Posts Tagged ‘Care Tips’
Common Sense Caregiving by Gary Joseph LeBlanc: A must read for anyone caring for a loved one with Alzheimer’s
A columnist and book dealer from Spring Hill Florida Gary Joseph LeBlanc offers a personal and down to earth account of his experience caring for his father who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. This common sense account of is a must read for anyone caring for a loved one with Alzheimer’s disease. Written as a completion of sixty-five articles from his column, LeBlanc gives an encouraging and enlightening guide for anyone navigating the turbulent waters of caring for a loved one with Alzheimer’s disease.
Caring and Traveling with an Elderly Parent
Dr. Alexander Fiuza's Family
By Alexander Fiuza, PhD
For many of us summer vacation means traveling with spouses and children, but for some of us it means traveling with our elderly parents. That’s what this year’s vacation was all about for me.
My father, Serafin Fiuza, now eighty-one years of age, dreamed about the day that he could return to his native Orense, in Galicia Spain. On many occasions he mentioned to me his desire to see his homeland one more time. Thoughts of his childhood, family life and friends left behind during the European Civil Wars brought back feelings of nostalgia. And, he faced his own immortality with the loss of his own family members over the years, leaving him to be the only family member living in the United States. This only fueled his desire to return at least one more time to visit his only living relative, Ramona Fiuza, his younger sister.
The siblings were separated at a young age and put onto ships that were destined to arrive to Cuba in hopes for a better life. My grandfather and his eleven brothers and sisters set sail in December of 1931 destined for this new life. Together with his wife and two of their four children, one of which was my father, they arrived in Havana, Cuba. His two other siblings went aboard another ship which arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina. These two siblings, Generoso Fiuza and Dolores Fiuza, would not see my father and his other siblings until the early 1970’s, when they all came to gather in Miami, Florida for a family reunion. I still remember the emotions displayed and shared by all of our family members. Although I was young at the time, I still get emotional over the memories.
Mindful Caregiving Thought Tools for Resilience (Part 5)
Setting Life-Serving Limits & Boundaries
By Holly Whittelsey Whiteside
This series of articles teaches ways to strengthen your resilience.
Article #1, Utilizing Your Emotions introduced tools for managing self-talk and learning from anger.
Article #2, Conserve Your Energy, offered tools for recouping energy.
Article #3, Building Well-being helped you to scale down your activities and take care of yourself.
Article #4, Survival: Managing Your Emotions helped you fine-tuning your emotional accessibility and adjusting your shifting caregiving role
This article, Setting Life-Serving Limits & Boundaries concludes the series of articles that teach ways to strengthen resilience as a caregiver.
Setting Life-Serving Limits & Boundaries
(Harmony) is when…”Yes” is tempered by a gentle “No,” and “No” is expanded with measured compassion. – Mrs. Chana Rachel Schusterman
While times for silence in caregiving are often a rare gift, opportunities for speaking out abound, offering you practice in setting boundaries. As your loved one ages, your role can shift before your eyes. Within a given day, you may function as child, nurse, entertainment committee, adult friend, healthcare advocate, and sibling, each role requiring a somewhat different voice. Notice that most of these roles are in response to others. (How easily we forget ourselves!)
While dancing with your various and mutable roles, you can remain effective by staying centered in yourself. To stay centered in yourself during caregiving, develop the habit of protecting and asserting your own boundaries. Notice where your responsibility stops and another’s begins. Notice what is yours to do, and what could or should be done by others. Notice what you need in order to be effective. If what you need must come from someone else but is not forthcoming, ask for it. Setting your bounds and limits in your relationships and in your life is an art of balancing controlling with allowing. Here are some guidelines for promoting healthy limits and boundaries:
Mindful Caregiving Thought Tools for Resilience (Part 4)
Survival: Managing Your Emotions for Greater Effectiveness
By Holly Whittelsey Whiteside
Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind. – Bruce Lee
This series of articles teaches ways to strengthen your resilience.
