Returning Home, Transitioning From Hospital to Home

It can be very nerve-wracking when your senior loved one is admitted to a hospital or healthcare facility. And likely, the last thing you’ll be thinking about is what happens when the doctor discharges your loved one. Here is a video series about preparing the return home of a loved one from the hospital.

Go to Caregiverstress.com

CAREGiver of The Month

Congratulations to Chris R for being Home 

Instead Senior Care's CAREGiver of The Month 

for May.  Chris has been with HISC since 

9/2012, and in that time, he has displayed a 

remarkable ability to connect and care for the

elderly community.  He goes the extra mile and 

is always helpful to the family caregivers by 

offering them the support they need and giving 

them new ideas that they never thought of thus 

they are always grateful for his input.  Words

 used to describe Chris by his clients are 

"Awesome" Wonderful" and "Heaven Sent" just

 to name a few.  We'd like to take time out and 

celebrate Chris R this month and say "Thank 

You" for all you do from your clients and your team members here at Home Instead Senior 

Care Burbank.

November is National Family Caregiver Month AND National Alzheimer's Awareness Month

Did you know November is National Family Caregiver Month AND National Alzheimer's Awareness Month? Perfect time to take advantage of these FREE Alzheimer's care training opportunities.

What do you do when you don’t know how to handle an Alzheimer’s situation?

Click for more info: Help for alzheimers families

Our CAREGiver of The Month

Our CAREGiver of The Month is Barbara R.

Barbara has been with Home Instead since 10/2011.  Since day 1 Barbara has shown such a compassionate heart and a true desire to serve our elderly clients.  Her gentle nature is appreciated by all and her reliability is admirable.  She always follows protocol and always double checks when she is not sure.  She has been a great addition to our team and a joy to work with. Congratulations Barbara.  We appreciate you tremendously.

The Caregiver's Silent Burden

My healthy and energetic husband, business partner and best friend had a heart attack at 52. We were still reeling from the affects of 9/11 on our psyches and our business, which needed our undivided attention six days a week. Our two sons were still at home, one homeschooled and one in high school, and our lives were packed full. Life has a way of throwing us curves when we least expect it and true to form, our world was quite suddenly thrown into chaos.

I operated on adrenaline for the first few days and weeks as I took on the full responsibility of our business and livelihood, the care of our children and the care of my husband. We do what we have to do, but churning relentlessly beneath the surface was the heartbreak, the shock, the fear, the loneliness of loss. The emotional ramifications were profound and lasting. He is alive and well, but on so many levels this experienced rocked my world.

Every day women and men across generations and the socio-economic landscape are faced with the difficult decisions and responsibilities inherent in the daily care of a sick or aging loved one. Caring for aging parents is a much talked about concern among adult children, but whether one is caring for a parent, a spouse, or a seriously ill or disabled child, the silent burden of the caregiver is the same. It is profound and constant.

In the midst of the extreme stress and myriad responsibilities of caring for a loved one, family caregivers are coping with one of life's most difficult emotions, that of grief and loss. A woman caring for her husband after a stroke or a heart attack, is not only picking up the slack around the house, shouldering financial responsibilities, and the day-to-day care of her spouse, she is doing so in the midst of a very real and very personal life crisis. She has suddenly lost the emotional and practical support of perhaps her most significant relationship, even if only temporarily. Every morning she looks death in the face and consciously or unconsciously wrestles with the ramifications of losing her loved one, her dreams, and her life as she knew it.

The events leading up to a caregiving situation often occur unexpectedly and without warning. There is no time for preparation. Everything is fine until one day it isn't. The change is immediate and lasting. How is one to keep his/her head above water at such a time?

So often we talk about the role of "caregiver" as if it were a hat we put on, a "temporary" upheaval in our schedules, but it is so much more than that. The grief, the loss of normalcy, not only to our life but to our relationships, lies buried beneath the surface of daily demands. The painful emotions are squelched and shoved aside by necessity and perhaps more likely, by guilt. After all, we reason, we are alive and well. Our needs are not as important as our loved ones. It's not his fault he can't be there for me. There is no time to fall apart, to grieve, or to adjust. It must wait.

When we talk about caregiver burnout, compassion fatigue or the stress of caretaking in general, perhaps the most important dimension to address is that of the emotional upheaval, the undertaking of the grieving process that often begins in earnest and lies buried in silence far too long. The caregiver needs support, compassion and guidance with the silent pain as much, if not more, than they need assistance with practical matters. By the time we move into the caregiving role, most of us are adept at problem solving and decision-making. Our real difficulty more likely rests in making sense of and coming to terms with loss.

