Caregiving: The Perils, The Privileges

All this talk about long-term care insurance has got us thinking about caregiving. For many of us, taking care of our loved ones is as natural as breathing.  Of course we want to look after and care for our families and friends – it’s not a job for strangers.  And often, we do precisely that, with grace and poise and commitment.

But just as often, providing care, especially long-term care, is a huge challenge, one of the hardest jobs we will ever undertake.  And while we learn a great deal from the experience, broadening and deepening our connections with ourselves and each other, caregiving inevitably involves very tough, guilt-laden decisions and real personal sacrifice.

Is there any way to make the decision to care for someone at home or move them on to a care facility any easier or less fraught with agonizing options, all of which seem both right and wrong at the same time?  Consider these simple messages that may help:

• Do all you can, and then let go.
• Make a decision and do not look back; trust yourself and believe that you made the best decision you could at the time.
• Learn early on in the process to separate what you can and what you cannot control.  Many things are, quite simply, out of your hands.
• Remind yourself that we feel guilty because we love.
• Forgive yourself.  

Caregiving can mean taking care of a spouse with dementia or Alzheimer’s, an ill or injured child, a bedridden aging parent – the list is long.  More than 65 million Americans are today providing care to a loved one.  And many caregivers have full-time jobs outside the home on top of that. Talk about stress! Couple that with the traditional American notion that we have to do everything by ourselves and voila! a recipe for big time burn out.  

Taking care of a loved one makes enormous physical and emotional demands on the caregiver.  Many caregivers are so focused on their charges that they ignore their own health and well-being – to their cost.  Symptoms of depression and anxiety are common among caregivers.  And here are some other signs of caregiver stress to watch for:

• Feeling overwhelmed and irritable
• Feeling tired most of the time
• Sleeping too little or too much
• Gaining or losing significant weight
• Losing interest in activities you used to enjoy

Next time, we will go over some tips to help relieve that stress and organize respite care.  Then we will go over how to handle long-distance caregiving responsibilities.  

(Special thanks to MayoClinic.com, a terrific online resource for all things health and health care related – see the link on our home page)