Elder Care Cafe

While feeding, bathing, and dressing your loved one may play an important role in performing care giving duties, there are other responsibilities that a caregiver may also need to include. Not only will you take care of their physical and emotional needs, but you may also become their primary caregiver and need to handle their [...]

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Everyone needs an outlet. Caregivers are special people but they are still people who have feelings and needs of their own. Journaling is a form of therapy to help caregivers cope with their difficult and often lonely task. Most humans are prone to keeping their feelings bottled up inside. Unfortunately doing so can lead to [...]

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In most cases, caregivers are usually family members who have a vested interest in caring for a loved one or are placed in a position where there is no one else to take care of the person. Also, most of the time they perform their care giving duties not for pay, but out of love, [...]

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Today we are celebrating my father’s 89th birthday. My brother and sister came into town from southern Illinois and Utah for the occasion, as did other family members from around Michigan. It was great to see everyone together. We spent quite a bit of time swapping stories, then went out to a late lunch at [...]

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When the elderly reach the point where they can no longer fully care for themselves, it is often recommended that a family member or close friend consider taking on the role of caregiver. The job description of a caregiver is pretty broad and can include anything from buying your groceries to making sure your Medicare [...]

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Learning how not to worry seems to be a problem for many of us. We caregivers are especially susceptible to worry as we go about our day-to-day duties. We often worry about the person we are taking care of – whether we are doing all we can to provide the care they need. We also [...]

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Hopefully you enjoyed the series about living longer we presented last week. It’s important that we caregivers stay as healthy as possible. This week we are going to return to the topic of care giving and how to cope with the stress. Those of us who are caregivers of aging parents know what most people [...]

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Not everyone can handle being a caregiver, especially when they realize it’s not about them. Caregivers must, of necessity, focus on the one they are caring for. Depending on the circumstances, they may have very little time for themselves. If you are considering becoming the care giver for either or both of your parents, there are [...]

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Well, looks like we took an unplanned one week vacation. Sure didn’t mean for that to happen. Guess reaching five hundred posts was more traumatic than we thought. Anyway, we had quite a week with care giving duties, cable and Internet outages, and a much needed vacation. Sometimes the problem with taking time off as a caregiver, unexpected [...]

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For most caregivers, the idea of needles sticking out of their skin doesn’t conjure up pleasing thoughts of relaxation. Instead, the first thing they probably think of is pain and they immediately abandon any further plans of enduring the procedure. However, in recent years an increasing number of people are turning to the alternative source [...]

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Just before I moved in with my father in the fall of 2006, my sister told me to beware of Dad’s lies. I was shocked! Although he and I had never had a very good relationship due to numerous issues during my childhood, I had never known him to lie. After eleven years of living [...]

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If you have been a caregiver for any length of time, you know how stress can become an unwanted addition to your life. There is a wonderful questionnaire on the Alzheimer’s Association website Alz.org that I think might help you find the information you need to help you combat caregiver stress. Answer the questions, then [...]

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No matter how long you have been caring for an elderly loved one your caregiver stint will someday come to an end. Whether you want to retain the memories of those days will often depend on who you are caring for and what relationship the two of you have. For example, in my case I [...]

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Caring for the elderly is difficult no matter how self-reliant they are. The emotional and physical stress of being responsible for another person tends to pull the caregiver down whether they realize it or not. Suddenly one day the caregiver realizes how exhausted he or she feels, how time seems to have slipped away, and [...]

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How are you doing? Has the stress of the holidays gotten to you? Every year we try to be a bit more organized, a bit more prepared for the holidays – after all, we do know they are on the way. But, it seems like time passes much too quickly. For many years, I sent [...]

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