Challenges of Caregivers

Caregivers are people who assist people with illnesses, injuries, or disabilities. While the service work is selfless, there are challenges which encompass being a caregiver. Dedicated women who are caregivers are mostly prone to unhealthy side effects of depression, anxiety, or stress. Although, women that are caregivers can control toxic side-effects of the many illnesses associated with their service by seeking caregiving resources in the community, taking care of their health, and seeing the doctor for regular checkups.

            Stress associated with caregiving can be physical and emotional, however; it is natural to be overwhelmed while serving a disabled or sick family member. Caregivers provide relief or are "on call" nearly all day; therefore, caregivers have limited time for other family members, friends, or work. Despite the difficulties that surround being a caregiver it is very comforting to aid a loved one because they can possess the opportunity to spend multitudinous time with them.

            Unfortunately, women are far likely to struggle with caregiving stress and health problems than men. Illnesses that require continuous medical care and supervision like Alzheimer's disease and dementia are likely to cause depression to the caregiver. Furthermore, women caregivers that take care of their spouse are prone to the medical illnesses of high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, and heart disease. Women caregivers have the disadvantages of limited annual screenings, becoming insomniac, and not having adequate physical activity.

            Managing harmful illnesses associated with caregiving is a dedicated alternative to serve a loved one. Therefore, seeking classes offered in local hospitals can train caregivers to care for someone with their disability. Resources in the community are fundamental to the services provided as a caregiver thus, exploring the services in the community can provide primary caregivers a lapse from their caregiving responsibilities. Note that asking for help and accepting the assistance will accommodate caregiver needs to fulfill their responsibilities. Making a list of alternative ways others can help caregivers along with their caregiving journey will be strengthening. Allowing assistants to determine what they can do in their capacity will be comforting to caregivers.  Acknowledge self-care during the caregiving routine, follow-up the doctor with annual checkups, and engage in support groups to make the service experience rewarding.

Companionship for elderly loved ones

If your loved one seems very resistant to care, then you may be hesitant to even bring up the topic of care with them. However, if their health is declining, and it becomes very apparent that they need care, you have to start the conversation with them. Here are a few tips on how to approach your loved one and talk with them about care.

This delicate stage of the caregiving process poses much more than emotional challenges. Families also face many difficult medical, financial and legal decisions. However, documenting your loved one's wishes for treatment at the end of life and interment after their passing can make this trying time much less confusing and upsetting for you and your family members.

If you and your family member want to live near each other but not in the same house, you can now rent a fully equipped, backyard mini-apartment that attaches to your home's utilities. Some of these so-called assisted living structures come with monitoring systems.

Bereaved elders may also find it helpful to take part in certain rituals as part of the grieving process. Wakes, funerals, and graveside services are traditional grieving rituals following the death of a loved one. However, there are other ways to grieve. Many people find it helpful to write a letter to the deceased, fill a photo album with pictures of the person, make a donation in honor of the individual or support an organization or project that raises awareness about the disease from which the person died. Another approach that grief counselors sometimes use is to have the person talk to an empty chair as if the deceased person were actually sitting there.

A useful tool for PCPs to screen for complicated grief is the Brief Grief Questionnaire, which consists of five items and requires approximately three minutes to complete. The self-assessed Inventory of Complicated Grief (ICG) can also be administered to gauge the severity of complicated grief.


Sometimes an elder's need for help is sudden and obvious. More often, though, it becomes apparent gradually, experts say. So how will you know? Watch for changes in your loved one's behavior, such as ignoring favorite hobbies, missing dates with friends, or forgetting to pay bills.

Sleep | Psalms Home Care Consulting Denton TX

The primary focus of previous research has been to identify correlates of sleep quality. A wide range of factors have been investigated that, for ease of description, can be grouped into three clusters. First, there have been a handful of investigations of the correlation between perceived sleep quality and PSG-measured sleep parameters. These studies have included older female normal sleepers,8 older adults with insomnia,9 young adult good and poor sleepers,10 and individuals with unipolar depression.11 The consensus to emerge is that poor sleep quality estimates are associated with reduced Stage 1 sleep and more Stages 3 and 4 sleep.

Think six hours of sleep is enough? Think again. Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, discovered that some people have a gene that enables them to do well on six hours of sleep a night. This gene, however, is very rare, appearing in less than 3% of the population. For the other 97% of us, six hours doesn’t come close to cutting it.

"Sleep is a cornerstone of weight management because of the impact it has on your hormones that control how you burn fat, how you store fat, and how you're maintaining muscle. The better your hormone balance, the better your weight management. —Jillian Michaels, The Biggest Loser Trainer Getty Images

While sleep requirements vary slightly from person to person, most healthy adults need between 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night to function at their best. Children and teens need even more. And despite the notion that our sleep needs decrease with age, most older people still need at least 7 hours of sleep. Since older adults often have trouble sleeping this long at night, daytime naps can help fill in the gap.

The broad aim of this study was to conduct a detailed and systematic investigation of the subjective meaning of sleep quality among individuals who met DSM-IV-TR diagnostic criteria for insomnia, relative to a group of normal sleepers. This is an important gap in the literature as the majority of previous research that has attempted to systematically examine sleep quality has been conducted with individuals who are normal sleepers.

