Caring for a loved one with Alzheimers often leads to such symptoms as denial, anger, social withdrawal, anxiety, depression, sleeplessness, and irritability.  It can be an all-consuming 24-hour-a-day, seven-day a week grind.

What can you do?  At Expert Home Care, we suggest the following:

• Manage your stress level. Use various relaxation techniques to ease the stress and consult your doctor.

• Take care of yourself. Don’t ignore your own health, or you’ll suffer burn out.   Watch your diet, exercise and get plenty of sleep.

• Join a support group. There are many others out there like you and there is support in numbers.

• Do legal and financial planning. There are issues that need to be discussed – make sure you take care of these sooner rather than later.

• Give yourself a break. Bring in a home health aide to assist with the activities of daily living (bathing, dressing, toileting and feeding) or to help around the house.  This can help you recharge your batteries several hours during the day or, by choosing respite care, for a long weekend.

• Don’t be a martyr. You are not expected to do it all alone.  Seek the support of family, friends and community resources.

New Jersey’s Expert Home Care for Elders and Seniors has been providing senior care, home care & live-in care for your aging loved ones since 1984. Please call us when you need help at 800-848-2336. Click for a Free Home Care Consumer Guide for selecting the most appropriate home care agency for your loved one.

Posted By: Frank

Continuing our post from August 22.. Sibling Conflict in Elder Care

Resolving these conflicts can be challenging. But ignoring the difficulties in a caregiving situation can create greater challenges. Ultimately, strained family relationships can impede a family’s capacity to provide the greatest quality of care to a parent. How can families come together in caregiving?

Here are some suggestions:

• Express your feelings honestly and directly. Let your siblings know their help is both wanted and needed.
  Keep family members informed regarding a parent’s condition.
• Be realistic in your expectations. Allow siblings to help in ways they are able and divide tasks according to individual abilities, current life pressures and personal freedoms. Assistance with errands, finances, legal work or other indirect care may be the best option for some family members.
• Express appreciation to your family for help they are able to provide.
• Accept siblings for who they are and expect differences of opinion.
• Try to respect other’s perceptions and find opportunities to compromise.
• If communication is particularly contentious, arrange a family meeting that includes an outside facilitator, such as your FCA Family Consultant, social worker, counselor, religious leader or friend. A trusted outside party can ensure that everyone’s voice is heard.
• If siblings are unable to help with care, seek other assistance to provide a respite for yourself.
• Call your local Caregiver Resource Center, Area Agency on Aging, Senior Center or other community resource to locate help.
• Try to forgive family members who continue to refuse to get involved in a loved one’s care. The only thing we have control over in a situation is our reaction. Attempt to work through your negative emotions to take care of yourself and move forward.

http://www.caregiver.org/caregiver/jsp/content_node.jsp?nodeid=868

Caring for aging parents or ill relatives brings out the good and the bad in sibling and family relationships. Caregiving can be a time for siblings to come together and provide support for each other or it can be a time for stressful transition, causing strained connections and painful conflict.

A source of friction between adult children carries the existing legacy of family dynamics. Demands of caregiving bring up old patterns, unresolved issues, and tensions. Old family wounds are reopened and rivalries reemerge. Siblings can find themselves replaying their historical roles in the family, recreating old dynamics of competition and resentment as they vie for mom’s and/or dad’s attention and affection.

Other things arise such as denial over a parent’s condition. Siblings who are unable to accept the reality of a parent’s illness and refuse involvement may be protecting themselves from facing a parent’s eventual death and their own loss. This causes the active family caregivers to react with resentment, bitterness, and anger.

What is seen in families is that discord surfaces from the unequal division of caregiving duties. Usually, it is one adult child or sibling that carries the primary role of caregiving for mom or dad. This may be because he or she lives closest to a parent, is perceived as having less work or fewer family obligations, or is considered the “favorite” child. When this situation occurs, it can lead the overburdened primary caregiver feel frustrated and resentful and other siblings to feel uninformed and left out.

Go to http://www.caregiver.org/caregiver/jsp/content_node.jsp?nodeid=868

For help when caring for an aging relative at home go to Expert Home Care and call 800-848-2336.