Have you ever wondered why professional in-home caregivers exist? It is a really simple answer: because they are needed. But if you dig down a little deeper, the answer is much more complex. Caregivers are just one piece of a much larger puzzle, and it is your job to try and put that puzzle together. It’s not an easy task. Senior care is something that impacts entire families, not just the person in need of care. Even if you are in the early stages of finding an in-home caregiver for your mom or dad, you probably have begun to figure this out on your own. One problem that many families face isn’t that they aren’t ready to be effected when they go about helping their loved one, but the fact that your older parent might not understand that their need for care does have such a profound impact.
This will show itself in a few different ways. One of the most common is that your mom or dad might be confused why you are spending so much time worrying about them and making sure that things are just right for them. Of course you want to spend time making sure that they are comfortable, happy, and safe, but as you’re learning, there’s much more to it than this. Sometimes, it can be difficult to see beyond that. And if your parent does show confusion here, it’s not uncommon or a sign of dementia or anything like that. It’s simply the fact that they see that you are worrying about them, and they do not feel that it’s necessary. If you’re planning for their care though, it is completely necessary. You have to coordinate their caregiver’s schedule with your own, and that means looking at your entire family’s schedule. They see one side of the situation (their own), while you are looking at it from a much wider viewpoint.
This isn’t just true of senior care, but of many other aspects of your elderly parent’s life. Their health care, their finances, their estate planning all need to be addressed amidst the much larger context of your entire family and the professionals that you have assisting you. These things are almost never easy, and it places a much greater emphasis on the importance of having a responsible family member helping out. Even if you are not providing the face to face in-home care that a professional caregiver does, even if you are not spending every moment that you can by your parent’s side, and even if you get frustrated by how overwhelming all of this is, both emotionally and physically, it does not mean that you are not doing your job, or even that you are not doing your job very well. These things are normal. What is important is that you are able to do the things that your parent needs to keep them happy, safe, and healthy, all while doing the same for the rest of your family, too. This is not an easy task, and it’s why professional caregivers exist: to help.
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