Are you a Family Caregiver?
The answer is yes, if you do any one of these acts of caring for a family member:
Pick up medication or order medication for delivery
Accompany them to a doctor’s appointment or make the appointment for them
A trip to the grocery store, includes taking a loved one with you or checking their refrigerator and picking up food for them
Take their dog for a walk or feed their cat
Do their laundry and/or put it away
Prepare at least one meal a day for them – or maybe all three and a snack.
Make sure their daily meals and snacks are nutritious and includes something you know they like.
Make changes to their diet as circumstances and abilities change.
Do dishes, put them away and wipe counters for them
Making sure the floor is vacuumed or swept regularly
Fill daily pill boxes.
Provide companionship – just being there to watch tv, talk with, sharing the day’s activities and connecting with one another. This is an important part of family caregiving. So is keeping other family members informed.
Make sure the house is maintained, furnace filters changed on schedule, water taps and toilets work, lightbulbs get changed and the mail is collected. .
If your loved one recovers from an injury or cancer or other disease, life will go back to a version of “normal”.
You may have temporarily done one or more things from the list below, but you knew recovery would end those tasks. Your caregiving duties will lessen and likely end. You are now an experienced short term family caregiver.
If your loved one has a progressive disease or a lifelong disability, you are a long- term family caregiver doing most or all of the above. Plus one or most of the tasks below:
Pivot on a dime when circumstances demand it
Adapt to cognitive decline, if it comes your way, adjusting to cope with lessened mobility or other physical limitations, learning new ways of interacting, coping with losses for them and you, adding layers of safety.
You – and your loved one – may navigate new challenges such as ending driving, coping with wandering, loss of social awareness, inability to express emotion
See that changes are made to the home to accommodate decreased mobility, prevent falls, and is safe overall. You may have lock away pill bottles so they cannot be tampered with, add new locks to doors, disable stove knobs.
Help with hygiene to include changing clothing, face washing, toileting, showering – all of which bring their own challenges. Learn about incontinence products and how to use them
Adapt to and provide help with limited mobility. Request mobility equipment as needed, while still helping them move in ways that allow them to maintain what personal mobility they have
Monitor medication to be sure it is taken as prescribed – perhaps testing blood sugar and providing insulin shot, handing them pills and a glass of water, ordering when needed.
Advocate for your loved one. Request medication review as needed. Report changes in condition. You are a key part of the care team that includes doctors, specialists, possibly speech, physical or occupational therapists, nurses, in-home aides and others. Be polite, say thank you but be persistent.
Notice that these items become ever more complex, adding one to the one before it? Note that each step requires more thought, decision making, more commitment, more time?
Caregivers need to be aware and expect at least some, if not all, of these demands.
We need to be honest, personally and as a society, about the importance of caregiving and what it involves. We need this information so it is readily available to everyone and in an easily accessible format.
Our loved ones deserve this. Caregivers deserve this.
But . . . we are not discouraged by the demands of being a caregiver.
There are ways to manage, to engage, to keep stress at bay, to keep yourself healthy and family intact.
Millions of people are caregivers, whether for a season or a lifetime, as parents of children with disabilities.
They learn to cope, to manage and to be successful. You will too.
Our pledge to you: we will work together to make sure your journey is supported and meaningful.
And the best that it can be for you and your loved one.
————— by Charlene Vance—————