As a family caregiver, you continue to work your hardest to keep your aging family in their home. This may be because you’ve heard your parents say “I never want to be put in a senior’s home” or you have made a specific promise that you would help to ensure they can stay in their home for as long as possible. While everyone has their own reasons for looking after their aging family we all understand that there will be challenges along the way. Below we will discuss a few ways to help ensure that you can keep your aging loved one in their home for as long as possible.
How Much Care Is Required
I’m sure you noticed that as a caregiver you aren’t aware of all the tasks that you are doing for your loved one all the time. A simple way to help care for your loved one even better is to write down a week’s worth of tasks. This will help you to see how much time you are spending taking care of them. Also, once you have a better idea of all the tasks you are doing, you will be able to schedule them easier, and possibly get other family members to help out.
Care You Are Able to Provide Yourself
Once you have a better understanding of how much care is required, you can break down all the tasks that you are able to accomplish on your own. As you will be able to see that there are some tasks that require a lot more of your time and attention. By you continuing to push yourself past your limits, this will cause you emotional and physical distress, and also lead to caregiver burnout. Having caregiver burnout will lead to difficulties performing basic daily tasks. If you are unable to take care of yourself physically and emotional it will be close to impossible to provide your loved one the best care in their own home.
Extra Care Giving Help
We all understand that it’s hard to ask for help, especially when it comes to your aging loved one. You think you can do it all on your own, the truth is you really can’t. You need that additional support, even if it’s just to give you a break during the day or the week. While other family members may be able to help out, there are services like senior home care available to provide in-home respite care. While respite care can give you a break to take the time for rest and relaxation or to tend to other commitments and family needs, it’s important to know that home care can also help with sharing other basic tasks too.
Sharing Caregiving Responsibilities
Your family can see the amazing job you are doing by taking care of your loved one. Since you are doing such a great job they might not want to help you because you have it covered. Getting your family to take on a few extra things once in a while can be a huge help to your own well-being. If you don’t have anyone willing to give you an extra hand you can get additional help from a senior home care service. By hiring a home care service, they can spend a few hours a day or week helping with your loved one’s basic daily activities. Some of these activities can include; bathing, light housekeeping, medication reminders, meal preparation and transportation to appointments.
Just remember that the main goal is to keep your aging loved one at home for as long as possible. You may want to do everything on your own, but in the end, it will cause more issues down the road. This can affect your aging loved one’s well-being and cost them the thing they want the most, to stay in their own home. So, don’t be afraid to ask family for more help. If they are unable to provide the help, know that you are never alone. There are always senior home care services in your area that can provide additional care to help ensure that your loved one stays in the comfort and safety of their own home.
