hi i'm tom callahan and welcome to only seniors this is a show where we discuss it when actually it's me and we start over hi i'm tom callahan and welcome to only seniors this is the show where we discuss senior effects the entire family it's true yes so you have some thoughts about caregivers that you were discussing earlier i do it's it's very interesting and not well known that the average caregiver in the united states is a forty nine year old woman taking care of her sixty nine year old mother mother that does not live with her she has a full time career is married and has children so and she spends an average of about twenty hours a week caring for her mom that's the average and if you think about that that's having so many different jobs and they have you know your day job and then take care of your mom twenty hours a week that's a really considerable plus you have and this is one way in which it really affects your family if you're working forty hours you're taking care of your mom for twenty hours where your husband and kids fit into that and you are being so stretched but among caregivers we also have to be really cognizant of caregivers come in every color of our population that you a family unit it's not just the responsibility primarily of the one person and caregiving in the african american community is much more successful than it is in the white community because in the white community community it's so focused on the adult daughter and and also it like in asian and indian families it's spread it's still within the family unit but again it's mostly on one woman who takes in it's a woman that takes care of the mother in law a father in law that live with her but and so the consequences of this is that the white woman suffers from depression as does the asian folks they and not so much in the african american families because it's spread out more and there's more support for the caregiver and in the l g b t community most of the elders live alone so that is really that's really something that needs to be addressed among caregivers how are they cared for quite often it's volunteer services friends it's not a of the caregiver move not only you know a lot of times it is a family member there's also professional caregivers that's right and they also come in many different shapes forms sizes colors cultural backgrounds excedrin right but because most of these put the professional caregivers work for agencies or facilities they have to follow particular regulations so what so it's more that it's more standard it looks more similar to each other no matter what cultural background they're from the way that they react and is more similar across the board with them and i what i just i'd like to just come from this that say that i cared for my parents both my folks for over fifteen years i was a primary caregiver that's a really long time i'm also in i also own a home health agency where we care for the elders in our community and so i not only experience to burnout myself and all the things that go along with that but i see it in our caregivers and that's one thing that we really try to be very proactive about for example we have a caregiver incredible character room competent compassionate dedicated reliable everything that you want twelve hours a day five days a week single mom doesn't want to take a day off because she needs the money so we have to say sorry when you need a year on a day off you must take a day off you can't this is not sustainable it's not sustainable and if we really want to provide good care for elders right by vied really good care for our caregivers and that's both professional and your sister or your daughter or your wife which brings us right into compassion fatigue which is basically it's the fatigue from using the word in the definition the from being caregiver right it's desensitizing it's exhausting six osce thing examples i know when i was on the facility side we had a caregiver in one of our communities she was very good she was our go to person in the community until one saturday where i guess she just kind of snapped in a resident with dementia was giving it wasn't cooperating with her and she wound up locking the resident in the room and holding the door shut and that's when we realized we've got a problem you know there was somebody who was burnt out exhibit no signs of abuse on any residence very like that but you could tell something was wrong since she was doing that one right and that's i mean that's an extreme example of something that happened in the community but i'm sure you've see it with families who contact your company because somebody burned out or even within your own police exactly we see it often and when as a professional when i go into someone's home and we are that there's a husband or there's the adult child that is in the home and taking care of mom or dad usually mom thus you know i'll talk to them about what are you doing for yourself how are you giving yourself a break from caregiving you know fine fine i'm fine no you're not and i'll say it across the board if you've been caring for someone for more than a year you're not ok you might you don't feel badly you don't you're tired but you are thinking of things that you're surprised that you're thinking your fuse might be a little bit shorter and we all know that when that happens to us when we are a little bit more touchy we don't really realize all the time that that's happening and it could always be somebody else's fault right you know you know if if they would behave differently then i would be fine not eating well not sleeping well and it's not always easy to do to make the correlation between my behavior and caregiving burnout and again i just i just want to say if you think caring for someone for over a year and you're not taking radically good care of yourself you're not ok and it's not something this deceives or this