A Life of Care Giving – Becoming an Enlightened Caregiver

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As a caregiver, it is difficult to summon up the energy to do what is in the best interests of the senior that you are looking after at times. It can be extremely exhausting because you have undergone enough mental stimulation to last a lifetime in just a few weeks. However, if you can keep elderly people with mental illnesses occupied, then you are half way to ward winning the battle.

Mental stimulation of the mentally ill seniors in you care can work wonders fro your mental health as well as theirs. Playing with them, which is essentially what it is, will provide you with a welcome break from your usual caring routine. Setting aside a specific time frame every few days will also ensure that you are doing something fun with them. For the senior, it often proves to be the highlight of their week because they finally recognise something and respond to it. It breaks the monotony for them and can actively be used to calm them. They also see a light every now and then in the dark tunnel of the mind, and they can often remember it and look forward to it.

It is important to mentally stimulate elderly people in your care to keep their minds as sharp and active as possible. Seniors with Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease and dementia, amongst other ailments, must exercise their minds as often as possible and finding the right ways to achieve this could take forever, unless you have a little bit of help and advice. Medical research has found that some forms of stimulation are better than others because of the way in which the mind responds to certain stimuli.

Bright colours have been found to work best by the various studies that have been carried out. Playing with rag dolls, and brightly coloured balls have worked wonders in keeping their mind active. In fact, if you ask them to do something whilst they are concentrating on the colours will more often than not result in them doing it. This exercise is, of course, purely for fun because it has no direct meaning attached to it. However, there are certain activities that do have meaning and can also be used to exercise them physically as well as mentally. Examples of games that are brightly coloured and serve a purpose are puzzles. You can find large piece jigsaw puzzles of clown and balloons. Not only do the colours draw their eye, but you can also encourage the individual senior to try and place the piece, with a little help of course!

Outdoor activities that involve animals are also perfect activities for mentally disabled seniors. For example, walking a dog will afford them responsibility and give some meaning to what they are doing, as well as enhancing their perception of themselves effectively. The responsibility of looking after another living creature can brighten up even their darkest days. Dogs are perfect for such activities because they are loving and affectionate and provide a warm and loving response to any fuss and attention they receive. Obviously, any such activities must be carried out under close supervision to ensure that the safety of all is maintained.

It is important that you, as a carer, do all you can to make sure that seniors in you care remain in the best of health as far as is under your control. Activities like the one above can be fun for bother the caregiver and receiver. They have integral benefits and tend to bring the best out in seniors with mental diseases and illnesses. Never underestimate the power of activities! Once you have tried one with a degree of success then be sure to inject a variety of activities into your routine so that the senior in question does not get bored too easily. Keeping it all fresh for them will help you do your job that little bit better!

If you care for an elderly member of your family, you will fully understand that maintaining his or her health is extremely hard work and you will often feel like you are fighting an uphill battle that you have absolutely no chance of winning! It takes dedication and sheer hard work to gain the advantage sometimes and even then something will inevitably crop up to send you back to stage one again. Seniors are like children in many ways as a result. They are frequently getting into situations that see them come away with some sort of minor injury. This applies to every senior with a mental or physical disability. One of the main reasons behind it is that elderly people who need constant care lose sight of their own mortality and do not have realistic attitudes towards what they can do. It is essential, therefore, that any caregiver has a basic knowledge of wound care.

Cuts and scrapes are perhaps the most common results of accidents amongst the elderly in care. They can be pretty innocuous and barely penetrate the consciousness of the elderly on the receiving end. However, all cuts and scrapes can easily become effective if they are not treated as soon as they occur. All wounds should be cleaned, disinfected and dressed as soon as they happen. It is no good leaving them until a few hours or days later because the damage can already be done by then. I know that this sounds pretty serious, but also ridiculous at the same time. After all, we are just talking about cuts, grazes and scrapes. However, it is often the small things that are overlooked and come back to haunt you. It is therefore important to remember that any physical injury that a senior sustains can become serious if given the opportunity. As a result, caregivers must be extremely vigilant and administer first aid and general care as and when required.

