Tag: Family Caregivers

Insomnia is believed to affect half of all older adults. In a study of 6,800 adults over 65, upwards of seven out of ten reported finding it hard to sleep all night. Upwards of three out of five found it hard to fall asleep. About one out of four said they didn’t feel refreshed even after sleeping.

It’s not surprising to learn that your parents have a hard time falling or staying asleep. Insomnia can be linked to their medications, chronic health conditions like arthritis that make sleeping painful and disruptive, or snoring. When you’re a family caregiver, your parents’ insomnia can impact your sleep quality. This is where 24-hour home care can step in to relieve your duties and help your parent all at the same time.

The Top Reasons for Poor Sleep in the Elderly

Medications are one of the leading reasons for poor sleep. If your mom or dad takes a prescription that causes drowsiness or nausea, it can impact their rest at night. The pills that they take cause them to feel tired during the day, so they nap too much. They’re no longer able to sleep through the night.

As you age, the ability to enter into a profound sleep changes. Your parents may wake up to outside noises more than they used to. If this is the situation they’re experiencing, white noise like a fan or white noise machine that produces the sound of rain or a bubbling stream may help them tune out traffic or people on the street.

Your parents may not be active during the day. If they’re sedentary, their body isn’t tired. That makes it harder to sleep at night. Make sure they’re active for at least 30 minutes or more each day. A brisk walk around the neighborhood is one way to ensure they get a half-hour of exercise.

Limit caffeinated snacks and beverages before bedtime. Your parents need to switch to decaffeinated tea and coffee by late afternoon. After dinner, they need to avoid excessive amounts of water, as their bladder will fill faster and cause them to need to get up and use the toilet.

The final thing to do to ensure your parents get the target seven or eight hours of sleep each night is to feed them dinner hours before bedtime. They need to avoid alcoholic beverages, too, as they impact sleep.

Going to bed on a full stomach increases the chance of acid reflux and heartburn. When they lay down, stomach acid production increases to help with digestion. The chest pain that results from heartburn can make it impossible to sleep.

Sleep Well With 24-Hour Home Care

Look at the benefits of 24-hour home care services. Instead of waking up to calls or knocks on your bedroom door or having to set the alarm to wake up, caregivers are there and ready to help your parents with their care needs.

You get to sleep through the night, and 24-hour home care aides are ready and waiting to assist your parents with everything from medication reminders to toileting assistance.

Sources:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5991956/#

If you or an aging loved one is considering 24-hour home care in Eden Prairie, MN, and the surrounding areas, please contact the friendly staff at CareBuilders at Home Minnesota. Call today 612-260-2273.

Take nine people who are 65 or older. Statistically, one of them has Alzheimer’s disease. By the year 2050, it’s expected the number of people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s will double. Right now, 6 million people are dealing with this disease.

You know all about the impact Alzheimer’s has on your life. Your dad has Alzheimer’s, and you’re considering becoming his primary caregiver in hopes of saving money. Before you make this decision, there are things you should keep in mind.

Every Case Is Different

Your dad may be calm and sweet one day and furious the next. It’s hard to predict his mood from one moment to the next. Something as simple as telling him “no” can cause him to become angry and verbally or physically abusive.

You may never experience extreme agitation. Your dad may always be quiet and calm. Just as he may constantly try to escape the house to “go home,” or he may never want to leave your side.

It’s Normal to Bounce Between Stages

There are seven stages of Alzheimer’s disease in the early, middle, and late stages. Your dad may bounce between the different stages for months or years, making it hard to know when new symptoms will appear. He may also experience some late-stage symptoms while also showing signs of mid-stage symptoms.

Organization Helps

Stay organized as best you can. If that means using an app to keep track of your daily, weekly, and monthly to-do list, do so. You might find a whiteboard is better.

Some of the first things your dad will need help with include medication reminders, meal preparation, transportation, and help to pay bills on time. It may progress to assisting with ambulation, helping him with bathing and grooming, and housekeeping.

