Home Instead Senior Care® recently completed a five year study that concluded that 42% of caregivers spend more than 30 hours a week personally caring for a senior parent. Most caregivers don’t need a study to tell them that caring for an elderly loved one is like a second job, but hopefully the results of this study offer some well deserved affirmation.
First and foremost, caregivers thank you for taking on what is too often a thankless job. Thank you for caring for one of our greatest treasures, our elders. Thank you for taking on what is often a difficult, costly, and exhausting second job.
Next, we want to share some practical actions you can take to help with the load of your unpaid second job.
Lighten the burden by…
- Getting Paid for your Second Job: In participating states Medicaid’s “Cash and Counseling” Program will pay a family caregiver a small salary for caring for their loved one. This assistance is usually not comparable to a normal wages but it can lighten the financial load of caregiving and might be just enough to allow a family caregiver to make caregiving their only job.
- Senior Day Programs: Getting involved with a Senior Day Program can free up a lot of your time and get your loved one involved with healthy, social, and engaging activities while still living at home. There are many professional Senior Day Programs but also keep in mind that local groups, like libraries and churches, are also starting their own programs.
- It takes a Village: Don’t wait until caregiving becomes too much for you to handle to ask for help, reach out to your friends, family, and local community for help. Ask your church to plan more Senior-oriented activities, join a caregiver support group, and get more people involved in the caregiving process. Sometimes help isn’t there when it should be, but more often the help is there, you just might have to be the one to organize it!
- Make use of Nonprofits: Don’t be shy about going to a charity for help that you need as a caregiver; it isn’t a matter of pride but one of necessity. Just remember to support and promote these nonprofits when you can.
- In-Home Care: Sometimes a family caregiver has to acknowledge that they can’t do it alone anymore and that hiring a home care professional to help with caregiving is the best option for both the caregiver and their loved one.
- Eldercare Products: From wander alarms to amplified telephones to the Ez-Chair table, innovative eldercare technology can lighten the load of caregiving, easing concerns and making difficult tasks less of a challenge. Caregiver robots are still at least a decade away, but don’t overlook the technology that’s available now to help you!
Thanks for this article. I work for an in home care agency (http://www.alwaysbestcare.com) and firmly believe that anyone with aging loved ones should take the situation as seriously as possible. It will take research but in the end it will be worth it.