June 6, 2025 • 24 mins
The weight of caregiving responsibilities often falls disproportionately on a single person's shoulders. This candid conversation explores the critically important yet frequently overlooked topic of caregiver self-care, offering practical wisdom for those supporting loved ones through illness or aging.
Two healthcare professionals share insights from their years of experience working with caregivers who struggle to balance their own needs while supporting others. They emphasize that perfectionism is the enemy of sustainable caregiving, encouraging caregivers to release unrealistic expectations and accept that some days, just keeping everyone clean and medicated is enough. The discussion highlights simple but powerful self-care strategies: spending time outdoors, accepting help when offered, using journaling to process emotions, and scheduling definitive self-care appointments.
The conversation delves into family dynamics that complicate caregiving, from adult children who abdicate responsibility to those who become overly controlling. Particularly concerning are "high-intensity caregivers" – typically middle-aged women providing 40-50 hours of care weekly while balancing jobs and their own families. These caregivers, often from immigrant backgrounds with strong cultural expectations around family care, face significant health risks when they neglect their own wellbeing.
Beyond identifying problems, Dr. Schlegel and I offer holistic approaches to maintaining caregiver mental health, including meditation, proper nutrition, and establishing sleep routines. We emphasize that healthcare professionals must actively assess caregiver wellbeing during patient visits, recognizing that caregiver burnout affects both the caregiver and care recipient's health outcomes.
Whether you're currently supporting a loved one or know someone who is, this episode provides valuable perspective on creating sustainable caregiving practices. Remember that taking care of yourself isn't selfish—it's necessary for providing the best possible care for those who depend on you.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everyone, I'm Dr Beatrice Ippolit and this is
your World.
Can you discuss the importanceof self-care for caregivers and
provide some example ofself-care activities that
(00:23):
caregivers might?
Speaker 2 (00:25):
see, we always know what each other are thinking.
It must have been that doctoralprogram.
We've been indoctrinated, thankyou, yeah.
So again, you have to developthe trust for them to listen to
you.
So it's going to take time,especially with a caregiver
who's frustrated and maybehaving a difficult time, but
(00:48):
definitely encourage them tojust take a little bit of time
for themselves.
Do something.
Definitely they need to dotheir medical appointments.
So if there's other familymembers, they need to know that
your sister's not taking care,your brother's not taking care
of themselves.
You need to start coming overso they can get their medical
(01:09):
care.
But encourage them to carve outtime.
Encourage them to talk abouttheir frustrations or write them
down, and just encourage themto realize they're not the
police.
They don't need to always bepolicing the client or making
(01:33):
sure you know that they need tosort of give themselves a little
break too.
Not everything can be perfect.
It's okay if you know youdidn't get up.
You got up today and neither ofyou got dressed.
It's okay.
Don't be so hard on yourself.
Not everything needs to beperfect.
I often go into somebody's home.
(01:53):
They're like I'm so sorry it'snot clean or I didn't do the
laundry.
It's like it's okay.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Who cares?
Who cares?
They're in their pajamas.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
The appliance is clean, but they're in their
pajamas.
They're in your pajamas.
The client's clean, but they'rein their pajamas.
They're in their pajamas.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
If I have to explain to you why I didn't do some
cleaning, I may as well inviteyou to help me out, because, at
the end of the day, so it's alot and there are things that we
probably want to do but don'thave the time to do it.
So one of the things that Ialways encourage people to do
(02:32):
regardless whether you are acaretaker or everybody, it goes
for everybody know how to takesome time for yourself.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
And if somebody offers you help, hey, can I
bring you a meal, take it.
Somebody from the church callsand says, hey, can I come over
Come on over.
We're still in our pajamas orthe house isn't all that tidy.
But come on over.
Exactly, Accept the help.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
And sometimes, if I were not to bring lunch to work
and go and sit, even at aMcDonald's, wherever even buy
something, and go and sit at thepark yeah, you know, enjoy that
fresh air and watch kids,people, dogs walking around, so
passing by.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
So just have that moment for yourself go sit at
the, go sit in your car at thebeach, take so a lot of times.
Caregivers have to purchase acertain amount of time, you know
, like four hours or whatever.
So if they do have thatdoctor's appointment, then
you've got four hours.
Do some things for yourself,you know get your nails done, or
(03:39):
go get your hair cut, or godown, go for a walk or, as you
said, just you know sit andthink and just you know, have a
chance to get some fresh air amovie.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
So I don't know if you like movies, so go out for a
movie, do something exactly.
