May 28, 2021
Being a caregiver is incredibly rewarding, but it also comes with its share of challenges. Spending a large portion of your day meeting someone else’s needs can make it easy to forget about your own. You may find you are neglecting your own needs for eating, sleeping, and enjoying life that can quickly lead to burnout. Here are four common signs of caregiver burnout, as well as tips for avoiding them!
4 Common Symptoms of Caregiver Burnout
Caregiver Burnout Sign #1: Feeling Overwhelmed or Exhausted
Being overwhelmed from time to time as a caregiver is not uncommon, but it shouldn’t be a constant feeling. Although meeting someone else’s daily needs on top of your own can be challenging, it’s important to remember that you don’t have to do everything yourself.
What You Can Do
- Allow yourself to accept help from friends, family members, and outside resources. Take the initiative to ask for help with specific tasks. People often want to help, but don’t know what you need specifically, or don’t think to ask.
- Focusing on what you can do tends to be more productive than investing too much energy into too many things and feeling stressed about what you can’t get done. You can’t be everything to everyone, and it’s important to know how much you can handle while still doing your best and taking care of yourself.
Caregiver Burnout Sign #2: Changes in Your Own Health
Stress, struggles with time management, and other burnout-related inconsistencies can lead you to neglect your own eating, exercise, and other healthy habits. This can lead to weight loss or gain, which can have an impact on your overall energy levels and outlook on life.
What You Can Do
If you find that you’re frequently forgetting to eat, gravitating toward unhealthy foods, or struggling to stick with your exercise routine, making small changes can go a long way toward helping you get back on track. Try implementing one or two of these ideas at a time and see what feels good:
- Eating more fruits and vegetables throughout the day.
- Schedule short workout sessions that you enjoy (yoga, anyone?)
- Go to bed 30 minutes earlier
- Try a guided meditation before bed to de-stress
- Take a walk or do something for yourself first thing in the morning
- Spend 10 minutes journaling daily
Sometimes adjusting more than one area of your life can feel like too much. Remember, making even one change at a time can have a significant impact on your health.
Caregiver Burnout Sign #3: Loss of Interest in Hobbies and Passions
The person you’re caring for may be your most important priority right now, but they shouldn’t consume your entire life. But not having interest in doing anything, even starting a new TV show, is common among full-time family caregivers. It’s hard to maintain the physical and emotional energy you once had for your favorite activities.
What You Can Do
Just like getting your health back on track, maintaining your passions may come in baby steps, and they may change over time.
Start by thinking about or writing down what you loved or made you happy about your hobbies. Do those thoughts still bring you joy or make you want to participate? If so, find a way to adjust your current lifestyle to make time for it, even if it’s less than what you used to do, or requires some accommodations from others to make it happen.
However, if you find that thinking of those activities no longer spark joy or make you tired just thinking about them, consider setting those aside for the time being and focusing on new activities that energize you. This could be as simple as calling an old friend or close family member once a week, or rereading a favorite book.
Caregiver Burnout Sign #4: Irregular Habits
Doing your best to stick to a regular schedule is a must when it comes to avoiding caregiver burnout and keeping yourself healthy. Although it isn’t uncommon for caregivers to skip meals, fall behind on household chores, and get far too little sleep, your body and home still need regular attention in order to maintain a sense of balance in your life.
What You Can Do
Start by being intentional about your eating and sleeping routines, which are the most important when it comes to boosting your overall health, and gradually add in other healthy habits around your caregiving responsibilities. Having a regular schedule to maintain your own health and wellness could make a big difference in your overall physical and mental wellbeing.
Nye Health Services – Fremont, Norfolk, & Lincoln, Nebraska
At Nye Health Services, we stress the importance of maintaining a balance between caregiving responsibilities and the rest of your life in order to minimize burnout and be the most effective caregiver you can be. Contact us today to learn more about the services we offer, including respite care and home health care, to help you and your loved one stay healthy.
Apr 1, 2021
Occupational therapy (also commonly known as OT) is the only profession that helps people, from young children to frail elderly do the things they want and need to do through the therapeutic use of daily activities. While seniors might not be “working” anymore, making a pot of coffee or reaching the ground to play with a grandchild are meaningful tasks. Kathy Kirby, an occupational therapist with more than 20 years of experience, shares 5 ways occupational therapy can benefit seniors.
