Family caregivers take on their responsibility out of a desire to help an elderly parent or loved one. What many caregivers don’t anticipate, however, is just how big of a job this can be. Taking care of a family member can be time consuming and exhausting, which is why it’s important to not try and take on all of the responsibilities yourself.
This is where the value of a care circle comes into play. A care circle is a group of people who all have a vested interest in keeping your loved one safe and living the fullest life they possibly can.
While a care circle can include anyone who wants to help take care of your loved one, they typically consist of the same general groups of people. Every caregiving experience is unique and there is no one size fits all approach. For some, these general groups will make sense, but for others it may not. Regardless, finding others to help share the responsibilities of delivering quality care will ultimately help to provide better mental and emotional health through the caregiving journey.
Your Loved One’s Significant Other
If your loved one’s significant other (SO) is still in good health, they should be the first person you incorporate into your loved one’s care circle. They very likely spend the majority of the day with your loved one and are therefore the first to respond to any needs. Additionally, your loved one and their partner have likely spent many years together. You don’t want to sideline your loved one’s partner when it comes to putting together a care plan for them.
Even if their spouse/SO isn’t as mobile as they used to be, try to find ways they can help. They see your loved one more than anyone and are most in tune with their emotional needs.
Family Members
One of the greatest appeals of family caregiving is that it keeps responsibility for aging parents or loved ones in the safe, familiar setting of the family. It makes sense, then, that one of the most importantpieces of your loved one’s care circle is their family. This can be your loved one’s adult children, siblings, cousins or even grandkids. In most cases, everyone can do something to help provide care for a loved one – whether that be checking in on them or taking them food.
Family provides vital emotional support because they share your love and concern for the care recipient. But there is an additional benefit you may not expect. For many, family caregiving can be a lonely experience. While family members can primarily help deliver quality care to your loved one, they can also help to support you emotionally and help you to not feel alone. One of the primary factors of caregiver burnout is a feeling of consistently being overwhelmed. Having a care circle of others that can help allows family caregivers to giver better to their loved one and feel supported themselves.
If you have family within a reasonable distance, you can ask them to take on certain tasks. For example, they could drive your loved one to medical appointments, help with yard work or household chores, or simply sit and visit for a few hours. Even if they are not the primary caregiver, any time another family member can be present allows the responsibilities of caregiving to be spread a bit more evenly. One way to share the responsibility is through Connected Caregiver’s Care Logistics feature. Within the easy to use application, you can communicate with your care circle and even coordinate tasks for things like grocery or medication pick up. The best thing is you can get started for free. Caregiving Logistics is Connected Caregiver’s app that helps family caregivers coordinate care with their friends and family, all in one place. You can learn more about our free app here.
If your loved one has a chronic medical condition or is at a high risk for emergency events like a fall, your family can also share in the confidential monitoring of their day-to-day vitals and physical safety. Services like Connected Caregiver allow family members to monitor regular health checks and receive emergency alerts through an app on their smartphone. Your aging parent or loved one can wear a medical alert device to ensure their safety and use Bluetooth-enabled health monitoring devices, such as a blood pressure monitor, to record their vitals measurements and securely share it with any registered family members via the app.
This service can provide reassuring, regular updates on their condition, keep concerned family members in the loop, and gather the data to easily share with medical care providers. Also, with Care Logistics, you can keep communication with your care circle in a single place. This includes important documents like health insurance cards and test results. People can also “claim” certain important events, like volunteering to provide transportation to a doctor’s appointment or cooking dinner.
Care Professionals
In some cases, your loved one may receive professional in-home care. This can be visitors from physicians, nurses, or even specialty treatments or physical therapy. If someone is regularly a part of caring for your loved one, they are absolutely part of their care circle.
The biggest benefit of communicating regularly with care professionals is their expertise. They are able to help and monitor the most important aspects of your loved one’s health, which means less time needs to be spent traveling to doctors and appointments.
Then there is the added benefit that care professionals have a less biased perspective on your loved one’s care. Your loved one may feel more comfortable telling them things because of their expertise and because they aren’t deeply ingrained in your family dynamics. Sometimes, it’s easier to talk to an unbiased professional than it is to a family member.
Friends & Neighbors
If your loved one has friends nearby or is close with their neighbors, don’t miss the opportunity to invite them into the care circle. Since they likely are not as emotionally close with your loved one as their family is, you may not want to bother them, but you may be surprised how often people want to pitch in to help someone they care about.
You don’t have to ask their neighbor to take your loved one’s blood pressure or ensure they take their medicine for them to contribute to their care. Simply having someone else stop in to check on them, cook them a meal, invite them to a movie, or rake leaves can be a huge help. It saves you a trip over there and it gets more familiar faces around your loved one. It’s helpful for both your and your loved one’s stress levels and mental health.
Support & hobby groups
If your loved one has a hobby, church or other social group they’ve been a part of, do your best to maintain that as part of their life. One of the hardest things about getting older is losing one’s independence and not being able to do the things you once enjoyed.
Support & hobby groups get your loved one out of the house and help them maintain vital social connections. They also might confide certain things to their friends in these situations that they would be hesitant to tell you. The more socially and emotionally engaged you can keep your loved one, the better.
Counseling
A professional counselor provides you and your loved one with trained, expert care in a season of difficult transition. The right counselor will make both of you feel safe to share whatever is on your mind. In turn, they will be able to connect the dots between your various concerns and difficulties and provide helpful, actionable advice on how to help your loved one best adapt to their new situation.
It is very hard to help someone who doesn’t want to be helped. For many people, suddenly not being fully independent is a very difficult adjustment to make. This is understandable, but you don’t have to resign yourself to it just being a difficult situation. Anything you can do to help ease that transition should translate into a better caregiving experience for both you and your loved one.
Being a family caregiver is among the most rewarding and important tasks anyone can undertake. It is also complicated, time-consuming, tiring, and expensive. By establishing a reliable care circle for your loved one, you can build the support system they need. An effective care circle doesn’t just offer a richer, more rewarding experience for your loved one, it also eases your personal responsibilities and allows you to give your best care each and every day.
What is Connected Caregiver?
Connected Caregiver is a senior medical alert and health monitoring system made specifically for family caregivers. We understand that caring for aging parents and loved ones can be difficult, and have committed ourselves to equipping caregivers with the tools to make caregiving a little easier.
We believe no family caregiver should ever feel overwhelmed and alone. The incredible people who commit their time and energy to ensure the safety of their loved ones deserve the very best resources to safeguard their families and their own lives. Most of all, they deserve to feel in control and confident in their ability to care for the people they care about most.
We are preparing to launch a new app to help with the day-to-day management and organization of caregiving. A core feature of the app will be the ability to communicate with a care circle and share information related to doctor’s appointments, health vitals, medication, and any other detail that matters to the care of your loved one. If you are interested, please complete the form below and be one of the first to know when it is available.