Have some.
That me time it's, it'simportant.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
And that's why journaling can be important,
because you're going to tellthem I want you to do at least
one or two things for yourselfthis week.
So they're writing it, they'rethinking okay, I gotta make sure
.
So they might be journalingmore and thinking more about
things that are really importantand putting them on their
schedule, like I'm gonna takethis one hour today and this one
(04:20):
hour on thursday.
You know, make.
Make so using a diary orjournal so it'll hold, you know.
So they make a little contractwith themselves that they're
going to do something and ifsometimes, when the healthcare
provider comes, that could beyour chance to go out, you know,
you could say you know I've gotto run out, You're here, Is it
(04:41):
okay if I run to the store?
Absolutely, Please Go, Takethat 45 minutes or hour, Take
the time.
You know if your therapist isthere or your nurse is there,
that you could take that littletime or you could go for the
walk while they're there.
So take offers of help and takethe opportunities.
Try to focus on priorities.
(05:03):
You know some things areobviously really important.
Your care, your child or youryou know the person you're
taking care of has to be changedand clean and you know there
may be they have to have theirmedicine.
But other things.
Give yourself a break.
Or maybe get somebody in tohelp with cleaning or laundry or
(05:23):
, you know, if you don't wantthem taking care of your family
member, maybe have people comein and do other things to
support you.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
And one thing I've seen, you know, with some family
members and I'm going to keepon taking that lady who passed
away last year as an exampleI've seen the way that her
daughter treated that homeattendant.
So even though the homeattendant was there, you know,
to remind the patient to takethe medication, cook for the
(05:52):
patient, clean, you know, makesure the patient, you know,
lives in a clean environment, ordo the patient laundry.
But the daughter, you know kindof caught down on many of those
tasks for her.
So the doctor always makes surethat she does her mother's
laundry and she will tell thehome attendant relax, I know my
(06:18):
mom can be a burden, so I'll dothe laundry.
So she makes sure that you knowevery doctor's appointment she
will take her mother and not letthe old maternity back, gives
them a little break and shealways mentioned that to her.
I want you to have some breakabsolutely.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
And if you are the adult caregiver and your
siblings aren't doing as much asyou which could happen because
maybe you're the caregiver thatlives the closest or lives with
the person, fair enough.
But you can ask them to doother things, give them or ask
them to do other tasks, like thelaundry.
Why can't they take the laundryto their place and wash and
(06:57):
bring it back, or to help withyou?
Know you, you're gonna dodoctors appointments.
Can you help with laundry?
Can you?
You know, try to dive, try todivide up some of the
responsibilities so that it canbe helpful, but I definitely
respite.
As you know, respite is veryimportant for a caregiver Very
important, even if it's fourhours, or one day a week, or
(07:20):
whatever.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
It's very important.
Even if it is two hours, butyou have to have some time for
yourself.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
And if there is only one caregiver that's a spouse or
just you know there's only oneperson to take care of it, then
we have to really try to helpthem find the resources so that
they can't get that respite.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
For the mental health component, therapy may be
something, but therapy may notbe needed at all times, right,
so what would be yourrecommendation?
If somebody feels stressed outor anxious, Well, I'm big into
holistic medicine.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
so I love you know, like the deep breathing,
relaxation, you know yoga, likethat they learn some self-care
strategies.
If somebody's religious prayer,of course, is a good one, you
know to engage in meditativeprayer, music, spiritual music.
(08:19):
So encouraging them to use thethings that we've learned in our
education, different strategiesto help their mental health,
things like meditation, deepbreathing, relaxation strategies
I mean I've got a ton of thembecause I've learned them a lot.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
I've been interested in that, so I've learned it over
the year Healthy diet.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Yes, diet, hydration just making sure that they
realize that their diet is veryimportant for their mental
health and that eating properlybecause I think that's another
thing that could happen with thecaregiver is they're so focused
on the client that they don'teat properly.
So making sure, yeah, that theyhave.
If they don't have theopportunity to eat, you know
(09:03):
three regular meals a day thatthey're.
If they don't have theopportunity to eat, you know
three regular meals a day thatthey're eating healthy things in
between or they're doing thingslike protein shakes or things
like that to help keepthemselves.
You know?
Speaker 1 (09:14):
make sure you have a good sleep pattern sleep is very
important.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Unfortunately, for caregivers, that can be
disrupted, whether it be a childor an adult they're caring for,
they can often have, you know,sleep disruption.
