Uncovering the Hidden Patient: Alzheimer’s Caregivers

If you’re like most family members serving as Alzheimer’s caregivers for a loved one, your day is consumed from sunup to sundown with a variety of tasks and duties, and may look something like this:

• After a restless night spent helping your loved one with trips to the bathroom, drinks of water, and soothing snippets of conversation, the day begins bright and early with preparing breakfast, getting your loved one dressed and fed, getting medications in order, etc.
• The rest of the day goes by in a blur of finding appropriate activities to keep your loved one occupied, while simultaneously trying to clean up a bit around the house, arrange for medical appointments, prepare and clean up after lunch, help your loved one settle in for a brief nap, plan and prepare dinner, etc.
• Before you know it, the day is over, and you’re facing bathing challenges with your loved one, trying to divert his or her attention away from wandering and other potentially hazardous behaviors, getting him or her settled and ready for bed, and dealing with issues related to sundowning.

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It’s a stressful agenda, to say the least! And if you’re working outside of the home or have children or other family members to take care of, the level of stress is exacerbated. While each of these tasks is necessary to keep a senior loved one with Alzheimer’s safe and well cared for, it’s also a recipe for caregiver burnout, a state of physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion that may also be accompanied by a negative change in attitude, anxiety, and/or depression. The Alzheimer’s Association provides a list of caregiver burnout warning signs, along with some options for relieving the pressure, including:

• Relax. As hard as it may be to carve out time for relaxation, it’s crucial to allow caregivers to remain healthy. Taking a few minutes several times a day to practice breathing exercises, view a relaxation video with beautiful music and images, or to meditate can significantly improve your state of mind and outlook.
• Exercise. Physical activity is a great stress-buster, and can be incorporated in short bursts as time allows. As little as ten minutes each day can make a difference, especially through particularly enjoyable activities such as walking the dog, dancing, or taking a quick bike ride.
• Get help. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that no one could possibly provide the same level of care for your loved one as you do; no one else can understand him or her in quite the same way, and therefore, you need to handle everything on your own. However, enlisting the services of a professional home care agency with specially trained Alzheimer’s caregivers, like Valley of the Sun Homecare, can provide respite from caregiving duties and open up new worlds for both the family member and his or her loved one.

For more tips for Alzheimer’s caregivers in Scottsdale, Phoenix and the surrounding areas, call on Valley of the Sun Homecare. We’ll meet with you and your loved one right in the comfort of home for a complimentary in-home assessment where we’ll listen to your needs and concerns, and put together an individualized plan of care. Allow us to partner with you and maximize your loved one’s safety and wellbeing, while providing you with a much-needed respite to relax and take care of yourself – so necessary to be able to provide the best care possible for your loved one. Call us at 480-264-5252 to learn more!