Article c/o Dorothy Sanders
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dorothy-sander/the-caregivers-silent-bur_b_1570584.html

Stories Of Caring

Need a little strength for the moment? Read one of these uplifting caregiving stories from Lori Hogan’s new book and let us know which one you find most inspiring! 

Stories of caring are all around us. Every caregiver has a story, and every story ripples through family members, friends, coworkers and beyond. When Lori Hogan set out to collect 52 caregiving stories to include in Strength for the Moment, she didn’t have to go far to find an abundance of personal narratives, advice, wisdom, inspiration and hope.

The caregiving stories shared in Strength for the Moment come from people in or close to the Home Instead Senior Care® network—staff members, franchise owners, partners, family members, friends and other acquaintances—who have generously offered to share their stories to help caregivers find strength and encouragement.

Here are a few of those stories, and we encourage you to also share yours.

What Makes A Good Caregiver Great!

Have you ever thought about helping seniors?  Reports from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predict an increase in the personal and home care aides job category – forecasting it to be the second fastest-growing job group in the nation over the next decade.  But the rapid growth in this job group may not be fast enough.  Home Instead Senior Care’s recent research indicates that demand for these jobs will outpace supply in a big way.  To keep pace with this projected demand, Home Instead will have to double its care force in just three years, according to our research.

So, do you have what it takes to be a Home Instead Senior Care CAREGiver?

A profession caring for seniors brings many benefits.  But it’s also not for everyone.  That’s why it’s important to ask yourself important questions before pursuing this job path.  If you love working with seniors, if you’re an understanding person and if you have served previously as a family caregiver to a loved one, you probably have some of the attributes needed to be a good professional caregiver. 

What is expected of a Home Instead Senior Care CAREGiver?

The most important qualities that we look for in a potential CAREGiver are compassion for seniors, dependability, and patience.  CAREGivers will provide services such as companionship, meal preparation, light housekeeping, shopping, errands, incidental transportation, pet care, bathing, grooming, toileting and many more.  Potential CAREGivers go through a thorough screening process and on average about 5% of all applicants are offered employment with the company.

We are dedicated to providing superior CAREGivers for the seniors in Southeastern Massachusetts - someone we would feel comfortable working with our own family. If you are interested in learning more about being a professional CAREGiver, you can reach a Recruitment Coordinator Monday-Friday 9:30am-3pm at 818-843-8688. 

For more info: http://www.womensjournals.com/articles/464/1/What-Makes-a-Good-Caregiver/Page1.html 

Free Caregiver Cruise Giveaway | CaregiverStress.com

Are you or someone you know devoted to caring for a senior loved one?

We recognize the dedication and love it takes, but also the stresses that can come along with it. So we're giving one lucky caregiver hero a free, 5-day cruise - and while they're gone, we'll provide professional care for their loved one. And if you are nominating a friend or family member, you could be entered into a drawing to win a laptop and camcorder!

Nominate yourself or someone you know for a chance to win!

Nominate Yourself	Nominate a Friend or Family Member
You could win a cruise or an Apple iPad Enter by signing up for our email newsletter	You could win a laptop computer and camcorder Enter by nominating a friend or family member Your friend or family member could win a cruise by signing up for our email newsletter

Free Caregiver Cruise Giveaway | CaregiverStress.com

Caring for a difficult relative or other loved one

Try these strategies to remain effective and sane when you’re taking care of someone who’s difficult

Being a caregiver is never easy, but if you’ve spent much of your adult life trying just get along with a parent or another older adult you’re close to, being thrust into the role of his caregiver may be excruciating.

The bad news is that if he’s always been critical, grumpy, intrusive, or just plain mean, it’s unlikely that old age and poor health will improve his personality much. The good news is that as an adult, you’ve probably become more confident in yourself and have learned to deal with him more effectively — and if you haven’t, now is your chance to learn. Believe it or not, it’s possible to make your relationship work more smoothly so that you can help him through this stage of life.

Difficult people come in all varieties, from self-absorbed and demanding to angry and remote. Caregiving situations vary widely, too, of course: Your experience will be different depending on whether you’re providing daily care, supplying occasional care, or coordinating care from a distance. No single approach will address every dilemma, but the following tips should make caring for the person a little easier.

