Tips for the Family Caregiver
Becoming a family caregiver can bring a variety of emotions and experiences into one’s life. From overwhelmingly beautiful moments to stressful and challenging times, it’s a period in one’s life that requires focused attention and a specific set of tools in order to help you thrive.
Caregiver Drexel Hill PA – Tips for the Family Caregiver
Here are some tips and tools that can help you succeed in your role as a family caregiver.
Knowledge Really is Power
Feeling confident in your role as a caregiver can make your days go much smoother. There are several online sources with free videos and white papers showing and discussing various tools and techniques that you may need to know now or in the future in your caregiving role. Some of these sites include Caregiver Action, Family Caregiver Alliance and AARP. Even YouTube offers several videos on varying aspects of caregiving.
Support Group
A support group for caregivers offers you the opportunity to learn from those that have experienced what works as well as what doesn’t work when caring for a parent. Not only do these groups offer a wealth of information, they also provide support during a time when you may feel some isolation. In addition, you may just develop some incredibly close friendships.
Encourage Independence
It is a common caregiver’s curse to begin to do everything for their parent instead of helping their parent with what they can no longer do for themselves. The opposite of this is called interactive caregiving and is based on the premise that the more you let your parent retain their independence, the happier and more content they will remain. There are tools on the market that can help your parent remain independent as long as possible and include reachers and grabbers, risers for toilet seats and chairs, hand-held shower heads, grab bars in the shower, medicine organizers that include alarms, button loopers and zipper pulls, special kitchen tools, and mobility devices.
Get Help
You may feel that you can handle the tasks on your own, including keeping your parent socially engaged. And, in the initial stages of caregiving, that may be true. It is common, however, that with time will come an increasing need for care and your parent will need additional assistance completing the everyday tasks of living. At some point in time, they may also require transportation, meal preparation and 24-hour care.
Make sure that you take a few days off a week to recharge and rejuvenate so that you can keep on giving for as long as your parent needs you while maintaining a life that is in balance and joy-filled. A home care provider can assist you with this by caring for your parent on those days when you are caring for yourself.
If you or an aging loved one are considering Caregiver Services in Drexel Hill PA, please contact the caring staff at True Direct Home Health Care today.
Doc, as he is called by everyone - staff, patients and clients - first experienced home health care and hospice care while as a colleg student at King's College as he cared for his mother every day while she first battled COPD and then lung cancer. It was during this time that he came to understand that caring for a patient was more than just clinical expertise.
"Admittedly, my strongest attribute is my communication skills and the simple fact that I love to help people. Even the smallest thing you can do for someone really can mean so much to them long term. In fact, it could change them forever. That's what providing quality personal home health care should be all about."
In his spare time, he cooks for homeless shelters and children's music and arts events. He also is highly involved in his local youth sports soccer academy as a coach and Board member.
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