A Place To Go
When you first started working with your elderly mom or dad in helping them settle into their retired lifestyle, you exposed yourself to all kinds of services that can help take care of senior citizens. If you feel your parent could use to be with people during the day but you are not able to be free to provide that support because of your job, the idea of an adult day care is often suggested as a solution to the problem.
A Place To Go - 649 words
A Stressful Job
It’s an understatement that being a caregiver for an elderly loved one is stressful. And in general, by the time you accept that you are in the role of “primary caregiver”, the need to help your elderly parent is already advanced. So you usually have some “catch up work” to do so you can establish some controls over your aging parent’s medical situation, finances and lifestyle.
A Stressful Job - 673 words
Caregivers And The Work Place
More and more businesses are facing a challenge and some decisions to be made. As the baby boom generation moves into retirement years and becomes elderly, the workers that make your business function so efficiently are going to have the additional demands placed on them of becoming the primary caregiver for an aging parent.
Caregivers And The Work Place - 712 words
Caring For The Caregiver
The relationship between an elderly person and his or her caregiver is complex and intense sometimes. But that relationship does not exist in a vacuum. There are a lot of people affected by what is going on when that caregiver goes to that senior citizens apartment and give to him or her that one on one attention that is so necessary.
Caring For The Caregiver - 747 words
Does Grandpa Like Himself?
Few of us think about our own self esteem. But how we feel about ourselves, our work, our relationship to family and the community and our place in the world is the cornerstone not only of your ability to function and be productive in life but of your mental and physical health as well. That is a basic concept of human psychology for everyone and that need for self esteem doesn’t go away when you become a senior citizen.
Does Grandpa Like Himself? - 632 words
Easing Into Care Giving
There is one axiom that if your parents don’t pass away young in life, you are going to watch them age. Now for the most part, this is a natural and nice part of life because mom and dad can slowly become grandma and grandpa which are nice roles for them after working so hard to raise you.
Easing Into Care Giving - 745 words
Giving Thanks For Being A Caregiver
Much of the adjustment that goes into being a caregiver for your aging parent goes into dealing with the stress and the emotional drain that role can bring. In addition to the issues of how to care for her in the best possible way, there are the emotions of anger when programs don’t work right or when the facility she is in has problems. There is resentment at other siblings or even at your aging parent because of the demands this job has on you personally.
Giving Thanks For Being A Caregiver - 747 words
Going To A Better Place
There are some momentous events in the life of a senior citizen. And few can compare in terms of the tremendous change of lifestyle to the moment when your aging parent moves out of their home and into an assisted living facility. It’s a very emotional decision. If your mom and dad have been living in the same house for decades, there is a bond with that place that runs very deep. So convincing your elderly parent to move to an apartment or assisted care facility can be difficult.
Going To A Better Place - 663 words
Guilt Helps Nobody
If the job of being a caregiver only involved giving help to your aging parent such as doing the dishes and helping fill out the Medicare paperwork, your life would be considerably easier. And if that were the case, even if there was a lot to do, the problem of caregiver burn out would not be such an issue.
Guilt Helps Nobody - 594 words
Is Mom A Sucker?
Sometimes a caregiver is a combination of maid, doctor, spiritual advisor and amateur detective. It’s no secret that elderly people sometimes become more like teenagers and children then mature adults. So, while we wish they wouldn’t do it, your senior citizen mom or dad may be hiding a few things from you.
Is Mom A Sucker? - 745 words
Keeping It At Arm’s Length
Sometimes when you have a very consuming problem, it can so take over your life that you forget the rest of life’s responsibilities and relationships. That is certainly a danger that caregivers are faced with. It is easy to become so wrapped up in the demands of being a good caregiver for your aging parent or loved one that the rest of the world seems to disappear.
Keeping It At Arm’s Length - 736 words
Listening To Your Parents Even Now
Have you ever had that aggravation that you go over to your aging parents apartment or house to help with the housework and get some serious “care giving” done and the senior himself seems to be bent on stopping your progress? You no doubt came over with a list as long as your arm of things to do at the apartment to help your parent live a clean and healthier life by getting the place into shape.
Listening To Your Parents Even Now - 650 words
Making A Difference Together
There is something very self absorbed about the caregiver to senior citizen relationship. By that we mean that most if not all of the decisions you make and subjects of concern focus either on the senior citizen and his needs or on the caregiver and the senior citizen and how you will work together to address his needs.