Getting started

You’ve had the double “oh no” moment — that is, it’s become clear that your parent or someone else you’re tied to needs help and that you have to take a greater role in his care, and this means you’ll be spending more time with someone you find difficult to be around. Perhaps you’ll need to help him move to a nursing home or arrange a treatment schedule for him after his cancer diagnosis. Whatever the details, the relationship you’ve had is about to change. Here are some steps you can take to ease the transition:

• Take time to prepare yourself. Faced with a crisis, it’s tempting to make decisions quickly without thinking them through. If you have a difficult relationship with your parent or someone else you’re caring for, the pressure is even more intense, and every decision is fraught. Try to spend some quiet time before you jump onto the caregiving roller coaster. Write in your journal, talk to friends, and think about what has made your relationship difficult in the past and how you can approach it differently this time.
• Line up support. It’s important to have buffers so you won’t be standing on the front line all by yourself. Meet with siblings, other relatives, or other friends who will be giving care so you can divide the labor early on, if possible.
• Bring in the experts. If you don’t have family support, you live far from the person you’re caring for, your relationship is explosive, or his situation is complicated, consider hiring a geriatric care manager. She can help by providing support and concrete advice about community resources, skilled nursing facilities, and other such topics. If you live far away, the manager can help you coordinate care from a distance. Take the time to find someone that you and the person you’re caring for both trust. If you find the right person, she’ll help you communicate more effectively with the person you’re caring for.
• Consider your own role. As you enter this new stage in your relationship with the person you’re caring for, it’s important to remember that you can’t control how he acts — but you can control how you respond. Take time to honestly consider your own role in the conflicts you’ve had in the past and think about how you can handle things differently. This might be a good time to see a counselor to sort through some of the guilt, fear, anger, and resentment that may have haunted your relationship — and likely compromised other relationships in your life as well.

Coping day to day

Once he’s settled and you’ve established a caregiving routine, he’s likely to resume his usual patterns of behavior — and may even become more difficult. Crises are frightening, but the long haul can be harder. It’ll probably last a lot longer, too. You may require additional strategies to help you care for him on a daily basis.

• Talk it through. Try addressing the situation directly as soon as problems arise. Say something like, “I know we’ve had problems getting along, but I’d like to do it differently from now on. Can we talk about how to do that?” Try to listen to what he has to say without getting defensive. Use “I statements” when you explain your experience (“I felt as if you were angry at me just now” rather than accusations such as “You act like you hate me”).
• Prepare to have your buttons pushed. If you consider the history of your relationship, you’ll likely find some recurring themes. Maybe your dad always compares you unfavorably to your siblings or blames you for your two failed marriages. Identify these common trigger points ahead of time and simply ignore him when he touches on them. Instead of reacting angrily or getting hurt, gently change the subject — as many times as you need to — until he gets it.
• Try something different. If your interactions are uniformly negative, think about how to change the dynamic. Are there less stressful ways that you can spend time together? If sitting together and talking usually ends in an argument, offer to clean his attic, weed his garden, or cook him a special meal. If you visit him at the nursing home and all he does is complain, suggest taking him out for a drive or lunch. Or take a tape recorder and interview him about his past. Read a book together, if he’s up to it, or help him put photos in an album as a legacy project. A tangible project that you can do together can help you be close without treading on perilous ground.
• Set boundaries. It’s important for anyone in a caregiving position to set and maintain solid boundaries, but this is especially true if you have a difficult relationship. If you’re clear about how much you’re able and willing to do and stick to that, you’ll be less susceptible to guilt trips and manipulative behavior. You can also set limits for how much emotional abuse you’ll put up with; if he won’t stop criticizing, maybe it’s time to go make yourself a cup of tea.
• Take care of yourself. If you’re spending a great deal of time with the person you’re caring for, make sure that you’re doing things to replenish yourself — body and soul. This will help you stay balanced and less reactive. Maintain a regular exercise regime to blow off steam, and arrange for regular weekends off and vacation time if you can. Some people find that being in nature or meditating helps them maintain their perspective.

If your schedule doesn’t permit regular breaks or time for yourself, you’re headed for burnout and you need to do something to remedy the situation. If no one in your family or community can step in, check with your local agency on aging to find out if there are any respite care services available.

• Join a support group. A caregiver support group gives you a place to unwind and share your story with people who are having similar experiences, which can be restorative.

• Seek counseling or mediation. If the person you’re caring for is able and willing, try seeing a counselor together. She can help you communicate more effectively and change some of the patterns that have poisoned your relationship.

• The tough get going. If you’ve tried everything and your interactions are uniformly unpleasant or worse, it’s time to consider other alternatives. Talk to family members or close friends and see if you can find ways to minimize your contact with the person. Offer to take on caregiving jobs that don’t require much interaction, such as paying bills or dropping off meals. If all family members have problematic relationships with the person, pitch in to hire someone, if you can afford it. Caregiving is bound to be hard, but no caregiver should be abused.

• Have reasonable expectations. With patience and lots of luck, you may be able to make a breakthrough in your relationship with the person you’re caring for. But it’s important to keep your expectations relatively low and to be willing to practice a little acceptance when things get rough.
  The fact is that most people don’t change much: He’s unlikely to grow substantially less difficult, no matter what you do. You could have years of caregiving ahead; if you go into it with an open heart, it can present an opportunity for growth and healing — despite the many frustrations along the way.

