Respite Care San Diego

Manage Feelings of Guilt

Feelings of guilt are often associated with caring for persons who require constant care, however, the best thing you can do for yourself is manage those feelings as soon as you notice them. As a caregiver, you are only as good as you feel. This may sound a little strange but it’s true. If you are not at your best, it is impossible for you to deliver the best care possible to the person you are caring for. If you are experiencing feelings of anxiety and stress, the person you are caring for will feel the effects.

You must always remember, even though your loved one is in a state where it would appear they are completely unaware of what is going on around them, they still have the ability to feel and to sense danger, experience emotional hurt, and have a general sense of something being wrong with the person in charge of their care. This is one of the reasons why respite care is such an important element to add into your treatment plan. Respite Care San Diego affords you the freedom, and grants you the permission you need to be able to take a step back, and just take a much-needed break, so you can refresh and rejuvenate yourself.

You have to understand that it is impossible to be all things to all people, especially to those you are responsible for taking care of. You should also come to understand, you should never feel guilty about taking some time out for yourself, because the truth of the matter is, the time you spend taking care of yourself and doing something you enjoy only enhances your ability to give the person you are caring for the best care possible.

Keeping Everything in Balance

If you are the caregiver for someone who has Alzheimer’s or some other form of dementia, sometimes it can be difficult to take care of all of the tasks you are responsible for in any given day. You may have noticed your loved one is more difficult to handle during certain times of the day. There is a reason for this, and the term associated with this phenomenon is sundowning. Sundowning occurs during the late afternoon to the early evening hours and is triggered when the sun begins to fade. As the evening hours move into nighttime hours, sundowning tends to get worse. Generally, by morning, people tend to be better, but if you are the one who had to provide the care and attention needed during those hours, you are more than likely going to be both emotionally and physically drained.

Respite care can be the answer to helping you find your sense of balance, and help you maintain your physical and mental health. Just knowing you have somewhere safe you can take your loved one can help put your mind at ease while you take a break and partake in activities you enjoy.

Not Just for the Elderly

Respite care is not only for those who are elderly. If you are the primary caregiver for someone who has a chronic or debilitating illness like Downs Syndrome or Multiple Sclerosis, for instance, respite care can benefit you. Often times when persons are being cared for in the home, they tend to feel a certain sense of isolation. If they are elderly, they may have experienced the deaths of several friends, or they may have fallen into a state of depression because they are not socializing at the levels they were accustomed to when they lived independently.

Everyone needs socialization, and everyone needs to feel like their life has a purpose. Respite care can help caregivers and those who care for them by giving those who may feel isolated a place they can go outside of the home. There they can communicate with others in similar situations. They also have the opportunity to socialize with others in their peer group. Sometimes just being around others in similar situations is enough to give those who have lost their sense of independence the will to move forward and make the adjustments needed to accept their current state of being.

Extended and Emergency Care

It is important to recognize, respite care is not only there to give you a break for a few hours, respite care is also available to help you when you need to go out of town for a weekend away, and also times when you need to be gone for a week or more due to an out of town work assignment. You should consider visiting facilities offering respite care in case of an emergency. If for some reason, you needed to place your loved one you, need the comfort of knowing you didn’t just place them somewhere because of desperation. You need to be able to trust the facility caring for your loved one, so visiting respite care facilities before an emergency arises will prevent you from experiencing undue stress at a time when you need it the least.

Remember, respite care is there to take some of the burden away from you, the caregiver. Respite services can be provided in the home, or outside of the home. Respite care services can include, but are not necessarily limited to:

• helping you organize a personalized care plan
• giving you an opportunity to take a break
• taking care of chores around the home like cooking, cleaning, and helping with basic hygiene
• Socialization
• connecting you with support groups 

You don’t have to handle everything on your own. There is help available, and caring people who are there to take care of your loved one and give you the peace of mind you need to live a life that is full and healthy. Give a Respite Care facility a call today to see how it can be of service to you.

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What is Assisted Living?

The primary definition of assisted living is a long-term senior care option that offers supportive aid, health services, and housing. Essential services often include transportation, medical management, and 24-hour emergency care. Mom or Dad will be able to ask the staff for assistance with daily tasks.

Depending upon personal preferences, budget, and layout of the specific home, residents in assisted living may enjoy a private room or share space in an apartment. Assisted living centers should be licensed by the state in which they are situated, yet they are not federally regulated.

What is Memory Care?

A memory care facility is intended specifically for patients with dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, and other memory disorders. Sometimes these homes are referred to as SCUs – special care units. Typically, memory care units provide supervised services around the clock, and they are often located on a separate floor or area of a residential center. The staff is specially trained and qualified to assist and nurture people with cognitive problems or dementia, often through customized guided activities.

A unique and necessary feature of memory care is the high level of security, which is designed to meet the specific needs of patients with Alzheimer’s and dementia. Wandering is minimized, and the layout is usually easy for residents to navigate. Another benefit of memory care that is growing in popularity is outdoor gardens, which have been shown to enhance the lives of Alzheimer’s patients dramatically.

The state must license memory care facilities, and they are also regulated in 23 states by SCU disclosure rules, which require them to inform the public about their special services.