So then, how do you, you know,take care of that?
How do you make up some of yoursleep?
Do you take it?
You know, take care of that.
How do you make up some of yoursleep?
Do you take?
You know, do you take naps whenthey're napping?
Speaker 1 (09:37):
And in between, you know, if it is, your role is to
provide the care for that personin the morning, then you will
have the opportunity to sleep atnight.
Do I understand?
At night now you have your ownfamily that you have to take
care of, and that's why gettingextra help is so important it's
for a few hours so that it's notall falling on one person.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Now it's really not proper care for somebody to be
like a paid caregiver, to be24-7.
Like they're supposed to getlike the weekends off or one day
a week off.
So family members shouldn't bedoing it either.
They should not be doing that24, 7, 7 days a week.
You know cycle of sleepdisruption.
(10:22):
They should be getting two daysor one day, at least you know
one or two days off.
So that really is important.
But the other family memberstoo, or they they're going to
need to get some paid resourcesvery unhealthy to do that yeah,
it is unhealthy yeah 24 7.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
very unhealthy.
It's a serious issue and Idon't think people really
sometimes, you know, considerand see it as an issue.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
It's very serious it's very serious and especially
unfortunately.
I think spouses end up, as asyou said, in that situation
because that's our duty as aspouse.
But then you know other peopleare like well, you know they've
got each other, but it could bea real burnout situation.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
And sometimes you even have the kids who will not
offer any support.
Right, you know, this one maymove to California, that one may
move to another state and youhave four or five of them living
in 5G.
That's what I find a lot, youknow.
So it's like they're not there.
They're not there.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
But sometimes I'll pick up the phone and say you
know, this is not a goodsituation and they will come,
like they'll say, oh, they'llhear it in my voice.
They'll be like, okay, we'regoing to come for a week, but a
lot of times they don't.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
So then we have to try to find supports in the
community.
Years ago, I remember Iconducted a home visit and, to
be quite honest, I fell for thepatient and that day I even
spent my own money.
My supervisor told me that youknow, you're not going to get
reimbursed by the agency.
I'm like this point, I don'treally care.
If she was my mother I wouldhave to care over.
So I'm not gonna leave the ladyin the house with no food,
(12:03):
absolutely.
So it's like I've got dear abunch of the.
You know she was really frail,so from that day.
So I started put it, you know,putting paperwork for her to
have the proper assistance thatshe needed.
But prior to that, god dear, itwas an emergency, it was, you
know, and to even leave the ladythat night, I was concerned.
(12:25):
So when I called my supervisorand I said this is the condition
, so I'm just calling you toinform you that I'm going to buy
food for her, she killed methat day.
At least if she had told me youknow that's not the agency
policy, because it was notcooked food, you know, it was
most likely bread, eggs.
You know food that I will not,you know.
(12:47):
So it's like, and for you tosay, the first thing to say is
that, oh, you know, the agencywill not reimburse you.
And I'm like I don't care.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
I'm not doing it for the money, so how much?
Speaker 1 (12:59):
money.
I'm going to spend $20?
$20?
That will kill me and I'm like,no, don't worry about the money
.
So, since you know you are thesupervisor and you know that I
was going to do the home visitand I will have to report anyway
, I'm telling you exactly whatthe situation is and what I'm
(13:21):
about to do.
It was sad, when you know.
I asked her if she had children.
She told me yes, she had fivekids and she didn't even know
when the last time she saw them.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
That's shocking.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Each of them live in a different state and I'm like
no, I understand that.
You know, as adults, we haveour lives, we have our own
burdens with our own family.
I got it, but at the same time,know that our parents you know
they should be our priority tooAbsolutely, they took care of us
(13:58):
.
Now it's our time to be ofassistance to them.
How are you going to leave yourmother, 80 plus, live in a
small house alone, not knowingthat, whether she has food,
whether she has proper heat,whether the water is warning
nothing.
(14:19):
I'm like.
You know some kids can dobetter and you know what?
I will not care whether you gotupset, but I'll write the
report that I need to write.
No, no, I'll write the reportthat I need to write.
And I've seen oftentimes thatperson gave those kids the best
(14:39):
of her and now you cannot evenbe there for her, not even one
day.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Make sure she has food.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Make sure she has food, the basics, morning water,
proper heat.
Come on, no children.
Some children, you know, shoulddo better.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Right.