Any caregiver should attend a basic first aid course very early on in their role. Community colleges often provide basic first aid courses that cover all of the information that you need to know about administering it at a moment’s notice in any situation. Some of the content of these courses is common sense, but if an instructor stresses it to you, you are more likely to remember it when you are called upon. It never hurts to refresh information that you have learnt previously either. Even if you have been on a course in the last couple of years, you should look into taking another one that is more specific for your new role. Any course will include wound care as a basic requirement.

Another important element of wound care is ensuring that the elderly individual in your care is completely up to date with any necessary shots. Tetanus is especially important because it is perhaps the easiest serious infection to contract. The bug only needs a small open wound to spread through the body via the bloodstream. This fact also serves to reinforce the point that infection control through wound care cannot be underestimated and dismissed as an unimportant concern.

Wound care is easy enough to learn for any caregiver and there is very little practice required in order for you to get it right. It therefore demands little of you time by can pay dividends when you look at how devastating any number of infections and bugs can be.

Caring for an elderly member of your family is a huge responsibility that very few people actually take on today. It is to be commended for so many reasons, especially when you consider just how much caregivers do give up to dedicate themselves to their family. When you do accept the task of looking after an individual family member who is no longer capable of taking care of his or herself, the key element to remember is that you have no idea just how long that commitment will be. It could be months, it could be years, but either way you will be mentally exhausted and close to burnout within a few weeks of beginning your role as primary caregiver.

The role of primary caregiver is an all consuming one that will quickly take over your life. There is no way to avoid this and, despite all of your best efforts, it is unavoidable. The problem is that you will find it difficult to actually switch off and thus will find it essential to rest every now and again, whether that means getting away for a few days or taking a break within your own home. Either way, just like an ordinary full time job, you will need to recharge your batteries because they will get very low very quickly.

Before you can think about when you will take a break, you must make arrangements to have your elderly relative taken care of in your absence. There are a few options when it comes to this element of your own personal care. The first is respite placements in a retirement home. Many homes actually reserve rooms solely for respite cases in order for families to have a rest from the constant demands that are placed upon them. You can view the home in question before booking a place, and all of the homes with this specific facility will be listed at the local authority offices in your area as well as being available via search facilities on the Internet.

Another option is getting home help or home care in for the time that you are away or taking a break. Home help will visit up to three times a day for approximately an hour to wash, dress and feed your relative. However, they will not remain with them round the clock. Another version of this is home care, which means that your relative will have someone there for a longer period of time but again not at his or her beck and call around the clock. If you spend a lot of time with your relative then this not be the best option to give you peace of mind, and of course it all depends on how able your relative is to begin with.

The final option is actually getting another member of your family to help out for a few days, just to relieve you of your duties for the time being. It would possibly be easier to hand over the reigns because there would be less chance that they could not be brought up to speed with developments and routines. You could also reach them at a moment’s notice and have peace of mind that your elderly relative was being cared for. This is all dependent on getting a volunteer at all, let alone one that you could trust with that task.

Of course, you could always combine two or more of these options if it was financially viable for you to do so. However, money is often no object where the welfare of a family member is concerned. The choice is yours, but for your own health you must take a break as often as you possibly can in order to remain mentally functional. Burnout is no good for you or for the relative whose welfare is in your hands. As primary caregiver, you owe it to your family to take a break.

If you are the primary caregiver for an elderly relative, you will soon come to realise that your responsibility is not limited to their personal health. You will discover within a matter of weeks that you will ultimately be expected to take care of their lives in general, which includes everything from regular outings to their finances. The latter will usually be one of your more pressing concerns, whether you feel comfortable with the idea of being responsible for another’s money or not. In an ideal world there will be very little to this and you will not need to spend much time on it because of wealth that your senior relative has accumulated over the years. However, in reality it rarely plays out that way. You will effectively have to budget for them over the course of the time that they are in your charge. The tips below will make that process easier for you.

Before you can even begin to start budgeting for your elderly relative, you need to work out exactly where they stand with their finances. You can do this by getting organized and drawing up an effective set of accounts that you can work with on a weekly basis. These accounts do not have to be professional by any means, as long as you can fully understand and follow them. You should look at all of the household bills and payments towards outstanding debts as well as any other outgoings over the twelve months before you actually too over that particular set of finances.