Article #1, Utilizing Your Emotions, introduced tools for managing self-talk and learning from anger.
Article #2, Conserve Your Energy, offered tools for recouping energy.
Article #3, Building Well-being helped you to scale down your activities and take care of yourself.
This article, Survival: Managing Your Emotions for Greater Effectiveness will discuss fine-tuning your emotional accessibility and adjusting your shifting caregiving role.
In the next article you will learn how to build a support team and how to ask for help.
Survival Managing Your Emotions for Greater Effectiveness
To increase your effectiveness, make your emotions subordinate to your commitments – Brian Koslow
Few of us have struck the perfect balance between empathy and self-preservation. Resistance to the thought of caregiving is common, and can come from feeling too much – too much love, or too much fear.
It is possible to be so entangled in love for a person that the thought of watching her/his decline feels impossible. Or if your loved one historically has been an unsafe person for you, abusive either emotionally or physically, you are likely to feel an aversion to getting that close. Too much caring can swamp you making you ineffective. Too great an aversion will limit your caregiving to merely basic maintenance. Or perhaps you feel pulled in two by simultaneous love and aversion. In any case, if you can approach caregiving as a learning opportunity it can provide a precious opportunity for greater health, relatedness, and personal completion.
Discussing End of Life Care (Part 1)
Erin had been caring for her aging mother for the past four years as her body slowly succumbed to cancer. She had read every book and article she could find to teach her what to do throughout the various stages of care. As she stood face to face with an intensive care unit doctor, who wanted to know at what point they switch from attempts to prolong her mother’s life to giving her only palliative care to make her comfortable as she neared her final days, she became unsure of what to do. Over the past months, the exhaustion from battling the illness had gotten extreme; her mother was only awake for about an hour a day – and barely cognizant of her surroundings for that hour. Erin could not remember the last time she had gotten out of bed. Erin was faced with a tough decision… “If only I had talked to my mother about what she would have wanted,” Erin thought, recalling so many times over the past years where they had pretended that an end would never come. Instead of trying to enjoy every moment left in her mother’s life, she is spending it instead worrying whether her decision is really the one that her mother would be comfortable with.
Although Erin’s story is fictional, it is a reality for many caregivers – a situation that could be avoided with one conversation. While discussing end of life care may sound like a daunting encounter, it does not always need to be.
Before having the conversation, it helps to become familiar with what the different options are, and what is legally recognized in each state. This way, the adult child can be more confident in the information they are bringing to their parents, which will help comfort them and allow there to be fewer “what if’s” that may prevent the parents from opting to make a decision.
Mindful Caregiving Thought Tools for Resilience (Part 3)
Building Well-being
By Holly Whittelsey Whiteside
Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind. – Bruce Lee
This series of articles will teach you ways to strengthen your resilience by building an internal toolkit that will last you for the rest of your life.
Article #1, Utilizing Your Emotions, introduced tools for managing self-talk and learning from anger.
Article #2, Conserve Your Energy, offered tools for recouping energy.
This article, Building Well-being will guide you in scaling down your activities and taking care of yourself.
Future articles will include:
- Design Survival Strategies (Managing Obstacles, Developing Boundaries, and Knowing Thyself)
- Build A Support Team (Utilizing Family & Community, and How to Ask for Help)
Building Well-being
Once in a while you have to take a break and visit yourself. – Audrey Giorgi
Life was complicated enough before caregiving. Your usual engagements with work, family and friends continue, now compounded by a complex host of new and sometimes disturbing issues. Your life may or may not be close to the edge, but one thing is for sure – it will not magically simplify, and it could easily get more complex. So why not get it under control now? To do that, you are likely to need greater clarity about what is working for you, and what isn’t.
This article contains a simple exercise to help you see some new choices you can make about your activities. It will explore as a necessity, and will recommend ways to have healthy boundaries that will serve you now and in the future. Let’s start by making a little more time in your calendar.
