s medical condition. So by being close, you can get the facts quickly and get them right which cuts down on all of those “what if” bad dreams about your mom and dad.
. You always know what’s going on. There are a lot of “false alarms” with an elderly person. The need someone that can say, “It’s all right. It’s under control” to them. That someone is you.
. You are needed and you are important to your elderly mom or dad. If ever there was a time when you felt needed not just every so often but every day and every hour of the day it is when you are there to help your parents through this tough time of their lives.
. Celebrate those little times of laughter and joy. Celebrate when you enjoy a movie together or laugh at those “insider” family jokes that always bring a smile. Those times will be precious to you when your parent go on to their reward some day.

There is something deep inside us that feels a sense of completion when we are able to stay with someone we love through a very tough time. Your love for your parent and between you and her will deepen and grow stronger in a way that will stay with you for the rest of your life.

And even after your parent goes on to their eternal reward, you will be able to look back on those months when you gave all you could to make those final months of her life happy and peaceful and you will be able to say, “I did the right thing.” And that is one feeling that is irreplaceable and something you will be able to be thankful forever.

Easing into Care Giving

There is one axiom that if your parents don’t pass away young in life, you are going to watch them age. Now for the most part, this is a natural and nice part of life because mom and dad can slowly become grandma and grandpa which are nice roles for them after working so hard to raise you.

But a corollary to that axiom is that if mom and dad are going to age, at some point you are going to begin helping them with the daily affairs of life. And that occasional helping will escalate as their needs grow strong until you will become a full-fledged caregiver for an elderly person.

For many, the time when you suddenly become a caregiver is just that – sudden. It happens often after the death of a parent and the widowed parent suddenly becomes needy because of the loss they are experiencing. For married couples who have been together for decades, that loss is equivalent to the loss of a limb and far more devastating so that may be the time when you suddenly go from having few concerns for your aging parent to having many.

It might be strange to look at it this way, but the more you can ease into care giving, the more time you have to get used to it, for your elderly parent or parents to get used and for your family, forefends and coworkers to get used to it. And if you can step in and make some minor changes to the environment of your aging parent, you may be able to delay the time when they become very dependent on you.

If your parent or parents are still living in their own home, there are things you can do to make their living space more accessible and safe including…

. Create a lifestyle that is all on one level. Stairs can become a hazard for an elderly person. So early in your plans to adapt their living space, move them into a ground floor bedroom and put all significant rooms, including the kitchen, the pantry, the laundry room and the living room are on the same level.
. Take some of the work out of daily chores. Most local grocery stores will deliver food to the elderly so you can make those arrangements for your aging parent. You can also find services that work by the hour that come in and clean the house, do simple repairs and chores and take care of the business of home ownership for your parents.
. You can make arrangements with home health care professionals to drop by for an hour or two a week just to make sure your parents medications are still safe to use, that all prescriptions have been filled and that your parent understands their medications and when and how to take them.
. Reorganize the kitchen so things your parent will use every day are on an eye level shelf and are easy to get to and to put away after washing. Make sure the toaster oven, microwave and other important appliances are also easy to get to and that your parent is comfortable with these units if the models that may have come with the assisted living center are not familiar to them.
. Go through the house and make it easy for your parent to use. You can put in those walking and grab bars along the halls and in the bathtub and other places where your mom or dad might need the additional support. You can check the lights so there are plenty of visibility for what your parents have to do.

To really take the preparation of your parent’s living space for their ease of use and safety, look at pulling emergency pull ropes in every room. These units are used extensively in assisted care units and they make it possible for your parent to pull that cord if she is in trouble and set off an alarm or call to you or to emergency care, should there be a sudden medical need.

By working to make your parent’s work area easy to use and safe, you can do a lot to put off the time when your mom or dad may have to move to a retirement village or nursing home. And you keep them independent which allows you to slowly ease into care giving which is much easier on everybody.

Does Grandpa Like Himself?

Few of us think about our own self esteem. But how we feel about ourselves, our work, our relationship to family and the community and our place in the world is the cornerstone not only of your ability to function and be productive in life but of your mental and physical health as well. That is a basic concept of human psychology for everyone and that need for self esteem doesn’t go away when you become a senior citizen.