And then you have the ones thatburden their one child and
don't help, you know should dobetter Right.
And then you have the ones thatburden their the one child and
don't help, you know.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Don't get me wrong.
There are some parents who areprivileged to have wonderful
children, but there are someparents, yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
I've seen it myself.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Oh Lord, have mercy.
You just say sometimes, say youknow what, I think you probably
will be better off withoutthose gates.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
And the other thing is, sometimes I find, um, the
adult children are a bit too,you know, they want to get,
they're over involved andthey're controlling.
They're not allowing them to dothis.
They're not allowing to thatthey're not giving them any.
Say they're making all thedecisions.
To that they're not giving themany.
Say they're making all thedecisions and they're over the
(15:37):
top with and that's not being agood caregiver either, because,
especially if the person iscapable, cognitively intact, let
them make some decisions, letthem do some of the things they
want to do.
You can't control them yeah sothey almost are going into like
full-scale, like I'm parenting ayoung child, you're not by the
(15:58):
time you ask the patient aquestion, they will give you the
answer right so those ones alltry to ask them to go do
something else or whatever, andlet the yeah, you also want to.
you know, watch out for thosecaregivers who are and honestly,
they will burn out eventuallybecause they can't you can't
keep control over another humanbeing for too long.
You're eventually going to burnout when you realize your goals
(16:20):
are not appropriate, and thenyou know you're going to get
very stressed, but sometimesI've seen some parents or
patients will just surrender.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
They got to a point you know they're not going to
fight because they don't want tomake that child upset yeah, oh
yeah, absolutely, and theybecome kind of um passive, which
is not good.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
No, because you don't want your client to be passive,
because then they're not takinga role in there in recovery.
They're sort of just likewhatever she says, whatever they
say, you know, whatever theywant, and, um, we have to do our
.
We have to do our work withthose difficult caregivers too
that are too controlling.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Yeah, it's a real challenge, it's a real challenge
.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
But you cannot, as I said, you know, to my students,
you can't work with clients in avacuum.
Those parents of the childyou're working with, or the
spouse of the person you'reworking with, or the adult
children of the person you'rethey're part of your care plan.
They have to be a part of it,so you're going to have to deal
(17:32):
with them.
You're going to have to learnhow to deal with them.
Even if they are difficult orNot doing what they should, or
do it overdoing it like you'regonna have to work to build that
relationship with them.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
I think you also mentioned this me earlier to
looking at the high Volumecaregiver.
So this is somebody who's doingthat 40, 50 hours a week yes,
those are the.
Those are the caregivers that wereally need to be concerned
about.
So there is actually a term forthat and that is the, you know,
the high burden caregiver.
So those are.
(18:07):
Again, you're going todefinitely need to to do your
assessment, make sure thatthey're healthy or keeping up
their own health and, if they'renot, you know, trying to put
some interventions into place.
There are caregivers that are,you know, coming once a week or
twice a week, but thehigh-intensity caregiver are the
(18:29):
ones, and typically it's amiddle-aged woman taking care of
a parent.
Those are typically yourhigh-intensity caregivers, and
some cultures are very at riskfor this type of caregiving.
Because of financial reasons,they become this full-time
caregiver.
So the Latino orAfrican-American are more often
(18:52):
the high-intensity caregiver.
What about the Caribbean?
I think they probably would fitin there too.
So they're because of the wayit could be cultural too that
they're there, the way theirculture is you must always take
care of your aging parent.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
You know, they're programmed to do this too.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Yeah, so they are going to be engaging in this
high intensity caregiver.
So it's typically it's a woman.
It could be male, but typicallyit's a woman taking care of her
parent.
This could go on for years.
This could be something wherethey're going to.
You know, they say average isabout five years.
So this is these are caregiversthat are doing it for a long
time and they're helping themfor 40 to 50 hours a week with
(19:33):
things like bathing and gettingdressed and also like taking
care of their finances, cooking,you know medical household
tasks and then, of course, themedical and nursing tasks on top
of it.
So this high intensitycaregiver is kind of a newer
term that we should be zeroingin on.
Those caregivers, you knowadult children that are sort of
(19:55):
sharing the load and somebody'scoming twice a week.
Or you know you have a parentof a child, but they have
support, they have babysitting,they have a child goes to school
maybe not as much risk.