Quitting a Job Will Impact Your Finances

Many family caregivers do not get paid. Some spend their own savings to help a parent with Alzheimer’s afford groceries, medications, and clothing. If you quit your job to care for your dad, can you afford to lose the health insurance contribution and other employment benefits?

Plus, the longevity of Alzheimer’s patients varies. You may be caring for your dad for over a decade. When you finally go to reenter the job market, you may get many responses about having been out of the working world for too long. For this reason, it may be better to reduce your hours and hire caregivers to help out while you’re at work.

Alzheimer’s disease is challenging for everyone. It’s important to arrange caregivers to help you with your dad’s care. As much as you’d like to be his only caregiver, the emotional strain can be challenging when you don’t have support. Call a home care agency and schedule caregivers for respite care.

Sources:
https://www.alz.org/alzheimers-dementia/facts-figures

If you or an aging loved one is considering caregivers in Edina, MN, and the surrounding areas, please contact the friendly staff at CareBuilders at Home Minnesota. Call today 612-260-2273.

Resilience fatigue is an actual condition that many family caregivers run into. Could you have resilience fatigue and not know it? Here is everything you need to know about this issue.

Resilience Fatigue Explained

When you’re helping your mom or dad every day, you probably don’t take many breaks. You know they depend on you, so you make sure there is no point where you’re unavailable. You keep powering through each day, even when you’re tired, down, or frustrated.

You show up with a smile on your face and a positive attitude. It’s all a front, however, as you really didn’t want to get out of bed and make the drive to your parents’ home. You’re acting cheerful, but the truth is you’ve been “on” for so long that you’re burning out.

That’s resilience fatigue. You’ve been pushing yourself to remain positive and motivated, and it’s now backfiring. You’re desperate for a break, but you can’t see how to make it work.

Why Do Many Family Caregivers Become Exhausted?

Helping your parents with their daily activities shouldn’t be so tiring. Why is it? A lot of it comes down to the extra work you take on. You’re helping your parents out, which makes you feel helpful, but you also have everything else you do daily.

You have a full-time job, so you’re rushing from work to help your parents with dinner. After that, you head home where you have to get laundry started, walk your dog, and make sure your kids have eaten and done their homework.

Many family caregivers find it hard to set limits and say no. You’re going from a 40-hour workweek to 40 hours at work, plus an average of 22 hours helping your mom and dad, and the commute time between work, their home, and your home. Holding a full-time and unpaid part-time position is exhausting.

What Can You Do?

You need to leave time for yourself. If you’re working 40 hours and have an hour commute twice a day, that’s 50 hours a week already. Add in 20 hours with your parents, and it’s too much.

You don’t have to ignore your parents, but you can set limits. Agree to help them with laundry on weekends, but they need to have home care during the week to have nights to yourself.

One of the best ways to prevent resilience fatigue is by making sure you take days off now and then. It’s okay to want to be there for your parents, but you can’t lose track of yourself in the process. Call a home care agency and ask about respite care.

Respite care enables you to take time off every now and then. While you’re focusing on your own interests and needs, your parents have caregivers to makes sure their needs are met.

Sources:
https://www.caregiving.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/AARP1340_RR_Caregiving50Plus_508.pdf

If you or an aging loved one is considering home care in St. Louis Park, MN, and the surrounding areas, please contact the friendly staff at CareBuilders at Home Minnesota. Call today 612-260-2273.

How patient are you? If your family, friends, and work seem to be pulling you in 100 directions, how well do you handle the pressure? When you’re a family caregiver, patience is one of the most important traits to have. It doesn’t always seem easy, however.

Learn how to be more patient. Here are some of the best ways to be as patient as possible in different situations.

Know When to Say No

Don’t let yourself become overwhelmed. It’s hard telling others no, but you need to learn to put your foot down. There are ways to say no without hurting feelings. If others still react negatively. That’s on them.

Imagine your sister asks you to watch her kids again while she and her husband have another weekend alone. It’s the fourth time this summer. When you tell her no, be honest and explain you’re overwhelmed by work, household obligations, and parents’ care.