When you think about it, this episode of being a caregiver for your aging parent is not your first crack at care giving. You were the caregiver and to some extent still are for your children as they were growing up. You took care of their every need including their emotional and psychological needs. And any good parent learns early on that a child’s self esteem if vital to their success in school and in life.

Now you are in that relationship with your mom and dad and while you are not “raising them”, you have taken on the caregiver role which means in addition to worrying about their finances, their physical health, their diet and their living arrangements, their mental health and self esteem are things for you to consider as well.

Because it’s not us going through it, its hard for us to empathize with the huge changes going on in the life of your aging mom and dad and the massive impact those changes have on their self esteem. For a parent, your sense of self worth comes from your independence, your ability to take care of your kids, do your job and be useful to others in society.

In the senior years all of that disappears in what seems like an instant. In the eyes of the senior, they go from being the hero to their kids to being a pitiful old man or woman being taken care of like they were the child. Their feeling of being useful vanishes and is replaced by a feeling of being unnecessary and a nuisance. The “things” that they invested themselves in that are symbols of their success which includes their house, their ability to drive and their work all go away in rapid succession one after the other.

Small wonder senior citizens undergo a tremendous drop of self esteem. And when you go from thinking highly of yourself to not liking who you are at all, that is a formula for disaster. It’s a dangerous mental condition to stay in because without self esteem, the natural response is to turn to unhealthy thoughts of alcohol or drug abuse or in the most extreme cases, suicide.

As a caregiver, be aware of the self esteem of your aging parent and the huge impact moving out of their home and losing their spouse and ability to drive is having on them. The symptoms of poor self esteem is your parent doesn’t take care of himself like he used to, repeats stories over and over because those stories remind him of a time when he liked himself and seem to launch on desperate adventures to try things he really should not take on just to get a feeling of being someone again.

You can do a lot to build that self esteem back up in your aging parent. Help him get in touch with family and old friends. Encourage him to talk about the old times and pour praise on him about those days. And above all, let him have lots of time with the grandkids. Those little angels could love anyone into liking themselves. So let them use a little of that magic on Granddad so he can like himself again as well.

Caring for the Caregiver

The relationship between an elderly person and his or her caregiver is complex and intense sometimes. But that relationship does not exist in a vacuum. There are a lot of people affected by what is going on when that caregiver goes to that senior citizens apartment and give to him or her that one on one attention that is so necessary.

For one thing, the caregiver’s friends, family and coworkers are affected. Becoming the primary person responsible for the care and well being of a senior citizen is a peculiar job because it is tremendously demanding and completely unpaid. Caregivers are for the most part children or close relatives of the senior citizen being cared for and they have jobs, families and a full life outside of the time they put in taking care of their parent or parents.

So when that responsibility falls to you, those around you also have to give a little to help you accomplish that goal. But for those who are related to a caregiver, there is a demand on you as well. If mom has to go over to Grandpa’s apartment every night for two or three hours, that means mom isn’t home helping you with your homework, making supper or just being available if her little girl needs someone to talk to.

If dad is gone thirty or forty hours a week taking care of Grandpa, that is time he is not home providing guidance for his kids, fixing the garbage disposal or making those corny but fun jokes the kids groan about but love. Similarly, the friends and working world of a caregiver are also asked to give up a little or a lot of the mind, the emotions and the time of that caregiver so he or she can go and care for that elderly parent and divert that energy and time in that direction.

For those of us who have a caregiver in our family or part of our social or work circle, in addition to the sacrifices, you can become concerned for your friend or loved one because of the demands of caring for a senior citizen. It’s a job that is taxing to even the strongest adult and one that take a lot out of your friend or family member. Caregiver burn out is a common syndrome and it doesn’t just affect the caregiver. If your parent, spouse, coworker or friend undergoes a break down from the stress of caring for her mom or dad, that will have an impact on everyone.

So there is a compelling need for all of us associated with a caregiver to learn to care for that caregiver to help her and support her in what she is doing. Some specific things you can do are…

§ Let them know you believe in what they are doing. Caregivers often feel very alone and guilty that they are not attending to family and other relationships. By letting her know you are 100% behind what she is doing and that you are doing fine, that guilt is removed which makes her know she can make it.
§ Let her know she is missed.
§ Pick up the slack. Each evening if dad and the kids can pick up the house, then mom can get some sleep and know that you are taking care of business at home so she doesn’t have to worry about it.
§ Let mom sleep in. Maybe even bring her breakfast in bed every so often.
§ Pitch in. Go over and help grandma out yourself so it’s not all on mom.
§ An unexpected surprise. Every so often do something to surprise and totally delight mom and give her a fun break from her worries of care giving. A movie out or a limo ride around town can go a long way for a weary caregiver.