But the high-intensitycaregivers that are doing these
long hours for many years, thoseare the ones we need to really
zero in on and those are theones that would be good to do
(20:15):
the assessment caregiverassessment and because of the
way the economy is going and thefact that we may be seeing a
lot of programs being cut rightnow, a lot of funding.
We might see more of these highintensity caregivers right,
because there's not going to beas many state programs maybe, or
there's going to be some cutsto federal programs.
We've seen that already we'regoing to be as many state
programs maybe, or there's goingto be some cuts to federal
(20:36):
programs.
We've seen that already.
We're going to see more of this, more people, you know, because
, of course, the united statesis built up of all of us.
Most of us came from anothercountry.
I came from ireland, you camefrom haiti.
You know we're going to see alot of these people that are
working, working, working toachieve, you know, the american
dream, but they also have thepressure of taking care of their
(20:59):
parents or their elderlyrelatives and they're trying to
do it all.
They're trying to work one ortwo jobs, or their spouse is
working one or two jobs andthey're working one job to try
to make it stay on top offinancial actually, with food
prices going up and housingprices going up, everything you
know.
Everything's going up now, youknow, cost of transportation and
(21:22):
all of that and then whatthey're trying to do is do it
all and we need to just bereally aware of that.
And it does seem to affect somecultures more than others and
it's typically your immigrantfamilies that are just trying to
get started.
Get it it going, get you know,make it that are going to be
also taking care of theirelderly relatives and they may
(21:44):
bring them, you know, from othercountries to you know, have
their good medical care here,but now they become the
caregiver.
So we really need to payattention to that high-intensity
caregiver and be aware, oh,this person's giving, like, wow,
so many hours a week, orthey're living with the person.
They've had the parent come andlive with them.
(22:05):
Those are the caregivers wereally need to be paying
attention to, because they'reoftentimes neglecting themselves
and they're not gettingservices.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
It can go both ways.
They may be neglectingthemselves, but they may neglect
the patient as well too.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Yeah, especially if they're trying to work.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
You're doing way too much.
It's a lot for one person.
You work one or two jobs, youhave a family on your own and
you have a patient that needs a24-hour gear.
So it's like if you were togive that person a shower twice
a day.
That person may end up gettingonly one shower a day.
(22:45):
Or one a week, that's evenworse.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Yeah, so it's just, it's really important to pay
attention to those.
You know, caregivers that aredoing too much.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
They will be at more higher risk For burnout, for
mental health issues, forphysical health issues.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Keep an eye on your caregivers, be observant.
Look when you go intosomebody's home, or even if it's
their hospital room or theirroom in the skilled nursing
facility facility.
Pay attention to what's goingon with the caregiver, okay, and
and be there for them okay?
Speaker 1 (23:23):
is that your final message for everyone?
That is okay.
So, my darling, was that notenough to thank you for driving
all the way from Connecticut toNew York?
I know traffic was not easy,yeah, but it was kind of nice
because I was alone and I had mymusic and no kids.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
So you know that was the caregiver taking care of
herself.
No teenagers yelling at me fromthe backseat.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Okay, so you know what?
So I took some time.
You know what?
So we're going to have our time, you know, after the show.
Yes, okay, thank you.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
My love.
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
You have to come up again.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
I will.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
I will.
All right, it was with you, drIpulet, with your walk.
Hello everyone, I'm Dr Beatrice Ippolit and this is
your World.
Can you discuss the importanceof self-care for caregivers and
provide some example ofself-care activities that
(00:23):
caregivers might?
Speaker 2 (00:25):
see, we always know what each other are thinking.
It must have been that doctoralprogram.
We've been indoctrinated, thankyou, yeah.
So again, you have to developthe trust for them to listen to
you.
So it's going to take time,especially with a caregiver
who's frustrated and maybehaving a difficult time, but
(00:48):
definitely encourage them tojust take a little bit of time
for themselves.
Do something.
Definitely they need to dotheir medical appointments.
So if there's other familymembers, they need to know that
your sister's not taking care,your brother's not taking care
of themselves.
You need to start coming overso they can get their medical
(01:09):
care.
But encourage them to carve outtime.
Encourage them to talk abouttheir frustrations or write them
down, and just encourage themto realize they're not the
police.
They don't need to always bepolicing the client or making
(01:33):
sure you know that they need tosort of give themselves a little
break too.
Not everything can be perfect.
It's okay if you know youdidn't get up.
You got up today and neither ofyou got dressed.
It's okay.
Don't be so hard on yourself.
Not everything needs to beperfect.