Walk Away and Regroup

When your parents are particularly argumentative, it’s tough to stay calm. If they’re in a bad mood, it can trigger your own attitude to turn negative. Know when to walk off and regroup.

Your mom has Alzheimer’s and refuses to get in the shower. She says she’s already bathed, but she smells sweaty and sour. You can’t let her skip another day. Don’t argue with her. Walk away and do something that distracts her. Music is one of the best ways to change her mood.

Once she’s calmed down, come up with a different approach. If she’s been fighting a shower, see if she’d like to relax in a bubble bath. The change may be enough to appeal to her. If that doesn’t work, bribery may be needed. Offer her an ice cream cone in the shower to eat while you bathe her.

Try a Fitness Program Like Yoga

Exercise is a great way to de-stress. If you pair that exercise with meditation, which is common in Tai Chi and Yoga, it benefits your body and mental health. Find easy-to-follow instructional videos online, on streaming services like YouTube, or at area wellness practices.

At the very least, get outside and take a walk in nature every day. Ease frustration by smelling the flowers, feeling the sun on your face, and hearing the birds sing.

Focus on Yourself First

It seems logical to want to be there for your spouse, significant other, parents, siblings, and children. If doing so means you’re pushing your own needs aside, it’s time to make some changes. When you’re stressed, you’re less likely to be patient.

Hire professional caregivers to help your parents. If you have breaks from their care, you can focus on self-care. Go out and socialize, have quiet time to yourself, do something fun, and enjoy yourself. If you’re taking care of yourself, you’re going to return to your parents’ home refreshed and energized.

Call a home care agency and ask to talk to a specialist. Discuss the things you do to help your parents each day. You’ll learn more about pricing and come up with a schedule. Caregivers will stop by and assist your parents as needed to keep them independent at home.

If you or an aging loved one is considering caregivers in Woodbury, MN, and the surrounding areas, please contact the friendly staff at CareBuilders at Home Minnesota. Call today 612-260-2273.

As a family caregiver, how much experience have you had in the past? You might be assisting an aging parent, grandparent, sibling, or even your spouse. Whoever it is that’s depending on you, if you are like most family caregivers out there, you don’t have very much experience at all.

That’s not really a problem, though. That’s because home care can be a valuable asset, even if you continue to provide some level of support and assistance to that senior.

But ask yourself, are you the best equipped person for this job?

You might be. This isn’t an attack on you and your abilities. It is certainly not an attack on your love and affection for this person who needs help. The thing that often gets lost in the mix of stress and pressure placed on the caregiver’s life, especially when it is a family caregiver, is just how beneficial they are for this senior at this stage in his or her life.

Not every family caregiver is the best suited for these types of jobs. Sometimes you have to step back and analyze the situation rationally and honestly.

When you do that, you may come to realize that no, you aren’t the best person for the job. And, in fact, you might already understand that. You might have realized that a long time ago. But this senior has needed help and you are the only one who had the time, lived close enough, and stepped forward to be that level support he or she required.

In reality, you are not the only one.

Home care agencies operate in nearly every region across the country. They have experienced and dedicated aides ready to step in and provide support when family caregivers get overwhelmed, don’t have the time they thought they would, or are finding it challenging to maintain a good, positive, healthy relationship with the senior while also trying to be there caregiver.

Look to home care as a supplement. You don’t have to consider home care as a replacement. If you don’t want to do this anymore, you don’t have to. You are not under any legal or even moral obligation to continue being a caregiver for an aging parent or other loved one.

Most people do it out of a sense of duty and responsibility and love. Those are wonderful traits and characteristics, but if you are overwhelmed or don’t have experience, a home care aide might actually have some insights that benefit not just you, but the senior who depends on support.

If you or an aging loved one is considering home care in Maple Grove, MN, and the surrounding areas, please contact the friendly staff at CareBuilders at Home Minnesota. Call today 612-260-2273.