If you are one of the millions of working caregivers in the US then you can likely relate to the following scenario.
Imagine getting up in the morning at 5:00 am and hopping in the shower, running to get the coffee going and then to wake up a sleeping 15 year old who has to catch the bus to school. While he showers you knock on the extra bedroom door and wake up your 85 year old mother. She has Dementia, Diabetes, and a heart condition. You help her out of bed, into any clean clothes you can get your hands on, and into the kitchen to begin taking her daily regimen of medications. Your son can’t find his homework so you attempt to help him recall where he was sitting when he presumably completed it last night. Oh-a printer problem, you quickly fix that connection with a reset and he grabs the homework and a few dollars because he is out of lunch money at school, and runs out to get the bus. Your mother is ready for her breakfast so a piece of toast with jelly is what you can manage while you hop into something suitable for the office and take a look at the clock. It is 7 am, you help your mother into the rest room, then set another cup of coffee by her chair in the TV room. You turn on Good Morning America, give her a kiss and tell her you will call her at lunch to remind her to eat. A sandwich is on the counter (don’t’ ask how you had time for that).
At work you do not discuss your home challenges with anyone but you feel ready to fall apart. The co-worker in the cubicle next to you is on maternity leave. Everyone had a baby shower for her and is filling in for her responsibilities while she is home adjusting to life with a new baby. You want to cry but hold it together. Exhaustion is too long a word for your brain to come up with—you are pooped.
According to the National Alliance of Caregivers, 43.5 million of adult family caregivers care for someone 50+ years of age and 14.9 million care for someone who has Alzheimer’s disease or other dementia. The average age of caregiver is 48.0 years; about 51% of caregivers are between the ages of 18 and 49. Forty-one percent of caregivers have children, too. Part of the “sandwich generation,” many women will spend more years caring for a parent than they do raising a child. (National Alliance for Care giving and AARP, 1997) http://www.theseniorsource.org/pages/StatInfo_CAREGIVER.html
Caregiver depression is real. Sure, for those of us who are parents we can harken back to the early days of care giving. But even on those days where we “hit the wall of fatigue” because we have been up 3 nights in a row with a sick child, in our minds we know this ends. Our children grow up. They grow out of the house. They grow independent. And we have joy in our role of helping them accomplish that independence.
But what happens when the reverse is true. Like in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button where Brad Pitt’s character is born old and his life moves backwards. In the eyes of a child, aren’t our parents very old when we meet them? I mean, thinking back to your first days of awareness of your parents as your parents. Didn’t they seem old? Yes, they get older but eventually if we become caregivers doesn’t it seem like there is a childish quality that emerges? A dependence that we often don’t see coming and for which we have not planned.
We think about our parents at night and during the day. We wonder if they will fall, wander, or be happy today. Will they take their medications, will they eat enough and drink enough. Have they gained more than 5 pounds this week, indicating congestive heart failure? How could I forget to take their blood sugar before giving them that cup of coffee? At home we can find we are increasingly in demand. Let me tell you, a two hour toilet schedule eats up a lot of your day.
Unlike going to work and sharing pictures of your children, most caregivers keep the worry and fatigue to themselves. A sense of isolation increases and depression can be the result. Symptoms of caregiver depression are:
• Feelings of hopelessness, agitation and/or restlessness
• Loss of interest in activities
• Irritability or frustration over small things
•Either Insomnia or Excessive sleeping
• Changes in appetite
•Sense of Fatigue, decreased energy
• Feelings of worthlessness or guilt, blaming yourself when things don’t go right
• Frequent thoughts of death, dying or suicide
• Unexplained physical problems like back pain or headaches
What can you do to prevent caregiver depression? Ask for help! Reassess your commitments. Take time for other relationships and for yourself, (and this will likely mean asking for help). Stay positive. A recent study found that it is not the care giving itself that will lead to illness for the caregiver but the stress of care giving. In fact, in those caregivers who found healthy ways to manage the stress and who report satisfaction through care giving, little impact to health and wellness was noted.
Truly, there is a blessing in being a caregiver. An opportunity to slow down and really know someone. Because things take longer, the pace is slower. Less, and yet more is accomplished. More stories are told, more memories are shared. A sense of making a difference in a true manner emerges.
Not surprisingly, many of those caregivers that we have hired at Seniors Helping Seniors In Home Care of New Hampshire are the very people who cared for an aging parent and found deep satisfaction and fulfillment. They come to us missing that role in their lives and with an understanding and caring that knows no bounds. They relieve the stress for a family caregiver, and acknowledge the blessing of giving as a senior care provider.