Provide Support
Occupational therapists provide support for older adults experiencing physical and cognitive changes. As OTs incorporate helpful modifications patients may resume completing essential daily jobs like taking medications correctly and on time, getting dressed safely and in a reasonable amount of time, or making a trip to the grocery store successfully.
Help Regain Independence
With the help of occupational therapy, many individuals can achieve or regain a higher level of independence than before therapy. Teaching a grandparent to utilize an iPad to communicate with a grandchild or order groceries online opens new doors!
Recommend Home Modifications
When skills and strength cannot be developed or improved, occupational therapists offer creative solutions and alternatives for carrying out daily activities necessary for living day to day. A home safety assessment is a helpful way to see what someone’s needs are in his/her own living area. Occupational therapists are trained to provide input on the placement of helpful adaptations around the home to improve safety, like grab bars and shower chairs.
Create Individual Plans
Occupational therapy practitioners have a holistic perspective, where the focus is on adapting the environment and/or task to fit each individual’s particular goals. OTs look at all aspects of an individual’s routine when designing a plan, and the interventions put in place are made personally meaningful. No plan is the same, from one person to another.
Make the Impossible “Possible Again”
Occupational therapists are creative and can develop new, successful ways to complete a previously impossible task. When a patient begins to use a walker or cane, creativity is key in making sure he/she can get in and out of the car to get to the doctor’s office or move groceries from the car to the kitchen. Occupational therapists make the impossible “possible again.”
At Nye Health Services our outpatient therapy program is a top choice among patients throughout Nebraska and surrounding areas that want to maintain the independence of living at home while recovering from a mild to moderate injury. Contact us today to learn more about our outpatient therapy services or to schedule an appointment!
Mar 1, 2021
With the vast amount of information that is becoming available it isn’t always easy to know what to believe. A growing number of scammers are specifically targeting seniors based on their assumption that you will be more vulnerable to falling for them than tech-savvy younger adults. Here are five of the most common senior scams to watch for, as well as tips for avoiding them and fixing the situation if you do experience them!
Common Senior Scams and How to Avoid Them
Medicare Scams
Navigating your health insurance policy can be challenging for anyone, and scammers tend to target seniors and other groups who they believe are less likely to understand the benefits and requirements of Medicare. However, it’s important to know that every US citizen or permanent resident qualifies for Medicare. Be cautious when communicating with individuals that may be pretending to be Medicare representatives or trying to provide bogus services in order to benefit from your policy.
Counterfeit Prescription Drugs
Taking expensive prescription drugs may lead you to search online for more affordable alternatives, but it’s important to make sure that you are buying your medications from a reputable source. The FDA investigates approximately twenty major counterfeit prescription drug scams each year. At best, taking these fake medications will cause you to lose money while doing nothing to help you, and many contain unsafe ingredients that can have an even more harmful impact on your health.
Funeral and Cemetery Scams
You want your family to be in the best possible situation when organizing your funeral, and being aware of potential scams that may come up when they are the most vulnerable to not thinking clearly about them can help them avoid the added stress of losing money. Scammers may identify families to target with calls claiming you owed false debts that need to be paid by reading obituaries, and dishonest funeral directors may try to sell services that are not needed.
Homeowner Reverse Mortgage Scams
If you’re not sure how much longer you want to own your home and are considering a reverse mortgage, be sure any communication you receive comes from the correct company. Scammers can send fraudulent letters that appear to be legitimate that give you a fabricated assessed value for your home and pressure you to take out equity to have repairs made to increase this value. Be vigilant when considering such repairs, as these may benefit companies much more than they will benefit you.
Telephone Scams
Robocalls have become much more common than they used to be in recent years, especially if you have a cell phone. These “callers,” which are often not even real people, attempt to gain access to your personal information using made-up:
- low interest rates
- free vacations
- card services
- other phony business concerns
Know that legitimate callers will leave a message with their contact information and will not ask you outright for credit card, banking, or other sensitive information, and never give these details to suspicious callers.
What to Do if You’ve Been Scammed
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) handles a variety of types of scam complaints. You can contact the FTC online or by phone at 1-877-382-4357 to report a scam as soon as you realize it happened to minimize the potential damage to yourself and other targets of the scammer. Be sure to have your banking information available, as well as a description of what the scammer wanted from you and any of his or her contact information you have.
