Elder Care and YOU!
The hands of time continually move forward in life, and no one is more cognizant of this than the caregiver who provides elder care to an aging or infirmed family member.
Currently, the average American who lives to the age of 65 and beyond stands a 40 percent chance of spending time in a nursing home while suffering from two or more chronic conditions. In Canada, 1 in 5 adults (20% of the adult population) are currently providing elder care to a parent or family member in need.
Growing old is the natural progression in life, and yet, too many of us fail to foresee our parents as being people who will eventually be in need of our dedicated care and attention. Many adult children are left scrambling, half in and half out of a state of denial, as they try to balance their life as well as the lives of their elderly parents.
AdvoSafety.com is a website which will provide you with valuable information, tips and advice from experts in the field, so you can begin to understand the role of one who provides elder care in a caregiver role.
AdvoSafety.com helps you come to grips with the tough elder care questions:
- What will I do when Mom and Dad grow old?
- Can Mom or Dad continue to live on their own, or is it time for some form of assisted living?
- Who can I call on for help if it’s needed (family, professionals)?
- I am swamped as it is, how do I find the time to care for my parents as well?
- Is a Caregiver the same as a home health aide?
- How do nursing homes differ, and what is assisted living?
- What should I expect my parent’s medical plan to cover, and what will we have to pay out of pocket for?
“There are only four kinds of people in this world: Those who have been caregivers; those who are currently caregivers; those who will be caregivers; and those who will need caregivers.” – Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter
Caregivers are typically recognized as those people who provide elder care, or help to tend to the needs of anyone on a mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, or social level. While one might feel overwhelmed, under trained, or under-qualified for the role of a caregiver, it’s important to de-mystify and simplify the concept to a more accurate level of understanding—even a dog, who provides company by simply sharing the same space as a person qualifies as a caregiver!
Elder care comes in a vast array of appearances and if done correctly, can involve a large contingency of people and services.
One individual’s elder care might include care giving from:
- a primary family member who is recognized as the official caregiver;
- a family member who is simply coming by to spend a few moments over coffee with no assigned duties or responsibilities;
- a neighbor, or family friend, who comes by with a plate of cookies to visit and chat;
- the lawn care specialist who in the course of their professional duties extends care to the person’s yard area;
- a community nurse who provides home calls;
- the family general practitioner;
- an area minister;
- community senior’s programs and activities;
- the grocery store delivery person;
- and the mail delivery person who stops long enough to say “hello”.
Elder care, when done properly provides the co-ordination of several caregivers who function in formal or informal roles.
There Are Several Realities A Caregiver Must Come To Accept And Address When Providing Elder Care:
- Caregiving is a long-term role, not a short-term goal.
- Long-term care options can be expensive. It will be expensive for your parents, just as it will be for you when your turn comes.
- The credo of every successful caregiver is “Things change, and things happen!”
- Choose the battles you can win, but never lose sight of who you are fighting on behalf of.
- Caregiving is hard work which can cause burn out if done incorrectly.
- Practise due diligence and never assume some detail has been looked after—confirm…confirm…confirm!
- Set realistic objectives that allow room for the imperfections of others.
- Hold to the call, “Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you.”
Elder care is all about providing quality of life with dignity to those who are no longer able to do it for themselves. Roles in family units do change, and it can be awkward to think of your role as a child changing in appearance to where you are becoming more like a parent to your parents, but that is a normal historical role which has played out in family units time and time again over the centuries.
Elder care provides you with the opportunity to open up channels of discussion within the extended family unit.
Elder care also provides you with the opportunity to give serious thought as to how you want to be cared for in your final days.
Elder care also helps walk you through the normal reality that the human life is finite. We DO only have so many days in this thing we call life, and while we hope for many days, the ultimate desire is for quality of days.
Elder care is all about giving to those who over time have already given to you.
Incoming search terms:
- advices from the care of adult and elderly
- Elder giving a child advice
- anything
- elderly advice to child