A Guide To Prioritizing Your Own Well-Being While Supporting Aging Parents
Supporting aging parents is an incredible responsibility that most of us will face at some point in time. Aging parent care is a role reversal where children often become responsible for their parent’s well-being. This can include assistance in maintaining their physical and mental health, financial responsibilities, and emotional challenges. It is difficult enough to have a front-row seat to a loved one’s decline, but navigating a complicated healthcare system and logistical challenges on top of that can be overwhelming. Struggling to find time while supporting aging parents and maintaining personal obligations such as children, work, personal commitments, and your own well-being often adds to that stress. Despite the challenges that come with supporting aging parents, aging parent care can be an incredibly rewarding experience. The best gift for aging parents is love, commitment, and time spent together. Embracing the role of your parent’s senior caregiver with compassion and empathy will profoundly enhance their golden years. In this blog, we’ll cover various aspects of what it takes to support aging parents including advice, resources, and where you can find support.
Understanding The Aging Process
As an unwelcome part of the aging process, seniors often battle with physical, mental, and emotional challenges that affect their overall well-being. Any combination of chronic health conditions, weakened immune systems, neurological impairments, sensory impairments, mobility challenges, and mental health disorders can all have a profound impact on your parent’s quality of life. Accessing healthcare services may not be an easy feat for them to accomplish on their own, especially with ever-changing technological hurdles. Understanding your parents’ individual health needs and advocating for healthcare that addresses those needs is a crucial aspect of supporting aging parents.
Identifying Your Parent’s Needs
Regular physical health assessments are fundamental to identifying your parent’s individual needs. Monitoring their overall health, noting any new symptoms, and treating any chronic conditions are key to ensuring adequate physical care. Additionally, assessing your loved one’s cognitive function and mental health is crucial to their overall well-being. Make sure to observe any changes to memory, mood swings, behavioral symptoms, or the ability to reason and communicate them to your parent’s healthcare provider. These changes would indicate an onset of dementia, depression, or other cognitive or mental health disorders. By better understanding your parent’s needs, you foster the ability to develop an individualized care plan that addresses their physical, cognitive, and emotional well-being.
Developing A Personalized Care Plan
Tailoring your caregiving approach to suit your parent’s preferences and circumstances ensures that their needs are met effectively and with compassion. Compiling medical records, and understanding medications or treatment plans is a good starting point. It is also important to communicate with your parents about their values, preferences, and goals for their care. Identify areas of concern with your parent’s health or care needs and prioritize any related tasks based on urgency. Focus on attainable care plan goals while maintaining flexibility, keeping their abilities, limitations, and preferences into account.
Providing Daily Care
Daily care will be a key part of your parent’s personalized care plan. For many seniors, daily care can largely consist of the following areas:
- Assistance with daily activities: Daily activities related to grooming, toileting, and dressing may require assistance. Encouraging independence while offering support is key.
- Medication management: Organizing medications, helping your parents stay on track with their medication schedule, and ensuring that refills are made on time are crucial to their health and well-being.
- Dietary support: Ensuring proper nutrition goes a long way in maintaining health. Some senior caregivers take on the responsibility of shopping for and cooking meals while others opt for a senior meal service or arrange for other food delivery services
- Mobility assistance: Encouraging regular exercise to build or maintain muscle mass will greatly reduce the risk of falls for seniors who are physically capable. Mobility aids such as walkers, rollators, canes, or similar should be encouraged when necessary to reduce fall risks. Additionally, installing handrails and other household safety features as needed will help to keep your parents safe from hazards.
- Hygiene and personal care: While maintaining respect for their privacy and dignity, offering assistance with grooming tasks such as skin, hair, and oral care may be necessary. However, it is important for capable seniors to maintain a sense of autonomy and independence whenever possible.
- Continence care: Only use supportive and judgment free language when speaking with your parents about their continence needs such as changing diapers and pads or assistance with toileting.
- Companionship: Providing companionship and emotional support may be the biggest help of all when supporting aging parents. Make your empathy known, keeping an open door for conversation and offer reassurance and validation in response.
Where To Find Support
These insights and tips are intended to empower senior caregivers to navigate the challenges of supporting aging parents with confidence, empathy, and resilience; but sometimes additional support is needed. Resources are likely available nearby or in your community. Local agencies may include senior centers, faith based organizations, and Area Agencies on Aging are great places to reach out to when support is needed. While these resources may help to arrange transportation, find referrals to reputable caregivers, set up meal delivery services, and more; sometimes support is needed for the caregiver themselves. Caregiving, while rewarding, can be exhausting and result in caregiver burnout. Respite care is available for temporary, irregular, or short term assistance.
What Is Respite Care?
Respite care is an arrangement to alleviate the primary caregiver of their role so that the caregiver (you) can get some much needed rest or catch up on obligations outside of senior care. Respite care also provides an opportunity for you parent(s) to socialize outside of their normal circle. Many respite caregivers can assist with daily activities, companionship, medication management, and light housekeeping tasks.
How We Can Help
Whether your loved one needs in-home senior care or a companion while in hospital or facility care, our caregivers would be happy to step into your shoes while you catch a needed break. Some of the things that we can assist with while providing respite care include medication reminders, safety monitoring, transfers, household services, transportation, personal care, range of motion exercises, and so much more. Whatever level of care your senior loved one needs, we are happy to provide. If you are looking for an in-home senior care provider in the Bay Area, contact Serving Seniors Care today. Our experienced caregivers can facilitate a life of dignity and comfort for your loved one – and peace of mind for the whole family. At Serving Senior Care, we take pride in providing the best senior care for your loved ones. Check out our client testimonials, where our patients and their families express their experiences and satisfaction with our senior care services in the Bay Area. You can also find additional reviews on Yelp.
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