Month: August 2017

How Caregivers Can Communicate with Doctors and Nurses on Behalf of Seniors

Posted on by Martin

Being a caregiver has many benefits and drawbacks. While caregiving can be a wonderfully rewarding and inspirational career, it’s also a very challenging job, and many caregivers find themselves frustrated with the difficulties of their positions. Of all of these challenges, though, few are more agonizing than the task of trying to figure out how best to communicate with doctors and nurses on behalf of a senior.

For older adults, communicating effectively with care staff is often a difficult task. Thanks to cognitive decline or a simple unwillingness to speak up, seniors often don’t effectively express their needs to doctors and nurses, and the responsibility to ensure the senior’s medical wellbeing falls to caregivers.

While this can be a stressful experience for both parties, it doesn’t have to feel like a burden. Here are several tips for caregivers who want to learn how to communicate more efficiently with a senior’s care staff:

Communicating On Behalf of a Senior 101: 7 Tips to a More Open Dialogue

1. Develop a relationship with the senior’s doctors

Unless you have an ongoing relationship with a senior’s care professionals, communicating with them effectively can be a challenging task. Because of this, it’s essential to dedicate some time and energy to developing relationships with a senior’s doctors and nurses. The best way to do this is to attend as many appointments as possible with the senior you care for.

In addition to allowing you to get a feel for each doctor or nurse’s care style, this will also enable you to spot certain dynamics or difficulties and prepare yourself for how best to deal with the professional and his or her unique style of care and communication.

This is especially critical for caregivers working with seniors who see multiple doctors on a regular basis. Because each of these doctors’ care styles and treatment approaches may differ, it’s smart for caregivers to understand, as fully as possible, what makes each doctor tick and how best to communicate with each team to ensure the long-term care and well-being of the senior.

2. Gain inclusion in the HIPPA contract

HIPAA (The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) dictates that doctors, nurses, and other care professionals are not allowed to discuss a client’s personal medical information with anyone else unless the person is incapacitated and over the age of 18. While HIPAA rules are in place to protect patients, they can make it difficult for caregivers to access relevant health information about the elderly people they care for.

Because of this, it’s essential that caregivers gain inclusion in the HIPAA contract before it becomes time to speak with medical professionals on behalf of a senior. This enables caregivers to help seniors make medical decisions and to protect the senior’s overall health and wellbeing better. It also ensures that the caregiver will have all of the information needed should a major medical decision present itself.

3. Ask plenty of questions

Helping seniors understand and respond to medical conditions and care options can be difficult, and things like diagnoses and medical-speak are often far from easy to interpret. Because of this, it’s essential for caregivers to ask plenty of questions to fully understand a senior’s condition and what, if anything, can be done in some cases. This empowers the caregiver with relevant information and is an efficient way for caregivers to safeguard better the health and well-being of the seniors they care for.

While many caregivers shy away from asking questions because they believe they’ll be perceived as stupid or incapable, it’s important to ask for clarification any time you don’t understand something. Knowledge is power, and clarifying confusing explanations and asking for more information allows seniors and their caregivers to work together as a unified team.

4. Avoid assuming the worst

Among caregivers, specifically family caregivers, there’s often an assumption that a senior’s medical staff doesn’t want to help the caregiver provide care. Unfortunately, this makes it impossible to communicate efficiently and can have a drastic negative impact on the senior’s overall care and wellbeing. Instead of being combative with doctors or nurses, caregivers will do well to view them as skilled allies who actually want to help resolve problems and provide the best possible care for a loved-one.

When caregivers take the time to develop this type of relationship with doctors and nurses, caregivers and medical staff can work together to provide outstanding care for seniors without excess frustration and missed opportunities for communication.

5. Write down your questions

Many caregivers think of questions when they’re not in a doctor’s office. By the time they make it to the next appointment, though, they’ve forgotten their questions. This makes it easy to bypass critical inquiries and neglect essential queries that can help safeguard a senior’s health and well-being. Because of this, it’s essential for caregivers to write down their questions and bring them to the doctor’s office at every appointment. This ensures critical questions are being asked and prevents caregivers and seniors from suffering the fallout of forgotten information. 

