Are You A Caregiver?

According to the Family Caregiver Alliance, many of us help older, sick, or disabled family members and friends every day, but we don't think of ourselves as "caregivers". We do it naturally out of our love and respect for the people we care about and feel rewarded by it. Over time though, helping someone can become increasingly demanding and can lead to extreme stress and exhaustion. We want to be able to help the people we love who need us but when juggling busy work and family schedules, it starts to become a game of racing time, waning energy, and feeling guilty and depressed.

Are you a caregiver?

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Caregivers can be spouses, sons, daughters, nieces, nephews, cousins, friends, neighbors, etc. They manage many different responsibilities for their loved onesincluding:

• Buying groceries, cooking, household chores, and/or laundry.

• Help with getting dressed, trampoline, and/or taking medicines.

• Help with transferring someone in and out of bed, in and out of a wheelchair, injections, feeding tubes or other medical needs.

• Taking someone to doctor appointments, making/managing appointments, and/or picking up prescriptions.

• Spend time handling crises or problems from work or at other times when you are away from the person.

• The "go to" person for issues related to the person's needs.

Depending on your loved one's needs and the availability of other family members for support, your responsibilities can be few or many. Caregiving becomes particularly challenging when thecaregiver has many responsibilities in providing care as well as in managing his/her own life.

Caregiving can happen gradually over time or it can happen overnight. Caregivers may be helping full or part time, live with the person, or be long distance. One misconception that caregivers often have is that their role will be short-term and the care recipient will only need help until he/she is "better". But when that person has a chronic illness such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, or cancer, the care and support needed by that person could go on for many years.

Identify Yourself as a CAREGIVER and Get Help Now:

• Statistics show that once you acknowledge that you are a caregiver you will become better equipped and bring back balance with work andlife.

• Line up service providers for the home such as home care, home modifications, assistive technology, housekeeping services, meals on wheels, daily money management (bill paying services), etc.

• Consult with a reputable elder law attorney to ensure you have advanced directives in place such as power of attorney, healthcare proxy, estate planning, etc.

• Keep your loved one's medical history, list of medications, list of doctors, and insurance cards and copies of ID cards in a folder in a safe place. This will make it easier to communicate with hospital staff when there is a medical emergency.

• Hold a family meeting to delegate responsibilities to other relatives for caring for your loved one. Out-of-State family members can helptoo!

• Check with your employer's human resources department to see if your benefits include an employee assistance program that may help pay for elder care.

• If affordability for helpful services and products is a concern, look into the following things:

-Does your loved one have long term care insurance?

-Does your loved one on his/her own home? A reverse mortgage may be a suitable way to access the equity in the home. Call 631-439-6829 for a list of resources for this.

-Is your loved one a veteran or surviving spouse of a veteran? He/she could apply for the VA Aid and Attendance program. Visit http://www.veteranaid.org.

Are You A Caregiver?