I often go into somebody's home.
(01:53):
They're like I'm so sorry it'snot clean or I didn't do the
laundry.
It's like it's okay.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Who cares?
Who cares?
They're in their pajamas.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
The appliance is clean, but they're in their
pajamas.
They're in your pajamas.
The client's clean, but they'rein their pajamas.
They're in their pajamas.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
If I have to explain to you why I didn't do some
cleaning, I may as well inviteyou to help me out, because, at
the end of the day, so it's alot and there are things that we
probably want to do but don'thave the time to do it.
So one of the things that Ialways encourage people to do
(02:32):
regardless whether you are acaretaker or everybody, it goes
for everybody know how to takesome time for yourself.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
And if somebody offers you help, hey, can I
bring you a meal, take it.
Somebody from the church callsand says, hey, can I come over
Come on over.
We're still in our pajamas orthe house isn't all that tidy.
But come on over.
Exactly, Accept the help.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
And sometimes, if I were not to bring lunch to work
and go and sit, even at aMcDonald's, wherever even buy
something, and go and sit at thepark yeah, you know, enjoy that
fresh air and watch kids,people, dogs walking around, so
passing by.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
So just have that moment for yourself go sit at
the, go sit in your car at thebeach, take so a lot of times.
Caregivers have to purchase acertain amount of time, you know
, like four hours or whatever.
So if they do have thatdoctor's appointment, then
you've got four hours.
Do some things for yourself,you know get your nails done, or
(03:39):
go get your hair cut, or godown, go for a walk or, as you
said, just you know sit andthink and just you know, have a
chance to get some fresh air amovie.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
So I don't know if you like movies, so go out for a
movie, do something exactly.
Have some.
That me time it's, it'simportant.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
And that's why journaling can be important,
because you're going to tellthem I want you to do at least
one or two things for yourselfthis week.
So they're writing it, they'rethinking okay, I gotta make sure
.
So they might be journalingmore and thinking more about
things that are really importantand putting them on their
schedule, like I'm gonna takethis one hour today and this one
(04:20):
hour on thursday.
You know, make.
Make so using a diary orjournal so it'll hold, you know.
So they make a little contractwith themselves that they're
going to do something and ifsometimes, when the healthcare
provider comes, that could beyour chance to go out, you know,
you could say you know I've gotto run out, You're here, Is it
(04:41):
okay if I run to the store?
Absolutely, Please Go, Takethat 45 minutes or hour, Take
the time.
You know if your therapist isthere or your nurse is there,
that you could take that littletime or you could go for the
walk while they're there.
So take offers of help and takethe opportunities.
Try to focus on priorities.
(05:03):
You know some things areobviously really important.
Your care, your child or youryou know the person you're
taking care of has to be changedand clean and you know there
may be they have to have theirmedicine.
But other things.
Give yourself a break.
Or maybe get somebody in tohelp with cleaning or laundry or
(05:23):
, you know, if you don't wantthem taking care of your family
member, maybe have people comein and do other things to
support you.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
And one thing I've seen, you know, with some family
members and I'm going to keepon taking that lady who passed
away last year as an exampleI've seen the way that her
daughter treated that homeattendant.
So even though the homeattendant was there, you know,
to remind the patient to takethe medication, cook for the
(05:52):
patient, clean, you know, makesure the patient, you know,
lives in a clean environment, ordo the patient laundry.
But the daughter, you know kindof caught down on many of those
tasks for her.
So the doctor always makes surethat she does her mother's
laundry and she will tell thehome attendant relax, I know my
(06:18):
mom can be a burden, so I'll dothe laundry.
So she makes sure that you knowevery doctor's appointment she
will take her mother and not letthe old maternity back, gives
them a little break and shealways mentioned that to her.
I want you to have some breakabsolutely.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
And if you are the adult caregiver and your
siblings aren't doing as much asyou which could happen because
maybe you're the caregiver thatlives the closest or lives with
the person, fair enough.
But you can ask them to doother things, give them or ask
them to do other tasks, like thelaundry.
Why can't they take the laundryto their place and wash and
(06:57):
bring it back, or to help withyou?
Know you, you're gonna dodoctors appointments.
Can you help with laundry?
Can you?
You know, try to dive, try todivide up some of the
responsibilities so that it canbe helpful, but I definitely
respite.
As you know, respite is veryimportant for a caregiver Very
important, even if it's fourhours, or one day a week, or
(07:20):
whatever.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
It's very important.