6. Make additional appointments for additional concerns

Doctors and nurses are busy people, and they may not have time during a meeting to discuss, at length, all of your questions and concerns. While many caregivers take this as a sign that the doctor doesn’t care, this is seldom the case. To avoid frustration and ensure all questions are answered as thoroughly as possible, don’t hesitate to make an additional appointment. This can help facilitate more functional communication and avoid frustrations born from misunderstandings.

7. Encourage the senior to speak on his or her behalf

While caregivers must learn to communicate effectively on a senior’s behalf, it’s also important to encourage a senior to speak up wherever possible. Often, the message is a bit louder when it comes from the senior’s mouth, and doctors may well understand things better from seniors than they do from caregivers.

In some situations, it’s essential for caregivers to learn how to communicate with their seniors or on behalf of them. While this can be a confusing dynamic to learn, understanding different communication necessities and timeframes is critical for good ongoing communication.

Excellent Communication Starts Here

While learning to communicate on behalf of seniors can be difficult, it’s a critical skill for family caregivers and hired caregivers alike. By developing relationships with doctors and nurses, bringing lists of questions to every appointment, scheduling additional appointments for questions and concerns that will take more time, encouraging seniors to speak for themselves when and where appropriate, becoming included in a HIPAA contract, and holding off on assuming the worst, seniors and their caregivers can develop effective communication strategies that help ensure a good relationship with doctors and nurses and the best possible care. 

How Caregivers Can Learn to Provide Better Care for Older Patients

Posted on by Martin

For caregivers, learning to provide care for patients is an ongoing process. Even after dozens of hours of training, caregiving is a fluid process, within which things are always changing and adapting. Different clients require different care, mental and emotional upset can rise and fall quickly, and confounding factors like dementia and cognitive decline can make it difficult to connect effectively with patients.

As such, caregivers are always learning to provide better care for their older patients. It’s an ongoing process and, when caregivers dedicate themselves to it fully, it can overhaul the way they view their jobs and connect to their clients.

10 Ways Caregivers Can Learn to Provide Better Care

Providing better care is a process, and it requires learning new steps. Here are a few tips for caregivers who want to learn to provide better care:

1. Keep Yourself Healthy

The healthier and fitter you are, the better able you are to offer quality care. As such, it’s essential for caregivers to care for themselves. This means eating a healthy, well-balanced diet, staying active, and getting enough rest. When all these things are done, caregivers have the energy, stamina, and attention needed to care for aging patients.

2. Ask for Help

Sometimes, caregivers run into confounding care situations that can be very confusing. For example, what if an existing patient begins to develop Alzheimer’s? That changes the level of care the patient needs, and can be confusing for caregivers.

In these situations, asking for help is one of the best things you can do. Many caregivers hold the position all their life, and can act as a wealth of knowledge for caregivers struggling to adapt to changing clients, or striving to ensure they’re offering the best possible care to the people they spend time with.

While asking for help can feel intimidating, it’s one of the best ways for caregivers to learn more about their industry, and learn to provide the high-quality care their clients deserve.

3. Study Up

Reading can be a great way for caregivers to take in new information. If you’re struggling with a particularly difficult situation or making your way into a new facet of caregiving, read a book about it. Books like The 36-Hour Day: A Family Guide to Caring for People with Alzheimer’s Disease, Related Dementias, and Memory Loss can be comforting and illuminating for people caring for Alzheimer’s patients. In fact, there are well-written books available for people in virtually every facet of caregiving, if you’re looking for something that applies to your situation, do a quick Google search or ask your fellow caregivers what they’d recommend.

4. Take a Course

To continue your trajectory of study, look for free or low-cost courses in your local area. These courses can teach everything from caregiving techniques to self-care tactics that will quickly become instrumental in your caregiving approach. These courses are available through senior centers, caregiving support groups, and assisted living facilities.

