A healthy lifestyle can lead to sharper minds in the elderly.
A caregiver’s role involves many emotions and striking a balance between these emotions is a challenge for the caregiver. However, if you separate the emotions from the tasks involved in care giving, much of the things like doing grocery shopping, or the laundry, paying the bills or handling the paperwork are pretty routine. Looking after your aging parents’ household chores is not caring. It is the emotional support you can provide to them in their twilight years that makes the difference.
If you are helping your elderly parent through the trial of coping with a terminal illness, they will need all the emotional support you can provide them. Although they may put up a brave front, they may be experiencing emotional turmoil due to the realization of the approaching end of their lives. As a caregiver your personal emotions at dealing with this reality, is grief. You have to try to cope with the grief together, as best as you can. At the funeral of an elderly person who has passed away due to a terminal illness, you often find that the primary caregiver is not grieving as much as the others. This is because he or she has been trying to cope with the idea for some time and has usually got used to it by then.
The two emotions associated with eldercare are compassion and pity. Your emotions as a care giver in the final months of the terminally ill elder have a direct effect on how you carry out the task of care giving. The emotion of pity involves feeling sorry for your parent’s suffering whereas the emotion of compassion will make you understand the need of your parent, apart from feeling the pain, and try to help in any manner possible.
As a care giver, you have to manage your emotions and influence your reaction to the elderly parent’s illness. A compassionate caregiver is most successful in his endeavor to make the elder’s life comfortable. There are three important factors to keep in mind to help manage your emotions and control your reactions to the difficult times that lie ahead, and these are:
? Focus your energies and attention on the person you are caring for and not on yourself. Focusing on them builds a bond between the two of you whereas focusing on yourself will breed resentment and self pity.
? Do not dwell on the problem, but instead try to find a solution to it. Focus on the solution to a problem and not on its effects. A good doctor will cure the disease, not the symptoms.
? Focus on the joyful moments and not on the grief and sadness. Take one day at a time and try to find moments of joy when your parents can share a good laugh with you or enjoy a meal or a good film. Being together and sharing the joys and also the pain is the core of the caregiver’s role.
Keeping these three facts in mind will help to keep your emotions under control. It will also help you to function out of compassion and not pity. This will help you to keep your perspective ease the pain and grief to some extent.
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Elder care, sometimes referred to as long-term elderly care, includes a wide range of services that are provided over an extended period of time to people who need help to perform normal activities of daily living because of cognitive impairment or loss of muscular strength or control. Elder care can include rehabilitative therapies, skilled nursing care, palliative care, and social services, as well as supervision and a wide range of supportive personal care provided by family caregivers and/or home health care agencies. Elder care may also include training to help older people adjust to or overcome many of the limitations that often come with aging. If appropriate, elder care can at best be provided in the home first.
Where do we start when looking for resources for elder care for a loved one? Resources that can help the elderly stay in their own home are the first place to start. A variety of independent living services are now available to help the elderly care for themselves in their own home despite their changing physical needs. This may help, delay or totally avoid moving into an assisted living or nursing home.
Resources for Elder Care that can help the elderly stay in their own home:
Visiting Angels ? Visiting Angels is non-medical in home elderly care service provider and elder care living assistance service. Visiting Angels offers a variety of customized services to help the elderly stay in their own home. Visiting Angels are elderly care specialists.
American Society on Aging – The American Society on Aging is a nonprofit organization committed to enhancing the knowledge and skills of those working with older adults and their families. This site offers useful resources on a variety of aging-related and elder care topics and elderly care advice.
Elderweb – This site is designed for both professionals and family members looking for information on elder care and long term care, and includes links to information on legal, financial, medical, and housing issues, as well as policy, research, and statistics.
National Resource Center on Supportive Housing and Home Modification – NRCSHHM is a non-profit organization that promotes aging in place and independent living for persons of all ages and abilities. The website contains excellent resources on senior housing, elder care and home modifications.
Elder Care Link ? Provides resources to those in need of home care.
Alzheimer’s Foundation of America ? is an organization, which provides optimal care and services to individuals confronting dementia, and to their caregivers and families.
The American Optometric Association — is the authority in the optometric profession and leads the way in its mission of improving the quality and availability of eye and vision care everywhere.
Beltone — has been helping people hear better for 65 years as the most trusted name in hearing care among adults over fifty.
By using resources available, elderly care in the home becomes a viable option. Elder care does not have to mean you have to do it alone. Becoming knowledgeable about elderly care issues make the aging transition an easier road to go down.
Linda Dunkelberger is a freelance writer and editor working for Visiting Angels (www.visitingangels.com). The article ?Resources for Elderly Care that can Help Keep Elderly in their Own Homes? lists resources found on the internet related to Independent living in regards to elder care and elderly care.
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