Which Basic Services Are Provided by Both Assisted Living and Memory Care?

• Emergency call buttons and systems
• Exercise/health programs
• Medical care access
• 24-hour staff and security
• Housekeeping and laundry
• Social programs
• Daily meals
• Transportation

Do Memory Care and Assisted Living Cost the Same?

A number of factors determine the cost of every senior care facility. The size of the rooms, shared versus private space, geographic location, and available services all play a role in the final expense. However, when comparing the price of memory care versus assisted living, there are additional considerations.

Assisted living is typically charged on a monthly basis, which includes room and board with two or three meals a day. Some of these homes provide laundry and housekeeping in the base rate, while others tack on cleaning services as an additional charge. In comparison, memory care also offers specialized nursing, which makes the cost considerably higher than assisted living. However, the final fee of both places depends upon the patient’s insurance plan or veterans’ benefits.

How to Make Your Final Decision? 

Ask yourself the following questions:

1. How Active Is Mom or Dad? 

Some seniors are very involved in social and physical activities. They regularly participate in golden-age exercise groups, games, and art classes, as well as attend lectures and cultural performances. However, when it comes to bathing, dressing or preparing food, they may not be entirely independent. Sometimes this is because their mobility is impaired due to age or they have mild dementia. In general, these individuals are well suited for assisted living.

2. Does Mom or Dad Have a Memory Problem?

If your mother or father has progressive memory impairment, their needs will typically be more complex and specialized. They may require assistance that goes way beyond help with hygiene and getting dressed, and it can be unsafe for them to live without enough supervision.  In this case, memory care may be the most appropriate living solution.

3. Does Your Loved One Wander?

It is usual for patients with Alzheimer’s or dementia to wander off at any hour of the day or night. They are often found walking the halls or streets, lost and confused. This practice increases their risk of injuries due to slips and falls. Memory care homes are designed to address this problem with advanced security systems and staff that keeps an eye on patients at all times.

What is Your Final Step?

There is no substitute for seeing things for yourself. After you contemplate and have answers to the issues above, it is advisable to visit some local facilities that satisfy your parent’s requirements. Prepare in advance by compiling a list of what you want to know; the Alzheimer’s Association has a helpful, comprehensive checklist for choosing residential care, which you can adapt to meet your needs. 

Ideally, you should first visit alone to narrow down the options, and then bring Mom or Dad for a follow-up trip. They may have their own questions and concerns that you didn’t consider. Also, you can observe how they fit in with the crowd, as well as how the staff interacts with them. These are all clues that can help you match your mother or father to the type of senior care that’s best for them.

Last, but not least, no matter which setting you select – do not feel guilty about putting your parent in assisted living or a memory care facility. This decision is challenging and filled with emotion for all children. However, it helps to keep sight of the end goal – to optimize the quality of life for your loved one by keeping them comfortable, safe, and as independent as possible. For more information and assistance with your decision, please contact our friendly and compassionate staff at Lakeside Manor.

The post Memory Care or Assisted Living? Making the Best Choice for Mom or Dad appeared first on Lakeside Manor.

We’ve all heard this cliché, or something close to it: “The first step in dealing with a problem is admitting that a problem exists.” The reason we over-hear and over-use this expression so often in problem solving is, simply, that it’s true. When you build up a wall to shut issues out, you’re also barricading yourself from seeing solutions.

For your and your loved one’s benefit, a little perspective and a lot of positivity can help. For those who are dedicated to continuing the bond of caring for a Dementia loved one, there are ways to strategize the strife and turn your loved one’s new lifestyle into a surprising success.

Proteins, Plaques & Tangles… Your Kryptonite

We’d all like to be able to duck into a phone booth and re-emerge seconds later as Super Guardian, Support Giver of Steel. We’d like to be faster than a speeding wanderer, more powerful than paranoia and able to leap tall schedules in a single bound.

And while our superpowers are busy saving the world from sundowner’s syndrome, our alter ego will continue to thrive at work, get plenty of rest and exercise, find time to clean and manage the household and carve out some social, sanity-saving support time for ourselves. What’s more, we’ll be the perfect purveyors of all the physical, mental and safety care Dementia requires, around the clock. And, there will still be plenty of time leftover every day to appreciate and spend time with our loved one who’s been side-winded by Dementia. The problem is, Dementia seems to have its own super powers – shapeshifting and multiplying included. At times it can seem like we’re staving off a whole alternate universe of adversaries.

Dementia, a build up of proteins causing plaques and tangles in our loved one’s brain, is a Kryptonite of sorts that can render everyone close to it powerless.

Placing a loved one in residential Dementia care isn’t a surrender. It’s a change in strategy.

If you’ve placed your Dementia loved one into residential care, chances are it was a heart-wrenching choice, resulting from a lengthy period of declining health on your loved one’s part and declining ability to keep up with needed care on the home team’s part. The more progressed Dementia becomes, the more it requires hour to hour, even minute to minute, attention… to everything. From personal care to safety issues to doctor and therapy appointments to meal times and memory activities – along with, for many, the challenges of sundowning and some disheartening interactions.