• Be open to a new relationship. In the movie The Savages, two adult children are wrenched from their respective lives and thrown together to care for their elderly father. The father was abusive and distant when they were young, and they haven’t seen him in years. The movie neither dwells on this history nor glosses over it, and there are no tearful reproaches, apologies, or reconciliations. The fact is that the father is now a confused and helpless old man — and his children rally to help him.
  In the same way, you may find that being a caregiver is different from being that person’s child or niece. No matter how flawed he is, in the end he’s still someone you’re connected with, and he needs your help.

Caring for a difficult older adult

Home Instead Senior Care Program Offers Free Continuing Education Credits (CEUs)

The Home Instead Senior Care® network, the world's largest provider of non-medical in-home care for seniors, is now offering free continuing education credits (CEUs) in conjunction with the organization's Family Caregiver Support Webinar Series program. The program, titled Caring for Your Parents: Education for the Family Caregiver, has been adapted for CEU accreditation in cooperation with the American Society on Aging (ASA).

Omaha, NE (Vocus) The Home Instead Senior Care® network, the world's largest provider of non-medical in-home care for seniors, is now offering free continuing education credits (CEUs) in conjunction with the organization's Family Caregiver Support Webinar Series program.

Caring for Your Parents: Education for the Family Caregiver(SM) is a family caregiver support series that addresses senior resistance to care and features a variety of topics such as choosing an in-home care provider, the signs of aging, long distance caregiving and communicating with aging parents. The program has been adapted for CEU accreditation in cooperation with the American Society on Aging (ASA).

The CEU courses are offered compliments of Home Instead Senior Care so there is no cost for the CEU. The first webinar, titled Recognizing the Signs of Aging and Need for Care, will be held October 27; a second webinar, Challenges of Communication between Older Adults and their Children, will be held November 17. Both are scheduled at 10 a.m. Pacific/11 a.m. Mountain/12 p.m. Central/1 p.m. Eastern Time. Participants can pre-register through ASA's website at asaging.org/webseminars by clicking on the web seminar they wish to view and follow the instructions to register.

Pre-registration will be required for all webinars. Professionals will take a short survey online after the webinar and then will receive one hour of CEU credit through ASA. If a senior care professional is unable to participate in the live webinar, a recorded version will be available online for 60 days post-event, for which participants will still be able to obtain CEUs.

"We are pleased to offer this continuing education program as a way to thank the many senior care professionals we work with across the country who do so much to support older adults in their communities," said Paul Hogan, co-founder and chairman of the Home Instead Senior Care network.

CEUs are available if the senior care professional is licensed in a field or profession from one of the boards listed below. Professionals who are not sure whether the licensing organization will accept a particular board's CEUs should contact the organization before making their selection (one board per attendee, per event).

• American Occupational Therapy Association
• Association of Social Work Boards
• Bryn Mawr College Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research
• California Association of Drug and Alcohol Counselors
• California Board of Behavioral Sciences
• California Board of Registered Nursing
• National Academy of Certified Care Managers
• National Association of Long Term Care Administrator Boards (pending)
• National Board of Certified Counselors National Commission for Health Education

About Home Instead Senior Care

Founded in 1994 in Omaha, the Home Instead Senior Care® network is the world's largest provider of non-medical in-home care services for seniors, with more than 900 independently owned and operated franchises in 14 countries spanning four continents. Home Instead Senior Care local offices employ 65,000+ CAREGivers(SM) who provide more than 40 million hours of client service each year through activities including companionship, meal preparation, medication reminders, light housekeeping, errands and shopping. Home Instead Senior Care founders Paul and Lori Hogan pioneered franchising in the non-medical senior care industry and are leading advocates for senior issues throughout the world. At Home Instead Senior Care, it's relationship before task, while continuing to provide superior quality service that enhances the lives of seniors everywhere.

About The American Society On Aging

The American Society on Aging (ASA) is one of the nation's largest associations of professionals working in the field of aging. ASA is a multidisciplinary professional association that produces a comprehensive array of educational programs and publications. ASA's comprehensive resources, publications and educational programs are designed by experts in the field to enhance the knowledge and skills of people working with older adults and their families in a wide range of disciplines and settings. ASA members come from a multitude of professions ranging from the aging network to business and health care to form a larger community whose purpose is to learn, network and exchange ideas and connect with others who work with older adults. Members, subscribers and partners include social service and health care practitioners, educators, researchers, policymakers and leaders of the business and nonprofit sectors.

Click here to take classes