Jan 29, 2021
5 Things to Consider When Helping a Parent With Dementia Move to Assisted Living
Deciding when it’s time to consider moving your parent(s) into an assisted living community can be challenging, especially if you notice if they are beginning to develop signs of dementia that may make his or her daily life harder or even unsafe.
Here are 5 ways based on our experience, that you can help your parent(s) choose a safe and welcoming community that meets his or her needs and make the transition to assisted living a little easier!
Early Signs of Dementia to Look For
Knowing the early signs of dementia, a general term that addresses the loss of memory, language, and similar concepts, can help you identify when continuing to live without assistance may no longer be the best option.
Although the early stages of dementia can vary significantly and do not necessarily indicate that your parent cannot safely live at home, when you see signs of dementia progressing and significantly impact your parent’s life, it may mean it’s time to step in. Some of the most common things to look for include short-term memory problems, limited social skills and problems keeping track of belongings, bills, meals, and appointments.
Start the Conversation Early
Discussing moving a loved one with dementia to an assisted living community that offers memory care programs and services sooner, rather than later, can help you and your family get an idea of your parent’s preferences before his or her memory loss makes having a clear conversation challenging. Having this conversation as soon as you start to notice signs of dementia gives everyone who will be involved in the process time to make decisions that meet your parent’s needs.
Consider Communities That Offer Memory Care Services
Choosing a memory care community that specializes in creating a structured environment for residents with dementia instead of a traditional assisted living community can improve your parent’s quality of life. These communities provide set routines to make life easier and less stressful for residents with significant memory loss, in addition to assisting with day-to-day tasks.
Choosing a memory care facility near you that specializes in creating a structured environment for residents with dementia instead of a traditional senior living/assisted living community can improve your parent’s quality of life. These memory care communities and their care teams provide set routines to make life easier and less stressful for residents with significant memory loss, in addition to assisting with day-to-day tasks.
Visit the Community With Your Parent
While the current landscape has made health concerns even more so top of mind, visiting communities safely is still an option. When discussing joining a new community, keeping your parent(s) involved throughout the process and taking their preferences to heart can reassure them that you have their best interests in mind.
Taking a live virtual tour of the community you are interested in with your parent(s) allows for exploring the layout, discovering amenities, meeting staff members, and discussing any financial concerns you may have.
Make the Move as Simple as Possible
Moving isn’t always easy, but careful planning can help make the process less stressful for you, your parent(s), and any other family members or friends involved. Choosing the time of day when your parent is the most alert and mentally present, often around noon, can help to reduce confusion and give your parent the best chance to adjust to their new environment. Deciding which belongings to bring to make your parent’s new community feel like home in advance and making a plan for what to do with the rest, including your parent’s home, can help you feel less rushed on moving day.
Getting Started
At Nye Health Services, we know that deciding when it’s time to start considering assisted living options for your parents isn’t always easy, and we are here to help guide you through the decision making process.
If you’ve noticed signs that your parent may be developing dementia or another type of memory loss that is interfering with his or her daily life, now is the time to start considering your options. Contact us today to learn more about our memory care services or to schedule a tour of any of our communities!
Nye Health Services – Assisted Living Community & Memory Care Norfolk, NE
Nye Health Services was established in 1989 on the philosophy that older adults deserve services that recognize the individual and are tailored to their unique needs. As a company, we do not aspire to be the largest, instead, we aim to uphold our mission by providing award-winning health services that make our residents feel genuinely cared for and connected while realizing life’s joy.
For more information about our Memory Care Services and to schedule a visit, please visit our Memory Care Services page or contact us directly. At The Meadows, we are dedicated to helping individuals live each moment to the fullest, fostering a sense of purpose and connection in their lives.
Oct 12, 2020
It’s Officially Fall Time, But Don’t Fall!
The fear of falling can keep older adults from being active and enjoying life. The good news is that you can prevent many falls by making minor adjustments to your home and taking care of your health.
Here are Kathy’s Top Fall Prevention Tips:
- Make an appointment with your doctor to review:
- What medications are you taking? Make a list of your prescription and over-the-counter medications.
- Have you fallen before? Write down the details, including when, where and how you fell.
- Could your health conditions cause a fall? Let your doctor know if you feel it is more difficult to keep your balance or if you feel weak.