discomfort is caused by being stressed and cortisone levels rising which we all know is very dangerous  have that cortisone level will remain elevated for three years afterwards so and when your cortisone is high your immune system is low and that doesn't just make you susceptible to things like colds and the flu that makes you susceptible to all kinds of diseases that are associated with inflammation so it's significant i know there's somebody th working with right now who has been caring for mom for a number of years and who said to me once i don't know how i'm going to be able to cry when mom passes she says i just don't feel i don't feel anything there's that last of your in it you're in the center of the storm with caregiving you're doing you know and you have to you have you have to keep going you know you're not abusing your loved one new taking care of them you're making sure they're clean they're fed they're paid by the same time and we you know we show you what some of the signs are and how does this affect the care when it comes to caregiving which is some of the things that happen well as we just said sometimes we're  tense that example that you gave is great someone who is really good caregiver the go to person watch out for them because there are a lot of stresses put on the go to person your sister who is doing most of the care watch out for her you know just be careful be gentle with her help her but lot of the stress is on the caregiver it's the caregiver that gets ill it's the it's the caregiver that over eats it's the caregiver that might drink a little bit too much wine at night to unwind it's the caregiver that's getting sick the caregiver that's always going to colds is so dedicated to keeping his wife at home and the she has and stage dementia and i can just see him climbing and declining and declining and she is she's unaware of you know of her surroundings he is hyper aware and she could last for years but he won't under even though he has full time help it's the toll it takes watching with chronic diseases is you know your loved one can start to exhibit some of these signs they write you're experiencing if you have the support of what can be done about it big million dollar question right there what can be done about compassion fatigue it's imports really important to well first of all know the person's illness know it well so know what to expect  if you can be with the doctors and know what the doctor is saying so you really have an understanding of what's going on and then align appropriate care now before for your parents do you really have to be there every single weekend is that do you really need to do that i am absolutely guilty absolutely one hundred percent guilty of not taking care of myself when my parents were when i was caring for my parents i did not care for myself my my mom has been gone a year and a half and this weekend it will be one year since my dad passed last weekend was the first time in a year that i started to feel like the person i used to be that my brain was just relaxed so it's it lasts a long time so what's important is that you take care of yourself so that you don't have these thing affects how do you take care of yourself take time off you have to take time off you have to schedule if you are if you are someone as i was who is in my parents home every week and one night a week and then every saturday you have to take at least one weekend a month off and that one weekend a month off does not mean that you go and scrub your house trip or you know or prepare meals for your families to last for the three or three weeks that you're seeing your folks you really need to take you time for just yourself whatever that is it's going to the movies having a massage going on a retreat whatever it is and it's going to be difficult to do it's not going to be easy it's something that you are going to resist doing and then when you are doing it you're going to feel guilty for and then and then but you need to feel your feelings it's really important to feel your feelings so that you're not taken by surprise and that you can deal with things in a mature way rather than just head you're going to focus on the story where it is on the screen don't go see a tear jerker right here see something fun but get out of your head for at least two hours exactly and you will feel better and happier as are yep i had a i did a show a while ago about horse yes i had a horse as a guest i had with the do horses do is of course if you are so wrapped up in something the horse will come up to you but if you relax the course will so remember if you're so wrapped up into should say and then this way we can bring it to our caregivers to the people who are caregivers and of course i'll go near them go off linda said yes yes but there are also a lot of other things that you can do one of them is go to a caregiver support group they're popping up all over thank you it's called caring for the caregiver and that's what that's exactly we proposed to do to share information but to also share our experiences there is so much release and when you feel that other people understand exactly your situation we as professionals have a lot of ideas of how but the people that are actually doing it i can say  went through that and this is what i did it's so so so helpful it's so helpful it's you know if they always give you advice if you know somebody struggling and they're fighting you to swim away for them but the thing is you know for the yes that's what this group is set up to do is to throw you a life preserver don't fight it support groups are huge in the fact that they do such amazing work because you find somebody who is like you said going through the exact same thing and a lot of times when you're going through it when you're in the center of the storm you don't realize that other people are there with you right right and then you