Have you stopped to think about how much time family caregivers spend helping a parent? About 25 percent of caregivers spend more than 40 hours helping parents out. The majority spend 24.4 hours each week. If you’re also working or caring for your children, it becomes overwhelming.
When you’re a family caregiver, it really does need to be a family job. It’s not ideal if only one person is handling the bulk of the chores.
Create a To-Do Chart
The first thing a family should do is come up with a list of the things your mom or dad can no longer do independently. Your dad has glaucoma and can no longer drive. Your mom has rheumatoid arthritis and struggles to carry the hamper to the basement on laundry day.
Maybe your parents have arthritis and have a hard time bringing the vacuum up the stairs or vacuuming the stairs. It could be your mom is lonely being alone all day and is showing signs of depression. Each of these issues leads to a unique to-do list. Make sure this list covers every day of the week.
Sit Down and Talk
Once the schedule is drafted, sit down with your siblings. You’re going to need to talk about who is available on different days. You might find that your brother can take all the hours when you’re at work because he can work from home. He may not be able to do any weekends, however, because of his children’s extra curricular activities.
Fill in the different times of day and see what’s left. Those are the areas where you’ll need to reach out to family friends, cousins, aunts, and uncles to see if anyone can help.
Do a Trial Week and Hold Another Family Meeting
Try that arrangement for a week. See how everyone feels. If anyone feels the care was beyond their skill set, you may need to reduce that person’s hours. What you don’t want is to overwhelm a family member and experience caregiver burnout.
You may find that certain family members enjoyed the work and want to rearrange things to help out more. Other times, you’ll find that balancing work and care was more challenging than expected and a new plan needs to be formed.
Use Home Care Services to Fill Gaps
Once you know where people cannot help out and have done the trial week, call our caregiver agency. See what it would cost to hire caregivers to fill in on those days. Your parents will always have help, and you’ll have peace of mind that they’re never alone.
Sources: https://www.caregiver.org/caregiver-statistics-demographics
If you or a loved one are considering Caregiver Services in Shadyside PA, please call and talk to the caring staff at Extended Family Care of Pittsburgh at (412) 693-6009. We will answer all of your questions.
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