Taking income from pensions and other sources into account, you should take the previous years’ outgoings as a good indicator of what you can expect to pay out in the coming year as well as the amount of expendable wealth that you will be left with for general provisions. Income is a vital key to your ability to budget. You must research the source of this money to ensure that bank credits will remain at the same amount. If you fail to do this, you could possibly find yourself in a financial mess on behalf of your elderly relative and that would certainly throw a spanner in the works as far as your budgeting is concerned. However, if you do complete the necessary research then you can then begin budgeting from there.

It may also be worth setting aside some money every month to put into a rainy day savings fund on behalf of the elderly relative under your care. None of us know what the future holds for us, and in some ways we should be thankful for it. However, if your relative does need specialist care or treatment and has to pay for it, then you may find yourself in an impossible situation. Seniors often have to sell their homes in order to get the medical care that they need, whether that is in the form of home help or medication, so it is best to avoid this by preparing them financially for every eventuality.

Budgeting on behalf of an elderly relative under your care may indeed prove to be a pain, especially if you are striving to fulfil all of their other needs at the same time. However, it is very necessary to give them a helping hand in this department because they may otherwise find that they have no heating, water or even roof over their head. Utility companies are notoriously unsympathetic if bills do not get paid and thus it may prove extremely prudent to begin budgeting from the very first day that you accept the role as primary caregiver. It will certainly pay dividends in the long term.

Sometimes, when caring for an elderly relative, it can be hard to know what to do for the best. If you are a caregiver, you are generally and solely responsible for the health of the person under your care, which makes it hard to make decisions that concern their welfare. However, when that person is a member of your family it becomes even harder to deal with. You have known that person inside out for most of your life and so it is easy to remember what sort of person they were before mental or physical disability kicked in. That may actually cloud your judgement. One thing that shouldn’t be hard for you to decide upon is their independence. Whether a family member is physically or mentally disabled, you should always try to promote their independence as far as possible.

Where caring for the elderly is concerned, there are two techniques relating to their independence. The first is promotion and the second is maintenance. You should do all you can within your power to promote and/or maintain the independence of any elderly person in need of care. Promotion of independence is largely encouraging them to do as much as they can for themselves, even if it is met with reluctance or downright stubbornness. Maintenance of independence is making sure that any willingness to do something for themselves is encouraged and that they are put in a position to follow through with that willingness.

Maintaining and promoting independence can give an elderly person a sense of achievement and can even prevent them giving up on life completely. They are not totally dependent on one person in their own eyes then because they can still do something for themselves, even if it is just walking a few steps or doing the washing up. Even if they have to be supervised, this will not detract from their achievement. If someone is having a caregiver do absolutely everything for them then they will lose the ability to do anything for themselves, and in extreme circumstances it can lead to a reaction against the caregiver. Feelings of helplessness and futility can cause rebellion and even violence as a result of their frustrations, and that in turn will then be focused on the person closest to them – you!

The nature of independence is largely dependent on the nature of an individual’s disability. If someone is physically disabled then you should do all you can to promote activities that they can carry out, like helping with the shopping, writing letters or making calls. If an individual is mentally disabled then washing up, cutting his or her own dinner or going to the toilet alone may be in order. Obviously this varies from person to person because it is necessary to assess what they are capable of before trying any of these things. The last thing you want is to put them in danger of any sort. Alternatively, trying these actions under supervision could help you to decide, especially if you have no previous frame of reference within the world of caring.

The promotion and maintenance of independence is one of the most important aspects of caring, regardless of who it is that you are looking after. It can form the basis of your relationship with the person under your supervision and they will appreciate it, even if they reluctantly carry out the tasks that you set them. A refusal to comply may lead to worse than actually coaxing them into doing it ever could. Persuasion skills do come in useful in this instance so you have to know what makes the person you are looking after tick. In order to be a good carer, you have to learn to hold back a bit and not take over. If you work via the philosophy of promoting independence then you will not go far wrong and everything else will just slot into place.