5. Shadow Another Caregiver

One thing few caregivers think of doing is shadowing another caregiver. Ideal for any caregiver who wants to learn new skills, or is struggling to adapt to changing or more complex clients, shadowing a more experienced caregiver is an excellent way to gain hands-on experience and learn some new skills that can help inform and enhance your own caregiving tactics.

6. Reach out to Your Employer

If you’re a caregiver who works for a company, reach out to your employer for additional learning materials or educational courses. Most caregiving centers are happy to help educate their caregivers and will work hard to further learning in their workforce.

From books to courses and beyond, it’s highly likely that your employer will have some resources to pass your way. Remember: being specific about what you want to learn and what you’re struggling with is the best way to ensure you get the education you need.

7. Branch Out

While many caregivers believe that the education they should pursue is limited to the field of caregiving, branching out into other industries can be incredibly helpful.

For example, caregivers who are struggling to manage anxiety in their careers may benefit from learning about meditation or yoga, while people who are dealing with patients with Alzheimer’s may benefit from learning a bit more about the human brain, through a course in psychology or neuroscience.

Caregivers are busy people, and many think learning about these topics is a waste of time. The truth is, though, that a broad education is incredibly valuable for caregivers, and provides the extensive information and resources required to succeed in the field.

8. Join a Support Group

Support groups can be instrumental for caregivers. In addition to providing the mental, emotional, and social support caregivers need to remain happy and relaxed in their careers, support groups are also a great place to pick up resources and education.

By putting you in contact with other caregivers from different backgrounds and educations, a good support group can help you learn the tricks and tactics needed to provide better care, and to release stress and anxiety in the process.

9. Give Yourself Time to Rest

When you’re busy learning and working a demanding career, you need to give yourself time to rest and reflect. How you do this is up to you, but resources like respite care can be invaluable.

Even if you can’t take a long vacation, ensure you’re making small pockets of time throughout the week to reflect on your recent learning, unplug, and get the rest you need for the new information to sink in and take hold.

10. Participate in Online Forums

If you’re looking to pick up some new information about caregiving, head to an online forum. Popular places for caregivers from around the world to gather, discuss topics related to the field, and problem-solve together, online forums can be great resources for anecdotal experience and hands-on expertise.

A quick online search for “caregiving online forums” will reveal options from reputable sites across the U.S. To get started, try out AARP’s online caregiving community.

Better Caregiving Starts Here

There is no plateau point with caregiving. Instead, caregivers are always learning, adjusting their skills, and adapting to new information. While this may feel exhausting, it’s important to remember that the best caregivers are the ones who remain flexible and fluid, and that ongoing education is essential to providing great service. By exploring these ten avenues, caregivers can absorb pivotal new information and become more effective in their positions.

Signs you Should Switch from Companion Care to Overnight Care

Posted on by Martin

As an elderly loved one ages, making care decisions only seems to get harder and harder.

While companion care may be enough for a while, there comes a point in every senior’s life when overnight care is needed. 

While companion care offers care with the activities of daily living (ADL) such as dressing, cooking, cleaning, and eating, overnight care is more comprehensive care designed to cater to seniors suffering from Alzheimer’s or related conditions. 

If you’re struggling with knowing when it’s time to trade in companion care for overnight care for your aging loved one, this post is for you. Read on to learn more.

The Emotional Implications of Hiring Overnight Care

Before we move on to discuss when is the appropriate time to hire overnight care, let’s first establish that many, many family members have an incredibly difficult time making this decision. It’s okay to find it difficult to accept the deteriorating health of a loved one, and many family members find themselves in a bit of denial about the fact that their loved one needs round-the-clock long-term care.

As painful as it is, this is a reality in many peoples’ lives, and addressing it by hiring the best-quality overnight care possible is the only way to provide for the health and wellbeing of an aging loved one. 

What are the Benefits of Overnight Care? 

Overnight care has many distinct benefits, both for the caregiver and the senior. Here are some of the top advantages overnight care has to offer: 

a) Medical assistance at all hours of the day and night.

