What Are the Best Ways to Cope with Losing Your Patience with Your Elderly Loved One?
Elderly Care Upper Darby PA
It’s a horrible feeling to lose your patience with someone that you love, whether it’s warranted or not. Family caregivers tend to feel extremely guilty when this happens to them, but taking some concrete steps can help you to find solutions rather than wallow in feelings of guilt.
Take Stock of the Situation
When you feel yourself about to lose your patience, or if you already have, stop for a second and take a look at the situation as a whole. Are you hungry? Tired? Angry about something else? Any of these factors can influence your ability to maintain your patience with the people that you love. If the problem occurs because you’re hungry, for example, take care of your low blood sugar and grab some peanut butter on an apple slice. When the solution is simple, take care of it right then.
Give Yourself a Break
If you’re losing your patience because you’re stressed out, tired, or feeling overwhelmed, those are indicators that you’re dealing with caregiver stress, which isn’t so easy to solve with a snack. When you suspect that you’re dealing with caregiver stress, it’s time to find a way to give yourself a break. That could mean taking an afternoon away or even a weekend, depending on the degree of stress and what you’re able to do about it.
Figure Out if Something Needs to Change
Sometimes you lose your patience because subconsciously you realize that something in your situation needs to change. It could be that your elderly loved one’s health has changed and you don’t know how to handle it. You might need to take more time away because you have responsibilities adding up elsewhere on top of your duties as a family caregiver. Keep digging until you figure out what isn’t working and why it isn’t working.
Implement Solutions
Once you know what isn’t working and you come up with a solution, make sure that you implement it. It’s all well and good to determine that you need some extra help, but you can’t then give up on getting that extra help. If other family members aren’t able to pitch in as you’d hoped, hire elderly home care providers.
Keep trying solutions until you find the ones that fit the best.
Take plenty of time to do whatever calms you, whether that’s counting to 10 or having a cup of herbal tea by yourself. Then you can revisit the situation.
If you or an aging loved one are considering Elderly Care Services in Upper Darby 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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