Emotional Side Of Caregiving

If you've been a caregiver for a long time, you know just how hard it can be. Perhaps, at first, you were more than willing to take on the job because you knew what it meant to your loved one. Maybe you managed the first few weeks or months or even years with ease, running from work to errands to your loved ones - and back again. You played phone tag with doctors, scheduled treatments, and even played chauffeur. The lack of free time you had to yourself maybe didn't seem like such a big deal in comparison to the good you were doing. But over time, the pressures of caregiving can weigh anyone down. This book is not a self-help book. It's a let-others-help-you book, in which caregivers share their distressing, sometimes overwhelming feelings - and their hard-won self-care skills and wisdom. It's a support group between covers, designed to help readers with the hardest part of the process: dealing with their own emotions. Each chapter takes up one of the emotions that hits a caregiver as the reality of their partner's condition sinks in anger, fear, sorrow, acceptance, renewal, joy.

If you've been a caregiver for a long time, you know just how hard it can be. Perhaps, at first, you were more than willing to take on the job because you knew what it meant to your loved one. Maybe you managed the first few weeks or months or even years with ease, running from work to errands to your loved ones - and back again. You played phone tag with doctors, scheduled treatments, and even played chauffeur. The lack of free time you had to yourself maybe didn't seem like such a big deal in comparison to the good you were doing. But over time, the pressures of caregiving can weigh anyone down. This book is not a self-help book. It's a let-others-help-you book, in which caregivers share their distressing, sometimes overwhelming feelings - and their hard-won self-care skills and wisdom. It's a support group between covers, designed to help readers with the hardest part of the process: dealing with their own emotions. Each chapter takes up one of the emotions that hits a caregiver as the reality of their partner's condition sinks in anger, fear, sorrow, acceptance, renewal, joy.

Family caregiving affects millions of Americans every day, in all walks of life. At least 17.7 million individuals in the United States are caregivers of an older adult with a health or functional limitation. The nation's family caregivers provide the lion's share of long-term care for our older adult population. They are also central to older adults' access to and receipt of health care and community-based social services. Yet the need to recognize and support caregivers is among the least appreciated challenges facing the aging U.S. population. Families Caring for an Aging America examines the prevalence and nature of family caregiving of older adults and the available evidence on the effectiveness of programs, supports, and other interventions designed to support family caregivers. This report also assesses and recommends policies to address the needs of family caregivers and to minimize the barriers that they encounter in trying to meet the needs of older adults.

Caring for a parent whose health is in decline turns the world upside down. The emotional fallout can be devastating, but it doesn't have to be that way. Empathic guidance from an expert who's been there can help. Through an account of two sisters and their ailing mother--interwoven with no-nonsense advice--The Emotional Survival Guide for Caregivers helps family members navigate tough decisions and make the most of their time together as they care for an aging parent. The author urges readers to be honest about the level of commitment they're able to make and emphasizes the need for clear communication within the family. While acknowledging their guilt, stress, and fatigue, he helps caregivers reaffirm emotional connections worn thin by the routine of daily care. This compassionate book will help families everywhere avoid burnout and preserve bonds during one of life's most difficult passages.

A practical discussion of the emotional challenges of caring for an aged or chronically ill loved one. Combines expert narrative with personal vignettes of four caregivers. Helps readers deal with the reality of tragedy, understand the dramatic changes in life expectations, and accept the validity of their emotional responses. Chapters cover what it means to be a caregiver, physical and cognitive changes in the patient, the impact on one's beliefs and life expectations, developing healthy coping strategies. Appendices offer detailed descriptions of stroke, head injury, tumors, Parkinson's and more.

"Nurses play a vital role in improving the safety and quality of patient car -- not only in the hospital or ambulatory treatment facility, but also of community-based care and the care performed by family members. Nurses need know what proven techniques and interventions they can use to enhance patient outcomes. To address this need, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), with additional funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has prepared this comprehensive, 1,400-page, handbook for nurses on patient safety and quality -- Patient Safety and Quality: An Evidence-Based Handbook for Nurses. (AHRQ Publication No. 08-0043)." - online AHRQ blurb, http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/nurseshdbk/

The target audience is women between the ages of 42 and 65. They represent the majority of unpaid care givers for loved ones with dementia. Dementia Home Care: How to Prepare Before, During and After will examine taking on the role of care giver and help them make informed decisions about in-home care giving. It will give examples of how to create a safe living space, how to use distraction techniques, and suggest available resources for the care giver. It will emphasize the role of care giver respite and participating in dementia community support to relieve the daily stress of dementia care. Home care giver, Tracy Cram Perkins, will use anecdotes drawn from twelve years of experience. Demetia Home Care will cover aggressive behavior, coping strategies, memory aids, communication aids, and support services. There is a space at the end of each chapter for the reader to record special or humorous moments with their loved ones. And it will address the empty nester experience after the loss of a loved one—to a nursing facility or to death—rarely covered in other books of this genre. This life-lesson of care giving is not meant to destroy us but meant to remind us to take care of ourselves, forgive ourselves, accept ourselves. To know other people trudge up this same hill with us every day. To pay forward kindness in some measure. To know laughter has not abandoned us. At the end, to know some measure of joy. -- Tracy Cram Perkins

Are women naturally better caregivers than men? Can paid care in an institutuion be good care? Can voluntary community care replace government welfare? Is the caring family disappearing? What role should government play in supporting or regulating families? Is day care for children as good as home care? Using engaging case studies and research findings, this lively new book from the Gender Lens Series explores these and other questions and controversies, challenging the notion that caregiving is a "natural" pattern and demonstrating how it is thoroughly social. Written in an inviting and readable style, the authors address complex issues about caring, making them accessible to undergraduate students and lay people. The book shows those who will enter diverse caregiving professions how to see their particular occupation as influenced by the larger society and broader social relations of caring. It also shows how beliefs about gender and family shape caregiving, and how caregiving affects gender inequality.