Caregivers of Older Adults Blog | Caregiver Info (21)

As a caregiver, you may be so overwhelmed with caring for your aging parents, a spouse or perhaps a sibling that you have not given any thought to who will care for you when you get to the point of needing assistance. You’re certainly not alone! According to a Pew Research Center study on Views on End-of-Life Medical Treatments, “…fully a quarter of adults (27%) say they have not given very much thought or have given no thought at all to how they would like doctors and other medical professionals to handle their medical treatment at the end of their lives.” Additionally, “one-in-five Americans ages 75 and older (22%) say they have neither written down nor talked with someone about their wishes for medical treatment at the end of their lives.” Keep in mind that this is a culture that plans out every detail of daily life from the time to get up in the morning to the mundane plans of work meetings or exciting vacation excursions, but has made no considerable thought to the inevitable – end of life.

With the many advances in healthcare, people are living longer, healthier lives with a much longer life expectancy than certainly their parents or grandparents. Perhaps that contributes to the idea of putting off making those important decisions. A significant caveat to this way of thinking is that making your end-of-life wishes known is a necessary decision process no matter what your age. Dr. Bernard Hammes, editor of a book, “Having Your Own Say: Getting the Right Care When It Means the Most,” says “while he is especially concerned that people 60 and older make their wishes known to family members and develop a cohesive plan, this should be done by someone who develops a serious illness at any age.”

While the earliest history of Mothers Day dates back to the ancient annual spring festival when the Greeks dedicated this day to maternal goddesses, the history of Mothers Day also goes back to the 1600s in England. This was named Mothering Sunday and it was celebrated annually on the fourth Sunday of Lent to honor mothers. America didn’t get on board until 1908 when Anna Javis first suggested having a national observance of an annual day honoring all mothers because she had loved her mother so much. It actually took an act of congress and in 1914 President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day.

From the Seven Wonders of the World to seven days of the week – the number seven appears over and over in history and is considered for many reasons to be the number of perfection. So instead of waiting to celebrate the traditional ten or twenty-year anniversary – mmLearn.org is celebrating our seven years of producing top-notch videos with presenters providing the latest and best caregiver resources available.

Growing up right in the middle of an older sister, Janie, and Ruth, her younger sister, Joyce never really gave much thought to what that would mean when her parents got older and the expectations that would be placed on her. Busy with her own life, working alongside her husband, Mark, in their family business, it didn’t take long for her to realize that her ailing fathers’ need for caregiving was more than her mother could handle. Always the one to take the initiative in her family, Joyce made visits to her parents several times a week making sure bills were paid, the house was clean, groceries were stocked and when the time came, made the very difficult decision to place her dad in a nursing facility. While this move did lessen the burden on her mother, it also meant that Joyce was now making those weekly visits to both her father in the nursing home and her mother, who was at this point developing some critical health issues of her own, having been diagnosed with early-onset dementia.

Years ago, my mom made a decision to move from my house and go and live with my brother. She had been living with me for many years after my father passed away. But when my brother was suddenly widowed, retired, and living alone, my mom and brother decided that it would be best if mom moved in with him  as he was home during the day and I was still working. That way they could look after each other.

How often do we see someone in a wheelchair or in a hospital or nursing home and not even notice or acknowledge the caregiver close by? On a recent Twitter Chat, the topic of discussion was loneliness among seniors and family caregivers.  The conversation lit up with comments from professional as well as family caregivers and their responses were often times heart breaking:

As you place your hand on the doorknob to enter a room do you ever stop to think about what you might encounter on the other side of that door? What will you find or experience as you step over the threshold? Anytime we are about to walk into a room what waits for us on the other side of the door may be an expected scene or perhaps something so surprising and unanticipated that it may change our life or the life of someone else! As caregivers, regardless of whether we are caring for someone in our home, a nursing home, hospital or hospice, we probably experience these moments of not knowing what to expect each and every time we walk through the door to extend care for our patient or loved one. Learning ways to cope with what often times is unexpected is an important aspect of caregiving.

Women’s handbags can often make or break an outfit and no matter if the style was a jeweled encrusted tote or the latest trendy clutch; my mom never gave up on her “bigger than a bread basket” satchel. She may have given up on the high heeled shoes years earlier, but it was that massive purse we could always count on as kids when we had an emergency or needed extra bobby pins, our favorite toy, or a snack that we knew exactly where to find it. At 91 – mom has little need for so much stuff in her purse other than her wallet, house keys and a good supply of tissues, but nonetheless, the size of her purse has not diminished. It becomes quite challenging to manage not only her cumbersome purse, but her cane as well as very often holding on to a grocery cart – too many items to keep track of while shopping.