Sunday, July 21, 2013

How Not Anticipating What's Coming Next Can Sabotage Family Caregivers

Like firefighters, caregivers tend to stomp out one flaring crisis after another. Unfortunately, it's an exhausting way to live and fuels the stressful feeling that your life is at the mercy of an unpredictable force in your home.

"Feeling a lack of control comes in part from a lack of knowledge about what to expect," geriatric psychiatrist Ken Robbins says. "Especially with dementia, being able to step back and see a bigger picture can help you make appropriate plans and then feel more on top of things."

Solutions

Make contingency plans. "Live in the moment" is good advice to help you manage stress, but don't do so at the expense of a little advance planning. Once a week, devote an hour to focusing on "if this, then this" scenarios. This type of thinking helps you at least begin the process of considering where you might find more help, what kind of home modifications would help and how you'd get them done, alternative living situations, and so on.
Make lists of your options, or of places and people you can contact to solve potential problems common to your situation.
Learn as much as you can about your loved one's condition(s) and how it/they typically progress. Caregivers are sometimes reluctant to "read too far ahead" for fear they can't relate to later disease stages. They're also prey to fear of "jinxing" -- worrying that if they think about something, it might come true. Diseases are realities, not wishes. Ask your loved one's doctor to be candid about the prognosis and course of the disease, read info online, ask others who've been there.
If your loved one has dementia, understand the various stages, where your loved one likely is, and what to do next.
Consider a support group. These help caregivers visualize future problems, as they're expressed by other group members.