Offering care to an elderly loved one is a year-round gift. Your love for your aging parent is one that keeps you constantly concerned about their well-being. That doesn’t mean, of course, that providing care to older adults is easy. In fact, the opposite is true. For many Canadians, caregiving is a round-the-clock chore. It requires a great deal of effort and patience.
Let’s take a look at some ways of becoming the best caregiver you can be.
Don’t bite off more than you can chew.
A very important facet of being a good caregiver is caring for yourself. If you become overwhelmed with the responsibility of caring for your aging parent, you’ll provide less-than-stellar care. This can be detrimental to the overall well-being of your elderly loved one. Be sure to enlist some help when needed. If you don’t have another family member available to care for the older adult in your life, don’t hesitate to reach out to a friend. If necessary, consult professional help.
“When you’re overwhelmed with a long list of caregiving To Dos, you’re so focused on the tasks that you’re not seeing the overall picture,” states DailyCaring.com, “Creating a list of daily, weekly, and monthly care tasks helps you understand how much help is needed during the day, at night, and on weekends. You’ll realize how much supervision is needed and at which times of day.”
Keep your elderly loved one active in the community.
COVID-19 has presented more than its fair share of problems. Forcing people to stay isolated is just one of them. Surely, this hasn’t helped your elderly loved one to be very socially active over the past year and a half. However, it’s important to keep older adults engaged with other people their age. Naturally, modern technology can help with this. Find ways to get your aging parent to communicate with others via such video conference tools as Zoom and Skype. It will help with both his/her cognitive function and overall happiness.
“Create opportunities for your loved one to play an active role in your family and in your community,” encourages William A. Haseltine on Forbes.com, “Isolation can be a major cause of emotional distress for older people.”
Be encouraging.
Make no mistake about it. Your expressions of love are every bit as important as the physical help you provide your elderly loved one. Never let it be lost on you that your care recipient is likely enduring some emotional battles. Offering words of consideration and encouragement will go a long in way in making the days of your aging parent brighter.
“Think of things that may have helped you through difficult situations in the past and share them,” suggests HealthInAging.com, “This may be something as simple as sharing a favorite quote from a book that helped you put things in perspective or gave you hope in difficult times. Such words of encouragement can help the person you’re caring for cope with their own challenges in treatment.”
At LifeCare Mobility Solutions, we’d like to offer you as much help as we can give you in caring for your elderly loved one. If you have any questions about our mobility solutions and home healthcare products, please don’t hesitate to call us at 416-267-9800 or email us at info@lifecaremobility.ca. You may also contact us by filling out the form on our Contact page!