If the spouse, the children and friends and associates of the coworker can keep and eye on her to look out for those signs of burn out, it may be our responsibility to jump in and give her some support before everything falls apart. By caring for the caregiver, she is better able to give attention to that senior citizen she is caring for. So in a way we are all becoming part of the effort to give the caregiver’s mom or dad the best care possible. And that is what community is all about.

Caregivers and the Work Place

More and more businesses are facing a challenge and some decisions to be made. As the baby boom generation moves into retirement years and becomes elderly, the workers that make your business function so efficiently are going to have the additional demands placed on them of becoming the primary caregiver for an aging parent.

It’s easy to just shrug at this need in your employee population but just as the demands of parenting can have a huge impact on the workplace, the personal needs of your employees to take care of their aging parents will have an impact on the office and the productivity of your business.

Business can no longer be cavalier and declare, “Well they can just quit and we can find new employees.” The brutal truth is that skilled, trained and mature employees don’t, as they day, grow on trees. With the work force shrinking, it’s foolish to think that if you have a solid and hard working employee who knows his job and does good work for your business, that employee can’t just be replaced with a kid right out of school.

The cost to your business can be devastating if you have a policy of running off good, hard working and smart employees because they are becoming caregivers in their personal lives and replacing them with younger, unskilled employees who are less informed about the ways of business. The costs of training and the learning curve of the job alone will easily be more than any costs of accommodating existing employees. Moreover, you cannot just replace judgment, relationships, market savvy and wisdom which many of the employees in the age bracket bring to your business.

So how do you accommodate the needs of this new group of caregivers who are beginning to become a regular part of your workforce? The first step is to understand what they are going through. These people are going to take care of their loved ones whether you are aware of it or not. So if you can partner with them to make them successful at home, they will work extra hard to make you successful in the marketplace.

Start with some seminars and brown bag lunches where people can come and share the demands they are going through as caregivers for elderly parents or loved ones. Invite everyone to these lunches because there will be many in your business who know that is coming up for them and want to learn all they can about what is ahead. By making an open discussion of elderly care issues part of the discussion at work, you are communicating that you want to help and not hinder what your employees are facing. And that will endear you to them and get you the reputation of being one of those “good employers” in town.

Not all employees who are caregivers will need accommodation all the time. If their parent’s needs are not that demanding, it will be more of an emotional adjustment than a demand on the schedule. But encourage each employee who is entering into a time of being the primary caregiver for their parent to communicate that to you both through meetings with the Human Resource department and to their boss as well.

There is a practical side to getting inside of what is going on with your employees. To your workers, they see you as family and feel more bonded to the workplace because you are concerned about their parents. But for you, the business will know in detail what is going on with that situation so you can anticipate if that worker will see sudden interruption come up at work and adjust schedules accordingly.

Be sensitive and be communicative with your employees and you can truly become their partner in dealing with this tough part of their lives. And in doing so, they will feel that you support them and their loyalty to the company will skyrocket. That loyalty will translate into better productivity and longevity in your workforce. That stability translates into a more efficient organization which is a more profitable organization. So in the long run, partnering with your caregivers in the workplace just makes good business sense.

A Stressful Job

It’s an understatement that being a caregiver for an elderly loved one is stressful. And in general, by the time you accept that you are in the role of “primary caregiver”, the need to help your elderly parent is already advanced. So you usually have some “catch up work” to do so you can establish some controls over your aging parent’s medical situation, finances and lifestyle.

To make the stress of the task more acute, in many cases neither the caregiver or the one being cared for like the job or volunteered for it. The senior citizen receiving the help is often hostile, resistant to the necessary changes that the caregiver must implement and sometimes downright disagreeable. Because this is probably your mom or dad you are taking care of, there are those trained reactions you have to them that when they say what goes, that’s what goes. But now you are the caregiver and they are in the role of the one who must obey. That reversal of roles is hard for both parent and child to get used to.

