Read about common challenges faced by the children of elderly parents who care for them at home, and most importantly, solutions to help balance those challenges.
Day to day life for most people these days is incredibly busy, which means allowing time to help care for elderly parents very tricky and near impossible at times. Despite this, 1 in 10 people (around 7 million) in the UK are family caregivers.
From Short-Term To Long-Term
Often, caregiving begins as a short-term solution following an accident or medical emergency. Perhaps your parent suffered a stroke or a fall and they required support afterwards. Long-term care can come from short-term care as it becomes apparent that your parent isn’t able to cope sufficiently on their own. The realisation that this is your present and foreseeable future can be extremely difficult to deal with, and very hard to adjust to.
Living With Your Elderly Parents Still Has Its Challenges
Many people who do care for elderly parents manage to continue to work or look after the rest of the family at the same time, but often after an adjustment in living arrangements.
Often, the elderly suffer from loneliness, isolation, mobility problems and no longer being able to drive. Early dementia may also be an issue, especially when it comes to the safety of the person with the disease. For all of those reasons and more, caregivers may choose to live in the home of their parent, or have their parent live at home with them. Despite the convenience of being able to care for your parents in your home, there are still many challenges that come with caregiving, some that may even relate to sharing a home with them. Some of the most common challenges faced by those providing care to their elderly parents are:
- Balancing family life and caring for your loved one
- Physical demands of caring
- Dealing with angry, frustrated or sad emotions from your loved one
- Dealing with the emotional side of caregiving, which is a challenge in itself
- Feeling lonely
- Feeling as though you don’t deserve care yourself
- Balancing a job and caregiving
- Struggling with the role reversal between yourself and a parent
The challenges for each individual are much more complex and comprehensive than the list above, and we have just touched on the surface of what family caregiving can involve.
Coping With The Challenges Of Caring For Elderly Parents
To ensure you are able to provide the best care to your parents you first need to ensure that you are caring for yourself. Neglecting your own needs will lead to caregiver burnout, which is where you have worked so hard, and become so run down you simply burn out. You do deserve to care for yourself and you do have your own worth, as easy as it is to forget that as a caregiver. Can you perhaps go for a coffee one afternoon whilst a relative takes over your care role? Could you start doing a new online exercise class? Could you eat a more balanced diet? There are lots of daily changes you can make to your life to feel stronger and more able to cope with your role. Even then, it is possible you might need some extra help.
There is nothing wrong with admitting that, and it is so important to take action if you do feel you could do with some support.
Usually the most common way for family caregivers to get support is to enlist the help of a respite carer, or live-in carer. Respite care is very helpful for family carers – a professional carer comes to your home for an afternoon, day, weekend, week or longer regularly or as a one-off to give you a rest from your duties. Live-in care is where a carer lives with you and provides care to their client. Both options avoid the need for care homes. Both options can be an excellent way to get more balance in your life as a caregiver, ensuring the wellbeing of your elderly parent, and you.
To find out more information about respite care and live-in care which can help you to avoid looking into care homes, take a look at The Live-in Care Hub, and consider speaking to your GP about getting some help arranged and how to start that process.