Lying awake is frustrating, he adds, and can lead to anxiety and continued sleep problems. To avoid it, reserve the hour before bed for relaxing activities—that means no work emails or computer time. If that doesn’t do the trick, try changing up your sleep schedule so you go to bed later, when you actually feel tired.

Insomnia and normal sleeper groups were recruited from January to July, 2004 via flyers posted around the city and referrals from primary care physicians. Of the 208 individuals who responded to advertisements, 152 did not take part due to falling outside the inclusion criteria (n = 30), currently taking sleep medication (n = 6), difficulty with the English language (n = 4), insufficient time (n = 48), sleep disturbance being attributable to a medical or psychological problem (n = 7), and not able to be contacted (n = 57). Three others completed the first session but did not return to the second session.

Second, other studies have investigated the association between sleep quality and the subjective perception of sleep parameters. The results suggest that sleep quality is associated with subjective estimates of the ease of sleep onset, sleep maintenance, total sleep time and early awakening. In addition, restlessness during the night, movement during sleep and anxiety, tension, or calmness when trying to sleep have also been reported to be associated with sleep quality. Moreover, perceived depth of sleep is important with less perceived light sleep and more perceived deep sleep being associated with higher sleep quality.

"Sleep is a cornerstone of weight management because of the impact it has on your hormones that control how you burn fat, how you store fat, and how you're maintaining muscle. The better your hormone balance, the better your weight management. —Jillian Michaels, The Biggest Loser Trainer

How Meditation with mindfulness can reduce the burden of stress

Mindfulness is the exercise of observing yourself in present with intention, kindness and without any judgment. It is the training of the mind to always think in a certain way. Mindfulness can help caregivers to reduce stress, depression, and anxiety of difficult situations they face working with complicated patients.

As a caregiver, you have your personal life and your professional life and sometimes stress from work create an imbalance in your life and it becomes difficult to for you to work properly.

As a caregiver, you always want to be the best. You want to hear good words about your company as the best home care providers in the town. Do you think stress, anxiety, and fear affect your permeance? Do you want to know that there is a way how you can overcome all these problems and start enjoying all aspects of your life with happiness and satisfaction? The answer is meditation with mindfulness.

Daily 30 minutes meditation with mindfulness can give you the energy to work efficiently and overcome depression, fear, anxiety, negativity, and pain. It will bring satisfaction to your life and improve the quality of care you provide to your patients. It will bring happiness and satisfaction to your life.

Recipe for meditation with mindfulness is training your brain to be with your present with intention, kindness and without judgment. Remove all negative thoughts, regrets of the past and worries of future. Start feeling the blessings you have and be grateful to your God.

12 Ways to Care your Elderly Love Ones

We make many mistakes unintentionally because we do not know the way to handle the situation or we may not have an idea how it feels if it happens to us. Caring your parents is not an optional ethically. We are obligated to take care of our parents. Imagine hardships they faced in their lives to provide us with the best they can.

It is important that we should not follow the trend of negligence from care our parents deserve. We can understand the needs of elderly parents better if we know the disabilities, weakness, and changes in body functions with aging. Let me share the story of Old man and his son ” Old man asked his son in a park is this a Bird? Son replies Yes. The old man asked the same questions 3 times again. Last time son got angry and said I have told you several times, Why don’t you understand? The old man replied my son this is my old diary and started reading from the diary. I am so excited today as my son spoke first-word bird. Looking at the bird he asked the question several times and every time my answer was yes. I am not able to explain my happiness”

We can draw many conclusions from the story. Imagine all favors our parents have done to us to give us a better life. Do we show real love and respect they deserve? Are we going to set a good example for our children to respect and care our elderly parents?

Role of Personal Care Homes in Senior Care

What do you think is the most important for you to consider when you select residential options for your loved ones. Location, quality of the facility, Brand, quality of the care, cost of service, People managing the place, testimonials and some other factors.

I personally think the quality of care and people who are managing it is the most important thing to be considered before we consider anything else. Cost of service may also be the factor which makes our choices limited.
You can consider an option of the personal Care home as a residential option for your loved ones if you want to keep the cost of care within your budget. In most of the cities, Personal Care Homes are run by Nurses and social workers.
You may find different names for personal care homes like residential care homes, adult family homes, adult foster homes, group homes, or board and care homes.
In Personal Care Home residents are often provided with non-medical or care activities such as playing board games, help with folding laundry, baking cookies, or preparing for the evening meal.
For social engagements, activities and outings away from the facility, residential care providers are usually able to offer transportation services to doctor’s appointments, shopping, trips to local senior centers, and other areas of interest to residents.
The monthly fees for residential care normally cover three meals per day, utilities, housekeeping and laundry services, resident activities, and often transportation services.
Personal Care homes are not licensed assisted living. Following are some Advantages of Personal care homes.

1. The small size of the building makes residents feel like a home.
2. Cost of care in personal care homes is less.
3. Caregiver to patient ratio is small which helps to build strong relationships between residents and caregivers.
4. Small group or residents also facilitate to maintain religious values.
5. More flexibility to visit the loved ones and have the less regulated environment.
6. Most of the personal care homes are owner’s direct interest so they make sure that service is delivered in the best form.

Conclusion

Although Personal care homes most of the time are not licensed as Assisted living many of them are playing an important role in senior care by providing high standards of care in less price. They are also very helpful for the small town where there is not the large facility.