Even if it is two hours, butyou have to have some time for
yourself.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
And if there is only one caregiver that's a spouse or
just you know there's only oneperson to take care of it, then
we have to really try to helpthem find the resources so that
they can't get that respite.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
For the mental health component, therapy may be
something, but therapy may notbe needed at all times, right,
so what would be yourrecommendation?
If somebody feels stressed outor anxious, Well, I'm big into
holistic medicine.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
so I love you know, like the deep breathing,
relaxation, you know yoga, likethat they learn some self-care
strategies.
If somebody's religious prayer,of course, is a good one, you
know to engage in meditativeprayer, music, spiritual music.
(08:19):
So encouraging them to use thethings that we've learned in our
education, different strategiesto help their mental health,
things like meditation, deepbreathing, relaxation strategies
I mean I've got a ton of thembecause I've learned them a lot.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
I've been interested in that, so I've learned it over
the year Healthy diet.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Yes, diet, hydration just making sure that they
realize that their diet is veryimportant for their mental
health and that eating properlybecause I think that's another
thing that could happen with thecaregiver is they're so focused
on the client that they don'teat properly.
So making sure, yeah, that theyhave.
If they don't have theopportunity to eat, you know
(09:03):
three regular meals a day thatthey're.
If they don't have theopportunity to eat, you know
three regular meals a day thatthey're eating healthy things in
between or they're doing thingslike protein shakes or things
like that to help keepthemselves.
You know?
Speaker 1 (09:14):
make sure you have a good sleep pattern sleep is very
important.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Unfortunately, for caregivers, that can be
disrupted, whether it be a childor an adult they're caring for,
they can often have, you know,sleep disruption.
So then, how do you, you know,take care of that?
How do you make up some of yoursleep?
Do you take it?
You know, take care of that.
How do you make up some of yoursleep?
Do you take?
You know, do you take naps whenthey're napping?
Speaker 1 (09:37):
And in between, you know, if it is, your role is to
provide the care for that personin the morning, then you will
have the opportunity to sleep atnight.
Do I understand?
At night now you have your ownfamily that you have to take
care of, and that's why gettingextra help is so important it's
for a few hours so that it's notall falling on one person.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Now it's really not proper care for somebody to be
like a paid caregiver, to be24-7.
Like they're supposed to getlike the weekends off or one day
a week off.
So family members shouldn't bedoing it either.
They should not be doing that24, 7, 7 days a week.
You know cycle of sleepdisruption.
(10:22):
They should be getting two daysor one day, at least you know
one or two days off.
So that really is important.
But the other family memberstoo, or they they're going to
need to get some paid resourcesvery unhealthy to do that yeah,
it is unhealthy yeah 24 7.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
very unhealthy.
It's a serious issue and Idon't think people really
sometimes, you know, considerand see it as an issue.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
It's very serious it's very serious and especially
unfortunately.
I think spouses end up, as asyou said, in that situation
because that's our duty as aspouse.
But then you know other peopleare like well, you know they've
got each other, but it could bea real burnout situation.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
And sometimes you even have the kids who will not
offer any support.
Right, you know, this one maymove to California, that one may
move to another state and youhave four or five of them living
in 5G.
That's what I find a lot, youknow.
So it's like they're not there.
They're not there.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
But sometimes I'll pick up the phone and say you
know, this is not a goodsituation and they will come,
like they'll say, oh, they'llhear it in my voice.
They'll be like, okay, we'regoing to come for a week, but a
lot of times they don't.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
So then we have to try to find supports in the
community.
Years ago, I remember Iconducted a home visit and, to
be quite honest, I fell for thepatient and that day I even
spent my own money.
My supervisor told me that youknow, you're not going to get
reimbursed by the agency.
I'm like this point, I don'treally care.
If she was my mother I wouldhave to care over.
So I'm not gonna leave the ladyin the house with no food,
(12:03):
absolutely.
So it's like I've got dear abunch of the.
You know she was really frail,so from that day.
So I started put it, you know,putting paperwork for her to
have the proper assistance thatshe needed.
But prior to that, god dear, itwas an emergency, it was, you
know, and to even leave the ladythat night, I was concerned.
(12:25):
So when I called my supervisorand I said this is the condition
, so I'm just calling you toinform you that I'm going to buy
food for her, she killed methat day.
At least if she had told me youknow that's not the agency
policy, because it was notcooked food, you know, it was
most likely bread, eggs.
