Caregiving Tips from the Trenches: Family Caregivers Tell What Works for Them

To help lessen the frustration and isolation, family caregivers who blog on Caregiving.com share their best suggestions to help other family caregivers. The tips come during November, National Family Caregivers Month
 
Nov. 4, 2010 - PRLog -- According to recent research from the National Alliance for Caregiving, 29% of the U.S. adult population, or 65.7 million people, are family caregivers. While the numbers would seem to indicate family caregivers are in good company, the rub of caregiving is that it can often feel that you are the only one. The caregiving experience can feel lonely, exhausting and exasperating.

To help lessen the frustration and isolation, family caregivers who blog on Caregiving.com share their best suggestions to help other family caregivers. On Caregiving.com, 12 family caregivers blog about their days. Some care for parents, some for spouses. All care that others in similar situations know that they are not alone. With that in mind, three of Caregiving.com's bloggers offer their tips to manage the stress of caregiving.

G-J, who cared for her parents and now cares for her husband who was diagnosed last year with Mild Cognitive Impairment, says: “Educate yourself! Educate yourself about your caree's condition, find out what resources are available to you and your family, ask questions. Use the internet, telephone and word of mouth to find what you need and connect with those people and organizations who can provide the help, or information you need.”

She adds: “Realize it's okay to have and enforce your limits. This might relate to the amount of things scheduled on your calendar, what you offer to do for others, how much help you are willing to accept, and how much information you want. Only you can decide what is best for you and, therefore, for your family.”

You can read G-J's blog here: http://www.caregiving.com/articles/blogs/g-js-blog/

Holly Eburne, who cares for her husband, diagnosed with Frontotemporal dementia, encourages family caregivers to exercise every day for up to 30 minutes. “Exercise produces endorphins which is a natural anti-depressent and 50 times more potent than morphine,” Holly says.”It will improve your physical health which gives you more energy. You have better emotional health because it calms down the chatter in your brain and elevates your mood. It helps your mental health and you will have a better memory and quality of sleep because you are less stressed. Your immune system gets a boost because you are producing lower amounts of cortisol, our stress hormone, and therefore reduces your risk for becoming seriously ill. Caregivers are 40-75% at risk for developing a serious illness. Can you imagine? All of these benefits from 30 minutes a day!”

You can read Holly's blog here: http://www.caregiving.com/articles/blogs/hollyeburne/

Bette Scott, who cares for her mom while raising her three children, offers these tips:

--Caregiving yields life lessons; be gentle with yourself as you experience its teachable moments.
--Utilize help so that you can arrange for things to look forward to in your week.
--Never feel like you are alone. Join a support group. Locate a Life Coach who you can share concerns and vent to, who will understand and help you sort through the challenges and confusion in caregiving.
--Have a team of people that you can call on so that you can have time for yourself. You will be stronger and it will be a nice change for your caree as well.

You can read Bette's blog here: http://www.caregiving.com/articles/blogs/bette/

“The best resource for a family caregiver is another family caregiver,” says Denise M. Brown, Caregiving.com founder and owner. “That's why we feature the voices of family caregivers on our website—so other family caregivers gain comfort and insights.”
   
To connect with other family caregivers, learn from free webinars and gain skills in caregiving classes, visit Caregiving.com.

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Caregiving.com offers insights, information and inspirations to families and professionals in an elder caregiving role.
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