Elder care is a fulltime job on its own. If you are currently caring for an older loved one, you probably already know this. Caring for a family member is not only a demanding, nonstop job, it is mentally exhausting, too. Watching someone that you love be in such a poor and deteriorating condition is not an easy thing to bear. Combining these two factors together is overwhelming and it can completely overtake your ability to provide top care to your mom or dad. When something like this happens, their safety is jeopardized and something needs to be done to repair the situation. Luckily, finding a professional to step in is not a tough thing to accomplish.
First, ensure that your caregiver actually is a professional. There are many caregivers out there that are doing it for a few easy bucks. If you find yourself in this situation, remember that high quality caregiving is not easy at all, and that this creates a dilemma. If the caregiver is looking for easy money, then they cannot, by definition, provide high quality care. These people need to be weeded out before you consider them seriously. One of the most surefire ways to do this is by going with a service over an individual. The end result might look the same with in-home care: a person comes to the home, helps out for the day, and then leaves. But the behind the scenes stuff is vastly different. With a professional service, the caregiver is hired based upon credentials, training, background checks, and so on. Next, before they ever step in your home, they are insured, bonded, and trained even more. These things are almost always ensured by a professional service, and they are things that you need to have in mind when looking for a caregiver for your elderly loved one. These people are guaranteed to be professionals.
You cannot get this same peace of mind with an individual. They might be trained, they might not be. They might have experience, they might not. They probably are not insured or bonded for your protection. Also, there’s no way to know what their history is like unless you perform a background check yourself–and this will be quite costly for you. In short, you might get a great caregiver when you hire an individual to help your mom or dad but there’s no way to be sure about this. You are rolling dice, hoping to hit a pair of ones. There’s no way you can know, though. You might get lucky, but you probably won’t.
In the United States, the typical family caregiver is a 49 year old woman caring for a loved one. This is a woman at the height of her professional career; she has accomplished a lot and has a long way to go. And to take on the fulltime responsibilities of caring for a loved one for a long time will inevitably create conflict. One or both of these areas of her life will suffer. By getting a professional caregiver to help, this conflict can be avoided.
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