- Keep moving
- Physical activity can go a long way toward fall prevention. Walking, water exercise, chair yoga are good choices. Such activities reduce the risk of falls by improving strength, balance, coordination and flexibility.
- Wear sensible shoes
- Consider changing your footwear as part of your fall-prevention plan. High heels, floppy slippers and shoes with slick soles can make you slip, stumble and fall. Walking in stocking feet poses an increased risk to your safety.
- Remove home hazards
- Take a look around your home. Your living room, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, hallways and stairways may be filled with potenital danger. Keep your floor clutter free.
- Light up your living space
- Keep your home brightly lit to avoid tripping on objects that are hard to see.
- Use assistive devices
- Your doctor might recommend using a cane or walker to keep you steady. Other assistive devices can help, too.
- If necessary, ask your doctor for a referral to an occupational therapist. He or she can help you brainstorm other fall-prevention strategies.
If someone you love could benefit from these tips, click here to download this sheet and print it off for your loved one.
For more ideas on how to make the home safer learn more about our Nye Home Health Care Services, click here.
Oct 9, 2020
Bringing up the idea that it may be time to consider assisted living to your parents may not be easy for you and your family. However, we’ve provided a list of ways to approach these conversations that can help make them more meaningful and productive.
Research Senior Care Options
In order to focus your research on locations that will best meet your parents’ needs, think about their current health and level of independence in order to determine whether assisted or independent living is most appropriate. Assisted living communities provide more consistent care and access to staff, while independent living simply eliminates the responsibilities of homeownership and will more closely resemble your parents’ current lifestyle. In addition, many communities offer specialized healthcare services, such as:
- physical therapy and rehabilitation
- memory care
- medication administration
- personal care assistance
- other specialized services that are tailored to meet individual needs
Involve Your Parent(s)
Involving your parents in your decision-making process shows them that their happiness during retirement is important to you. Be sure to ask them for their perspective and take their input to heart regarding:
- how they feel about their health
- what type of care they need
- which community they prefer
- what they would like to do with their home
- what to do if they or their spouse experience sudden, serious health issues
Use Positive Phrasing and Tone
Using the right terminology can go a long way toward helping your parents develop a positive outlook on leaving their current home. “Assisted living facility” and similar phrasing can be off-putting, and Nye’s retirement communities prioritize creating a happy place for your parents to spend their senior years that is filled with amenities, fun things to do, and meaningful relationships with others in the community.
Although this discussion can be challenging for many families, using a respectable tone and setting up your conversation for two-way dialogue that respects your parents’ thoughts can help you peacefully and productively talk through the delicate decisions you need to make.
Consider Finances
Finances are a common concern among families considering assisted living options, but there are many ways to make assisted living more affordable. Begin by talking with your parents about their financial situation and what they have saved for retirement, as well as with one of our Senior Living Advisors to learn more about the costs of each retirement option you are considering.
Involve Your Siblings and Loved Ones
Although you may feel tempted to make a decision yourself, it is usually best to involve your siblings and loved ones in the decision-making process. This approach helps to assure your parents that the people they care about want what’s best for them and are working together to find the best assisted living option available. Presenting unity and moral support throughout the process can make a significant difference in easing the transition to senior living for your parents.
Explore and Tour Communities
Visiting the communities you are interested in is a must before making a final decision. If possible, tour communities with your parents and siblings in order to be sure that everyone is on the same page. Remember to focus on communities that offer a variety of options for specialized care that your parents may need, as well as the necessary amenities. You should also consider the travel distance from where the community is relative to family and friends in the area for future get-togethers and special events.
Involve Your Parent’s Doctor
Although you won’t automatically have access to your parents’ health information because of HIPAA laws, which protect patients’ confidentiality, a parent can recommend that you and your siblings have access to this information in order to help them make decisions. Discussing your parents’ health and any concerns you may have with their doctor and asking for his or her recommendations is an important step in making an informed decision regarding assisted living.
At Nye Health Services, our retirement communities provide amenities and services that will give your parents a safe and enjoyable place to spend their senior years. While we know that conversations about assisted living are rarely easy, we hope that taking advantage of these suggestions will make your family’s discussions less difficult.
Feel free to contact us to learn more about how choosing one of our retirement communities can be the perfect match for your family or to schedule a tour of any of our locations!
