5 Ideas to Help Your Loved One Remain Safely Independent

 

Helping your loved one remain independent into the latter stages in life can be difficult. For some, it’s nearly impossible to take them out of the home in which they’ve lived so many years. If your loved one has a strong desire to remain at home, there are ways to make it a safer place.

 

Daily Check-ins

If you or other friends and family live in the surrounding area, it’s vital to keep tabs on your loved ones, daily. Coordinate a schedule to make sure their needs are met. Whatever your loved one’s needs–groceries, medications, or just some company, stop in to see how things are going. If nobody lives within a reasonable range, hire an aid to check in regularly to see how things are going. If nothing tangible is needed, a little company is always nice to have.

 

Emergency Alert Systems

Today’s advanced technology offers an array of safety monitoring systems. Some tools direct users to an emergency system’s operators with the simple click of a button. Others are able to detect sudden falls, notifying EMS. Be sure to have a completed medical emergency alert card to provide first responders with as much information as possible.

 

Bathroom Aids

Being able to complete daily functions is essential to remaining independent. Make sure your loved one has the proper tools to help retain independence–such as a raised toilet seat with handrail and a bench, handrails, and non-slip mats in the shower or tub for safer bathing.

 

Everyday Tasks

Some tasks grow more difficult with age. Fortunately, assistive tools can help. All of these products may be found in Amazon’s Health & Personal Care section.

Dressing stick: This stick can make dressing easier for those with limited mobility–such as helping pulls socks up or lifting a garment around one’s shoulder.

Prescription management: There are various systems available to help one remember to take medications during the day–such as electronic reminders, simple labels on daily medicine containers, or individual packets of medicines.

Extra-long sponge: This is a sponge attached to a longer arm to help with those hard-t0-reach areas while bathing.

Food bumper: This is a guard placed on the edge of a plate to prevent food from falling off.

Long shoehorn: An elongated shoehorn reduces the need to bend while putting on shoes.

 

Mobility Devices

The simple act of getting around can make or break one’s ability to be independent. With age, walking can prove difficult. Fortunately, there are a number of ways to help with this process.

Accessibility: If wheeled access is needed in the home, make sure that your loved one has a ramp to gain access to the home easily.

Wheelchair: Both manual and electric wheelchairs boost a person’s independence in being able to get around, in, and out of one’s home, which contributes to a happier day-to-day existence.

Walker/Cane: If a wheelchair isn’t necessary, a walking aid can help. As with wheelchairs, getting out and enjoying the day whenever possible is a tremendous benefit to your loved one’s quality of life.

These are five some of the tools caregivers can use to help their loved ones live safely independently.



Jason Zimelman is a Public Relations Coordinator with Safer America. The organization provides consumer safety information to help make our community a safer place to live for our children, family and friends

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The Overlooked Caregivers No One Ever Talks About

Although it was more than five decades ago, the memories of caring for my grandfather as a pre-teen—giving him medication, even bathing him—are never far from my mind. To this day, 54 years later, I can still feel his cold skin as I went to give him his 2:00 am medication.
At that time, words like "abandonment" and "trauma" were not often used to describe childhood experiences.

I left home to become a nurse and grew professionally in my career. However, the traumatic experiences of caregiving and missing out on some of my childhood left me less than grounded.
In 1998, at the First International Conference on Caregiving in London, I learned about the challenges faced by youth caregivers and began to understand the significance of those experiences.
That summer, I went on a mission trip with teens from my church—one boy's dad had recently died and another girl's dad had pancreatic cancer. Many of the other kids also had concerns about their parents and grandparents' health.

In 2001, my new husband, encouraged me to return to school to get my PhD, thinking it would increase my earning power. During the research process, I discovered that there was—for the first time in the U.S.—an unusually high number of middle and high school students who were dealing with family health conditions. More than a third of these children were negatively impacted at school. A few more years would pass, and the data (along with some media attention) revealed that there were between 1.3-1.4 million caregivers, ages 8-18 years old in the US.

In 1998, I had started a nonprofit organization to provide volunteer support services to people who were homebound and their caregiving families. Once the analysis of my research data was complete, I was compelled to now turn my attention to youth caregivers. I thought that, supporting them academically and personally, and strengthening their families, could perhaps ameliorate the sacrifices they were making because of their caregiving responsibilities.