 When a senior is suffering from Alzheimer’s or Dementia, being alone at night can be dangerous. Alzheimer’s is well known to affect sleep patterns and it’s very common for affected individuals to get up and wander in the middle of the night. Without the care and supervision of a qualified attendant, a senior may wander out of the house and get lost or find themselves in a dangerous situation. Overnight care helps mitigate these risks and ensure that the senior is safe and well cared-for at all times.

b) A break for family caregivers.

More than 65 million people act as family caregivers in the U.S. alone, and these patient, kind, loving individuals cope with superhuman burdens nearly every day. In addition to the responsibility of caring for an aging loved one, these people often have young children and spouses to care for, as well. This creates a significant emotional, financial, and mental burden that contributes to caregiver stress and burnout. In many situations, it’s not uncommon for a family caregiver to be with an aging loved one every hour of the day that he or she isn’t working or caring for his or her family. Luckily, hiring overnight care can help decrease this burden a bit. By giving the family caregiver a way to step out of the care responsibilities without putting the senior at risk, overnight care offers a critical respite for stressed family caregivers who need small, regular breaks.

c) Medical assistance.

Overnight care providers are generally trained medical staff, which means they can assist with things like catheterization, medication administration, and other healthcare needs the senior may have. This helps ensure the senior’s safety and encourage appropriate treatment at all times.

7 Signs That it is Time to Hire Overnight Care

If you’ve noticed any of the following signs or symptoms in your senior loved one, it is time to hire overnight care: 

1. Wandering off

If a senior is suffering from Dementia or Alzheimer’s and has started to wander off, it’s time to hire overnight care. Without it, these seniors may wander out of the house and find themselves in serious trouble late at night. An overnight care assistant can monitor and prevent this behavior to keep the senior safe.

2. Intense forgetfulness

If the senior has become increasingly forgetful and has begun to do things like leave doors open or stoves on, it’s time to hire overnight care. These forgetful behaviors pose a risk to the senior’s health, and overnight care is one of the best ways to ensure the senior stays safe.

3. Depressive thoughts or actions

Seniors have an increased risk of depression, and older people who feel intensely depressed may try to wound themselves. If you’ve noticed this tendency in your loved one, overnight care is a critical tactic that can help keep the senior safe and happy.

4. Medication neglect

If your loved one forgets to take his or her medications, hire overnight care to ensure they’re administered correctly. With certain drugs (like anti-seizure or blood pressure medications), forgetting to take them can have dire consequences. Luckily, an overnight care professional will be able to ensure that the senior adheres to a medication schedule. 

5. Anger or uncharacteristic behavior

If your loved one has recently started to exhibit strange or atypical behavior, it may be time to hire overnight care. Because overnight caregivers can help seniors stay in a routine and remain safe in their homes, they’re a valuable form of assistance for elderly people who have started to behave differently than they used to.

6. Medical conditions that necessitate round-the-clock care

If your loved one has seizures or another medical condition that can be dangerous if left alone, overnight care can be lifesaving. By hiring someone to attend to the senior when you can’t, you get the benefits of peace of mind while also ensuring that the senior has the medical assistance he or she needs to cope with their condition. 

7. When the senior needs help to get around

If your senior loved one has a difficult time walking or moving around the house, overnight care is a smart idea. This way, a senior can get up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night while also maintaining his or her dignity and independence as much as possible.

The Case for Overnight Care

In the right setting, overnight care is a critical service that can overhaul a senior’s life as well as that of his or her family caregivers. Because overnight care steps in to fill a critical care gap where the family caregiver needs to sleep and the senior is often left alone, it’s a fantastic option for seniors who need a high level of care or who are suffering from cognitive impairment.

By hiring overnight care for a senior loved one, family members can put their minds at ease and shrug off some of the guilt that comes from not being able to accompany the senior through every moment of the day. Since overnight caregivers are highly trained and qualified attendants, they’re the ideal tool for helping to ensure a senior’s ongoing health, safety, and wellbeing.