The stresses come from the elderly senior citizen, from expectations of other siblings and even from your own high set of standards. You may have the attitude that “nothing but the best is good enough for my mommy or daddy”. And while that sounds good in a toast, being a caregiver is all about compromise. They may deserve your attention 24/7 but realistically if you can drop by an hour a day and then spend the rest of your day taking care of your job, your kids, your spouse, your housework and, oh yes, yourself, that is probably a reasonable expectation.

So right up front, it’s good to recognize that as you settle into the job of primary caregiver for an aging parent, there is going to be an increase in stress in your life. Stress has been identified as one of the big causes of physical and mental health problems for adults. Some stress in life is expected and is good for us. But when stress begins to overwhelm you, you can go through a decline of your own health that is not good for you, the one you are caring for or anyone in your family either.

For family of the caregiver, you have some care giving to do yourselves. That one person is on the forward line of a struggle that really the whole family should be involved with. If you live far from your parent and your brother or sister is doing the careering, be aware of the stress they are under and be supportive. You can do all you can to help out to take some of the stress off. Perhaps you can coordinate with the other distant siblings and relatives to call your parent regularly and take some of the relationship pressure off of the caregiver sibling.

Above all, if you have suggestions for the caregiver, give them in love and without “nagging”. That sibling is painfully aware that she is carrying the load for the whole family so communicate your support and gratefulness and that your suggestions are meant only for mom or dads good, not to criticize the hard work your sibling is doing.

But the one person that can do the most to deal with the stress of being a caregiver is you, the caregiver. You have to see taking care of yourself as much a part of the job of taking care of your parent as any of the other duties you do. You are a huge resource to your mom or dad so tackle care of that resource for their sake. If you do, not only will you be a better caregiver, you will live happier and continue taking good care of your family and other responsibilities as well. And that’s a healthy approach to care giving and the only approach that will work if the job goes on for a long time.

A Place to Go

When you first started working with your elderly mom or dad in helping them settle into their retired lifestyle, you exposed yourself to all kinds of services that can help take care of senior citizens. If you feel your parent could use to be with people during the day but you are not able to be free to provide that support because of your job, the idea of an adult day care is often suggested as a solution to the problem.

Of course the phrase “adult day care” can be upsetting because it only goes to reinforce the image of your adult parent becoming an infant and having to be treated as such.
So when you suggest that you work together to find a place they can spend time at during the day, don’t refer to it as an “adult day care” if you can. Immediately the senior citizen will feel that you are just “putting him away” somewhere so he won’t be a nuisance to you. And you don’t want him to get that idea.

But many seniors are open to going to a senior citizen’s center or to a church program for the elderly that serve the same function. The best way to find the right adult day care situation for your parent is for you and your elderly parent to take a tour of what is available locally and make the decision together. To do that, you will want to come armed with some pertinent questions for you to get some peace of mind about letting your mom or dad spend time there each day. Some questions to include might be…

.Do they provide transportation to the different assisted care facilities in town? Does that transportation continue to run all day? You don’t want your parent going to the center and “getting stuck” there. If there is transportation, that wont happen.
.Do they have qualified medical people on hand should any problem come up?
.How many seniors are there on any given day? Too few implies that the center isn’t providing good service. Too many and your parent could get lost in the shuffle.
.Do you provide food and beverages if the stay is all day? Are your food services sensitive to diet issues if your parent is diabetic or has other diet restrictions given to him by his doctor?
.What are the costs?

Of course for your mom or dad, the activities that the day care center offers will be a big part of their willingness to go there. During football season, if the center just provides a place where elderly men can cheer for the game or have other sports programming available, that is a lot more fun for your dad than sitting alone in his apartment and watching those same sports.

If the day care center has a variety of activities that appeal specifically to each gender and then others that everyone can enjoy such as card games or puzzles, it could be an upbeat and fun place for your parent to pass the day. By spending some time there, you can get a feel for the friendliness of the staff and the general atmosphere of the center to determine if this will be a warm and welcoming place where your parent will have some fun and meet new people or a place where he will feel alone and out of place.

But if you can find a good day care center for your senior citizen, it can take a big load off of your mind. And if you know he is having fun each day and getting out with people, you know that will be healthy for him and be invigorating so he will eat better and sleep better that night. And that solves a lot of problems all at once.