Thus, the Caregiving Youth Project was born in the fall of 2006, at one middle school in Boca Raton, FL. Professional staff facilitate support groups, offer classes on life skills, and provide other resources to ease some of the responsibility and give youth caregivers the chance to be kids.

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How To Care For Two Parents With Dementia

My mom and dad both have dementia. I am all alone taking care of them since my sister passed away I have no one to help me. I get sad and frustrated with them both. How do I deal with my feelings?
These are powerful words. It's a "cry from the wild" which will touch the heart of most caregivers. Many of us feel alone when we are trying to care for our aging parents and there are no siblings to help, or if siblings won't help with caregiving. When we have one parent who has dementia, it is hard. When we have two, it is often nearly unbearable.

My dad had dementia from surgery. There are many kinds of dementia. Mom developed a more subtle type of dementia, the type they used to call "senile dementia." Now it's called "organic brain disease." Whatever the type – Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia, Pick's disease, dementia due to Parkinson's or just plain "organic brain disease," which sort of applies to them all - it's painful for the caregiver. Sometimes the pain is so raw and isolating that the caregivers become more ill than those they are caring for.

Statistics vary, but upward of thirty percent of caregivers die before those they are caring for. Some of those are adult children, lonely and depressed, isolated and frustrated, often torn by guilt. These caregivers can develop cancer, commit suicide, or have heart problems and other ill health that can likely be traced to the stress of caring for their loved ones.

For awhile, my mom's dementia was just some minor memory loss and she was able to be a fairly active part of my dad's care team after his brain surgery left him demented. However, her dementia worsened and I was soon coping with both of my parents' demented behavior.

One scenario: Their wedding anniversary was the day after Christmas. I would always bring to the nursing home tiny bottles of champagne and their 25th Anniversary champagne glasses. I'd also bring other treats and we'd have a party. Oh, yeah. I'd also bring cards for them to give to each other.

I would sign Dad's card to Mom, as he couldn't and didn't really know what it was. Mom would sign her card to him, but soon after would generally forget what it was for. I would then pile the things into Mom's walker bag and take her down the nursing home hallway to Dad's room (they each had a private room on the same floor).

Generally, I'd have to drag Dad out of foggy sleep, sit him up and - big smile on my face - give them each their cards for the other, explain what they were for, read them with gusto, pour champagne, explain again what they were doing, let Dad fall back to sleep in his chair, then bring Mom back to her room. Like a puppeteer, I'd arranged bodies, moved limbs, orchestrate a production. I'd go home exhausted.

Why did I do this, you ask? Because I didn't want to have to lie a week later when Mom become aware that their anniversary had passed, because she happened to be looking at her new calendar I brought for her wall.

I knew I'd hear, "We missed our anniversary! Why didn't you….?" I'd hear this whether we "celebrated," or not. So I did it. It felt like a sham, but I did it. How did I cope? After I got home, I cried. I cried for them. I cried for me. Pain, frustration, anger, exhaustion, pity – for them and my self, sorry to say, it was all there. The seeming futility of the production was more draining than the actual activity.

So, my friend, you ask how do you cope with your frustration? You are a better person than I if you don't have times when you wonder why you do a lot of the things you do. Much of your frustration is grief, and even anger. Yes, anger. It's okay to say that. Your sister died and she left you with two demented parents. You are all alone. Logic tells you your sister didn't do this "to you" on purpose. But this isn't about logic. It's about your feelings and your feelings are human, painful and justified.

How do you cope with caregiving? Get support from people like those on this site. Get support from caregivers who feel what you are feeling and won't judge you for it. Get professional help, both with the care of your parents, by calling your Alzheimer's Association, and going online to your state's Web site. On the site, under "aging services" or some such phrasing, you will find "The Family Caregivers Support Program." They may have another name for it in your state, but they will have a form of the program because it's federally funded. They will help you find support. Lastly, please see a doctor for yourself. Emotional support from a professional may be needed. Medication may be needed.

You don't want to be a statistic. You need a life. Know that you aren't alone and seek out these resources. And please keep coming back to talk with us. Sometimes everything we do for those who can't remember what we did can seem worthless. But it's not. Other caregivers understand this. In the end, you be glad you did your best, whatever that is. And that's all you can do.

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