make connections you know you make friends you make you are able to share things that you haven't been able to share you can't share with mom or dad or you know and you and your brothers just he just doesn't get it i want to make another analogy that they use on airplanes all the time is that a hip an airplane that's crashing you know or going through turbulence and the oxygen masks fall down put on your soft first and then care for the next person and then put it on the baby then put on the person that's next to you and we we need caregivers need to wear that on a t shirt we just need to constantly be reminded that we have to take care of ourselves to be able to take care of someone else or we must we we feel guilty doing that we feel as if we don't have time we feel as if again we have to clean the house and we need to care for ourselves before and you know and i'm feel as if i'm really forgetting all the other people it's not just mom and dad that we care for them it's our husbands it's are children in my case you know over fifteen years i care for my parents and it was an honor and a privilege for me to do that but it was my family that really made the sacrifice and you know i never asked them if that was ok that's what that happened and you know i'm sure a support group would have been huge to you at that point  ali if there had been won if i had known of one that i could go to and another thing about the one that we are beginning is that we'll be offering it twice a month once in the daytime and once in the evening so that we're hopeful that we can at provide access for as many people as possible so we have a support group but there are also look at your church there are support groups also spiritual director someone in your church there are is sometimes you can trade off things you know i want to take a night off and you kind of know what i'm going through and you come over watch mom for an hour he no tradeoff and things like that it will help you besides just a group of people talking about their shared experiences and giving tips to each other when things that we are going to be doing different about the support group we're starting it's about that we're actually to bring in people that will help you with some other tips professionals who are in certain backgrounds legal backgrounds caregiving backgrounds financial backgrounds gerontology their intolerance and assad's therapy nutrition there are a lot of you know your you are a complete human being and that's and that's what we're going to address is the the whole person of the things that we need to care for and for two hours at least we're going to take you out of your head kicking and screaming that's right oh that's right twice a month you said yes where we're  meeting a can care where is that located it's one four five witherspoon street in princeton it's the building right next to the princeton cemetery ok and how will they be able to find out about the group will be on the website it will be on the can care website and you can also call up call our office anytime and we will keep you updated we're going to me meeting in the office once a month so give us a call that's not on the if you aren't used to using web sites give our office a call caregivers need to have support they need to have you know a backup because as we've discussed a lot of things that happen you draw down your own energy if you draw down your own energy then you have nothing left to give going on if you can't love yourself how can you care for somebody else so you know i think i'm paraphrasing things that ripon has that saying if you can't love yourself how can you love somebody else and it's very very true because you know if you have nothing to give to yourself then you're just going through a routine and that's not care if that's right bob that's a job that's right it's open to anybody whether you're a also if you are there are plenty of people that do caregiving long distance you know call mom and dad once or twice a day check in with their doctors and in ways that can be even more stressful than seeing mom and dad every weekend if you care if you're a long distance caregiver come and see us come and talk to us and you have ten tips for family caregiving to thank you thanks  for the first one and this is from the caregiver action network i didn't this is not just the top of my head and being self serving the first one is seek support from other caregivers you're not alone take care of your own health so that you can be strong enough to take care of your loved one accept this is big accept offers of help no i'm fine thank you don't know don't bother it's m five got it i got it except offers of help  be a good that will be a good role model for your children when when you need care to learn how to communicate effectively with doctors right lists when you're going to a doctor's appointment and you have so many questions make a list to bring a list with you and if you don't have questions still bring a pad and a pen so that you can write down everything that's being said so that take notes take notes caregiving is hard work so take respite breaks and that's another thing that we haven't talked about is that that's available respites are available you can hire an agency to come in for a weekend and take care of mom or dad or you can bring them to an assisted living for a weekend a lot of people are shy away from that delay in getting professional help be open to new to technologies that can help you care for your loved one organize medical information so that's up to date and easy to find in a folder you can just grab it make sure a legal documents are in order and please give yourself credit for doing the best you can in one of the toughest jobs there are so you don't have to be perfect you know ok well and again we're going to be starting a caregiving support group you're giving for the caregiver they can