At some point, the limitations of at-home Dementia care begin to outweigh the good stuff. Relationships we value can become strained and you’re probably neglecting some of your own health and wellness needs, too – which doesn’t help your efforts.

When you make the most of what residential Dementia care can offer, you’re not giving up on the person you love, nor are you giving up care. You’re simply strategizing a solution that can help you to focus on what’s dearest to you – the bond you share and the loving support you want to provide. In fact, placing a loved one into residential Dementia care can give all who are involved an opportunity to repair and strengthen relationships that have grown tense as now the deluge of moment to moment Dementia triage is out of the equation.

Some Commonly Experienced Emotions After an Assisted Living Placement

For this article, we’ll assume you’ve found your Dementia loved one a residential care facility that you’re comfortable and pleased with. The facility is clean, safe, homey, well-appointed and brimming with memory care and social activities. The staff is friendly, dedicated, attentive and professional. Logistics of medication management and meals are well-organized. Personal care needs are attended to. All the boxes are checked. It’s time to get down to emotions.

Where to start?

Because you’re human, you’re going to be feeling all kinds of human things – both positive and negative. And chances are, some of the positive feelings are going to make you feel negative because they’re accompanied by a sense of guilt for feeling positive. If this sounds familiar, it’s because you’re not alone by a longshot.

Negative feelings can stem from:

• A strained relationship that developed prior to residence placement
• Concern over your loved one’s safety and happiness
• A sense that you’ve shirked a responsibility
• The determination to give care back to a person who has cared for you
• Feeling that you’ve disappointed family members and your loved one’s friends
• Feeling that you’ve broken a promise to someone you care deeply for
• Wanting to protect your Dementia loved one and wanting to control or have ownership over all aspects of their environment
• A sense of loss after having devoted so much time to being a primary caregiver
• Missing having your Dementia loved one at home
• Disappointment over a perceived failure on your part (otherwise known as recognizing your human limitations)

And this biggie:

• Acknowledgment of the fact Dementia is progressing

There are a few positive feelings as well:

• You might feel a sense of relief that your Dementia loved one is in a facility that’s designed and staffed to look over their physical and safety needs around the clock. You’ll probably even sleep better.
• You might be pleased, when visiting, to see your loved one immersed in memory care activities and receiving positive attention from residents and staff.
• You’ll likely find that with basic care needs being seen to, you can once again focus on enjoying time with your Dementia loved one.
• You might find you can renew social relationships you haven’t kept up with.
• You might have a bit of carefree fun or just enjoy a little downtime.
• You may finally be able to make a few doctor appointments of your own.

Don’t feel guilty over having positive feelings. Guilt-wallowing makes poor use of time and isn’t what your loved one would want for you – Dementia or no Dementia. It’s possible that visiting your loved one may provoke more guilt than pleasure at first. He or she may seem angry or confused. They may act out in new and surprising ways. After all, they’re human too. But their adjustment isn’t insurmountable.

Turning negative emotions into inspired action: “With great power, comes great responsibility.”**

You are, indeed, not powerless. In fact, the more positive action you take on behalf of your loved one, the more he or she, along with your inter-personal relationship, can benefit. Below are some actionable, and hopefully enjoyable, ideas:

• Visit your loved one and bring a favorite edible treat or some flowers (non-toxic) they’ll enjoy. Bring something fun each time you visit.
• Participate in an activity with your loved one. Join in a game or a craft session. Get to know the people around them.
• Take your loved one out for a walk.
• Talk and listen to your loved one. Wherever the conversation goes (or stops and repeats), if they’re enjoying it, stay with the flow.
• Read to your loved one or look at a picture book together.
• Share music with them.
• Bring plenty of hugs and smiles.
• If you have concerns, don’t confuse or upset your loved one with them. Do; however, speak to staff or management.
• Advocate. Participate.

A residential care facility is more than your loved one’s new home. It’s a service that you’ve hired. Don’t be shy about speaking up. A good residential care facility will want to hear and address your concerns.

• Learn about what a program has to offer. Take part in helping to select activities that can enhance your loved one’s memory care and daily lifestyle. You’ve got the benefit of perspective now. You’ve taken a step back and you can really be an informed and devoted advocate.
• Let your loved one’s caregivers know who your loved one is. You have a little time on your hands. Make a short video that shows them in their pre-Dementia life. Illustrate their interests, personality and accomplishments through photos or samples of their former work. The more caregivers get to know a Dementia patient, the more they come to see the whole person inside.
• Ask questions. Staff and management can offer valuable insight. They might suggest ways to make your visiting time even more enjoyable.
• Offer general feedback and input and let staff and management know when you’re pleased with what they’re doing.
• Take advantage of support services. Many residential facilities offer support groups for the families of their residents. Those that don’t provide it in-house should have information available about local support services recommended by staff and other residents’ families.
• Take advantage of opportunities to learn about Dementia. Understanding the disease itself can help give you perspective, not only on your loved one’s condition, but on the vital role you can fill.
• Volunteer to start a support or Dementia education group.

If you’re considering transitioning your Dementia loved one into residential care, please reach out to us. We’re happy to answer your questions and assist you in whatever way we can.

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