Top 10 New Year’s Resolutions for Family Caregivers

Food for thought for 2008…

OK, caregivers, it’s time to take your caregiving situation in hand. Now, everybody please raise your right hand and make these resolutions along with me. I do hereby solemnly swear that…

10. I won’t try to be the Lone Ranger

As a family caregiver, you’re a person trying to do the right thing for a family elder who needs your help. You may be the only one who has stepped forward to take on the job, but that doesn’t mean you have to do everything all by yourself.

You owe it to yourself not to try to be the Lone Ranger. For one thing, you probably don’t have the “fiery horse with the speed of light!” For another thing, you don’t have Tonto, the companion who always has your back and will bail you out when you’re in a jam.

The other people you do have – family, friends, neighbors, members of social and service clubs, members of your church or synagogue, etc. – can and will do things to help you. But you have to ask.

It may seem difficult to ask sometimes, but it’s a lot easier than trying to be the Lone Ranger.

9. I will make time for myself

Time for yourself isn’t about taking a vacation alone; it’s about privacy. The nasty little surprise about family caregiving (that a lot of people don’t see coming) is that you can find yourself isolated yet without privacy.

To do your very best for your elder, you need a place where your elder simply doesn’t go. It doesn’t have to be much. I think a private room is best, but it can be a private desk or even just a computer that your elder doesn’t use, located in a place where your elder won’t be watching you when you use it.

8. I will eat and exercise sensibly

OK, so I’m nagging you.

But you already know the reasons for sensible diet and exercise. These are things you should be doing anyway, especially since you are now a family caregiver. If you’ve been putting off the diet and exercise regimens you know you need, now is time to start them.

End of nag.

7. I will ask for outside advice when I need it

This shouldn’t be hard, but a lot of people find it so. Maybe it’s just human nature. If you don’t know the answer to a question, it’s sometimes easy to forget that other people do know. This is especially true for questions that should be answered by professionals. If you have a legal question, get the answer from a lawyer. Don’t listen to Peg at the coffee shop whose mother “was in exactly the same situation.” Maybe that situation was the same and maybe it wasn’t. Even it was the same, maybe Peg didn’t get the best advice.

Take legal questions to an attorney. Take medical questions to a doctor. Take financial questions to a financial planner or accountant.

Your local Area Agency on Aging can answer a lot of your questions and will give you trustworthy referrals for everything else. There may be other organizations in your area that can help as well. Make it your business to find out who they are.

6. I will organize my elder’s medical, legal and financial information

This goes with number 7 above. To get the best advice from a professional you need to be able to the supply the background information that professional will need. There really is a lot to do here.

5. I will keep a caregiving notebook and journal

This isn’t a gripe log where you blow off steam or a martyr book in which you write down all the reasons you’re going to heaven for being a caregiver. Instead, it’s where you record daily information about the condition of your elder and the care that elder receives.

Record summaries of appointments with medical, legal and financial advisors. Write down the names of visitors and how long they stayed. Document your daily routine. Record expenses you wouldn’t have had except for your responsibilities as a caregiver. If your elder does or says anything that strikes you as significant, write it down. Over time, your journal will become a crucial resource for you and others involved in your elder’s care.

Also, your journal will record who did what and when. It you have family members who exaggerate their own contributions and minimize yours, you will be in a position to settle some family feuds when you pull out the book.

Take a moment to visualize yourself, journal in hand, saying something like this: “Well, Aunt Irma, according to our journal, Mom last heard from you about six months ago.”

4. I will arrange for occasional respite care

If you and your elder live under the same roof, caregiving is a 24/7 job for you. From time to time you need to get away for more than an hour or two. This is where respite care comes in. If you don’t know where to find respite care, ask your caregiver group or local caregiver support agency. You can also try doing an Internet search on something like “caregiving respite and adult day care.”

It is generally agreed that the most common cause of caregiver burnout is inadequate self-care on the part of the caregiver. Your elder needs you; therefore your elder needs you to take care of yourself. No matter how much you love your work, you need to get away from it sometimes.

3. I will keep a list of tasks for people who ask what they can do help.

What an eclectic list this can be. Here’s a top-of-my-head sampling of the kinds of things it could contain:

• Play cribbage with Uncle Joe
• Take Mom’s car to get the tires rotated.
• Drive Dad to the lab for his blood draw.
• Pick up these items at the grocery store.
• Take Aunt Nettie to church
• Wash and fold this laundry
• Stay with Grandpa for two hours so I can go out for a while.
• Help with Nana’s birthday party

Your own situation will suggest dozens of items like this. It pays to have them written down, however, so that you have something to say when someone makes an offer like, “Let me know if there is anything I can do.”

2. I will become (or remain) active in a caregiver support group

Here’s another topic that makes me sound like a broken record. Yet it’s important to keep reminding caregivers of the simple fact that isolation is the caregiver’s enemy. In fact, the more challenging your caregiving situation, the more you need a support group. In a caregiver support group, you can get information, advice, understanding and personal and emotional support of a sort that really isn’t available anywhere else.

Support group members will understand the occasional anger and frustration you feel. They will identify with your uncertainty, self-doubt and conflicting desires.

Once you become comfortable with the members of the group, you can begin to speak in a kind of shorthand. Group members will remember that you are doing what you do out of love. They will not think less of you if you admit to feeling angry or frightened or overwhelmed.

In short, a support group will introduce you to the kindred spirits you might not meet elsewhere.

1. I will never say, “I will never put you in a nursing home.”

This is the big one. A few months ago, I devoted an entire post to this topic. But it’s worth repeating here: the no-nursing-home pledge is the promise a caregiver cannot keep and cannot reasonably be expected to keep.

Period.

If this seems counter-intuitive, even unkind, please read my earlier post.

There. Now, caregivers, please have a great 2008.

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