Read more
Mindful Caregiving Thought Tools for Resilience (Part 2)
Conserve Your Energy
By Holly Whittelsey Whiteside
Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind. – Bruce Lee
This series of articles will teach you ways to strengthen your resilience by building an internal toolkit that will last you for the rest of your life.
Article #1, Utilizing Your Emotions, introduced tools for managing self-talk and learning from anger. This article, Conserve Your Energy, offers approaches for gaining control over troubling issues.
Future articles will include:
- Build Well-being (Clearing Your Calendar, Practicing Self-care, & Adjusting Boundaries)
- Design Survival Strategies (Managing Obstacles, Knowing Thyself)
- Build A Support Team (Utilizing Family & Community, and How to Ask for Help)
Conserve Your Energy: Fine-tuning Your Commitments, and Choosing Your Battles
What you resist persists – Carl Jung
All struggles have one thing in common — they arise from some form of resistance. When our lives (or people) don’t measure up, we find ourselves in an emotional traffic jam somewhere between frustration and anger. It pays to look a bit closer at what is really happening.
In ordinary times, society encourages us to be on-guard, defend our rights, and complain about the state of things. When there are no outer battles to wage, we wage inner ones. But caregiving is no ordinary time. Energy conservation takes on a whole new meaning. When you know the source of your discontent, you can take care in the way that you address it. Feelings of being bound up, or are about to do battle, can arise from a host of causes which can include false assumptions, unexamined expectations, conflicting commitments, and childhood triggers. Understanding the root cause will allow you to address upsets appropriately and effectively.
Fine-tuning Your Commitments
Commitments source your energy and drive your life. They’re personal. A commitment is a driving principle, something you are unwilling to compromise that is fueled by a deeply held value. Behind every one of your upsets is a strong commitment to something. For instance, if you are upset with a doctor, it may be out of a commitment to your loved one’s safety, or a commitment to feeling supported by the medical community. Acting blindly on unarticulated commitments makes you far less effective. Identifying your root commitment in a situation lets you align the way you speak so as to achieve your desired result. But what about when you’re incapable of action?
Mindful Caregiving Thought Tools for Resilience (Part 1)
By Holly Whittelsey Whiteside
Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind. – Bruce Lee
This series of articles will teach you ways to strengthen your resilience by building an internal toolkit that will last you for the rest of your life. Article #1, on building emotional resilience, introduces the powerful tools of managing self-talk and learning from anger.
Future articles will include:
Balancing Your Life (Picking Battles, Fine-tuning Relationships & Commitments)
Vitalizing Your Self-connection (Building Well-being & Boundaries)
Designing Survival Strategies (Managing Obstacles, Knowing Thyself)
Building A Support Team (Family, Community, How to ask for help)
Utilizing Your Emotions: Managing Self-talk and Learning From Anger
The voyage of discovery lies not in finding new landscapes but in having new eyes – Marcel Proust
Saying “Yes” to caregiving feels risky, as it contains many unanswerable questions. Acceptance of unknowns is perhaps the first lesson in caregiving.
You are visiting your parents, as you have done many times before, but this time things seems a little different. You can’t quite put your finger on it at first. Maybe things are less tidy than usual, maybe not. Then it happens. Hamburgers are planned for dinner. While casually looking through the icebox for snacks, you see that the hamburger is 2 weeks past its expiration date. It hits you. Your normally meticulous parents are becoming old. Later that night, you think of other signs of decline. It is clear your parents are going to need help, increasingly as time goes on. Your relationship with them has shifted irreversibly, in an instant.
As caregivers, we are characters in a complex play we cannot fully understand and certainly cannot control. Caregiving can feel like concentrated life–life, but with the emotional volume turned up. Even more than in ordinary times we sometimes feel victim to our emotions. Here are a couple of alternatives.