Making A Difference Together - 647 words
Managing Your Senior Citizen’s Medications
“Old people need a lot of pills.”
Managing Your Senior Citizen’s Medications - 723 words
Quality Of Life For Your Senior Citizen
When you were growing up, your parents were your care givers. They made sure you were safe, well fed, clothed had medical care and that the money was there for the things you needed. But being your caregiver for your mom and dad was about more than just giving you the basics of survival and health.
Quality Of Life For Your Senior Citizen - 737 words
Senior Citizens Bill Of Rights
Sometimes when you and your elderly parent are partnering for their care, it seems like an “us against the world” situation. But since the senior citizen you are caring for has little fight left in them, it seems it’s up to you to make sure that your elderly mom or dad get all they have coming. Just because a person becomes a senior citizen, that doesn’t mean their fundamental rights go away. They deserve and should expect to be treated with respect and for those serving them to live up to expectations.
Senior Citizens Bill Of Rights - 753 words
Taking Care Of Yourself Is Part Of The Job
The job of becoming the primary caregiver for your aging parent is universally recognized as one of the most difficult transitions we will go through. To start with, it’s hard to go through the reversal of parent and child. All your life, mom or dad were the strong ones. They were the ones you ran to for help and who were always there to tell you, “It’s ok. Everything will be all right.”
Taking Care Of Yourself Is Part Of The Job - 658 words
That Thing We Don’t Talk About
Have you ever heard the phrase, “The 200 pound gorilla in the room”? It’s a phrase that refers to a topic that nobody talks about but it so dominates everybody’s thoughts. Everyone knows the gorilla is there but nobody gets anxious because, after all, you don’t want to upset the gorilla.
That Thing We Don’t Talk About - 627 words
The Caregiver’s Emotions
There is a balance between the jobs of a caregiver and the feelings of a caregiver. If you can detach yourself from the many emotions you feel when you have taken on this hard job, many of the “tasks” are fairly routine. Whether it’s doing your mom and dad’s laundry or grocery shopping or paying the bills or filling out the Medicare paperwork, much of the “stuff” of being a caregiver is pretty humdrum.
The Caregiver’s Emotions - 747 words
The Caregiver’s Greatest Enemy
Being a caregiver for your aging mom or dad could be compared to a battle. This is even more so if you are caring for a loved one who is terminally ill. That is because the battle you are fighting will ultimately end in the passing of your loved one. But you are committed to their health, happiness and well being and to do all you can to make their golden years as peaceful and enjoyable if you can.
The Caregiver’s Greatest Enemy - 654 words
The Greatest Loss Of Them All
Perhaps the hardest task you will ever be faced with is to help one of your parents cope with the loss of her spouse. Naturally, this is going to be a traumatic time for the whole family because as much as mom lost her husband and the father of her children, you have lost your daddy and you have grief yourself. So how do you help your mom and grandma to your kids get through this very difficult transition?
The Greatest Loss Of Them All - 752 words
We Are The Sandwich Generation
The generation born between 1950 and 1970 has often been called The Baby Boomer Generation. There have been some variations on that title including The Me Generation, The Vietnam Generation and even for the sake of a certain comedian, The Al Frankin Generation. But the title that is most appropriate to where we are now, as we become caregivers for our children as well as our aging parents is “The Sandwich Generation”.
We Are The Sandwich Generation - 606 words
When Is It Time To Step In?
There comes a time in the adult lives of children and their parents when it dawns on you that you might have to step in and begin having a more active in your parent’s lives, not as a child but as a caregiver. For every family, that time seems to come as a shock.
When Is It Time To Step In? - 746 words
When The End Is Near
Providing care for your adult parent during their retirement years can be a demanding job. And the job continues to become more demanding as your parent gets older and his or her health declines. You will have to make more and more difficult decisions as the end grows closer and many of them you will make without the consultation your elderly parent if his mental abilities have slipped away due to the affects of aging.
When The End Is Near - 747 words
Where Should Grandma Live?
Anyone who is charged with the task of caring for an aging parent, particularly the only surviving aging parent, faces a tough decision at some time in the time of their caregiver years. And that decision is whether to have mom or dad move in with you.
Where Should Grandma Live? - 642 words