You know food that I will not,you know.
(12:47):
So it's like, and for you tosay, the first thing to say is
that, oh, you know, the agencywill not reimburse you.
And I'm like I don't care.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
I'm not doing it for the money, so how much?
Speaker 1 (12:59):
money.
I'm going to spend $20?
$20?
That will kill me and I'm like,no, don't worry about the money
.
So, since you know you are thesupervisor and you know that I
was going to do the home visitand I will have to report anyway
, I'm telling you exactly whatthe situation is and what I'm
(13:21):
about to do.
It was sad, when you know.
I asked her if she had children.
She told me yes, she had fivekids and she didn't even know
when the last time she saw them.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
That's shocking.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Each of them live in a different state and I'm like
no, I understand that.
You know, as adults, we haveour lives, we have our own
burdens with our own family.
I got it, but at the same time,know that our parents you know
they should be our priority tooAbsolutely, they took care of us
(13:58):
.
Now it's our time to be ofassistance to them.
How are you going to leave yourmother, 80 plus, live in a
small house alone, not knowingthat, whether she has food,
whether she has proper heat,whether the water is warning
nothing.
(14:19):
I'm like.
You know some kids can dobetter and you know what?
I will not care whether you gotupset, but I'll write the
report that I need to write.
No, no, I'll write the reportthat I need to write.
And I've seen oftentimes thatperson gave those kids the best
(14:39):
of her and now you cannot evenbe there for her, not even one
day.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Make sure she has food.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Make sure she has food, the basics, morning water,
proper heat.
Come on, no children.
Some children, you know, shoulddo better.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Right.
And then you have the ones thatburden their one child and
don't help, you know should dobetter Right.
And then you have the ones thatburden their the one child and
don't help, you know.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Don't get me wrong.
There are some parents who areprivileged to have wonderful
children, but there are someparents, yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
I've seen it myself.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Oh Lord, have mercy.
You just say sometimes, say youknow what, I think you probably
will be better off withoutthose gates.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
And the other thing is, sometimes I find, um, the
adult children are a bit too,you know, they want to get,
they're over involved andthey're controlling.
They're not allowing them to dothis.
They're not allowing to thatthey're not giving them any.
Say they're making all thedecisions.
To that they're not giving themany.
Say they're making all thedecisions and they're over the
(15:37):
top with and that's not being agood caregiver either, because,
especially if the person iscapable, cognitively intact, let
them make some decisions, letthem do some of the things they
want to do.
You can't control them yeah sothey almost are going into like
full-scale, like I'm parenting ayoung child, you're not by the
(15:58):
time you ask the patient aquestion, they will give you the
answer right so those ones alltry to ask them to go do
something else or whatever, andlet the yeah, you also want to.
you know, watch out for thosecaregivers who are and honestly,
they will burn out eventuallybecause they can't you can't
keep control over another humanbeing for too long.
You're eventually going to burnout when you realize your goals
(16:20):
are not appropriate, and thenyou know you're going to get
very stressed, but sometimesI've seen some parents or
patients will just surrender.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
They got to a point you know they're not going to
fight because they don't want tomake that child upset yeah, oh
yeah, absolutely, and theybecome kind of um passive, which
is not good.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
No, because you don't want your client to be passive,
because then they're not takinga role in there in recovery.
They're sort of just likewhatever she says, whatever they
say, you know, whatever theywant, and, um, we have to do our
.
We have to do our work withthose difficult caregivers too
that are too controlling.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Yeah, it's a real challenge, it's a real challenge
.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
But you cannot, as I said, you know, to my students,
you can't work with clients in avacuum.
Those parents of the childyou're working with, or the
spouse of the person you'reworking with, or the adult
children of the person you'rethey're part of your care plan.
They have to be a part of it,so you're going to have to deal
(17:32):
with them.
You're going to have to learnhow to deal with them.
Even if they are difficult orNot doing what they should, or
do it overdoing it like you'regonna have to work to build that
relationship with them.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
I think you also mentioned this me earlier to
looking at the high Volumecaregiver.
So this is somebody who's doingthat 40, 50 hours a week yes,
those are the.
Those are the caregivers that wereally need to be concerned
about.
So there is actually a term forthat and that is the, you know,
the high burden caregiver.
So those are.
(18:07):
Again, you're going todefinitely need to to do your
assessment, make sure thatthey're healthy or keeping up
their own health and, if they'renot, you know, trying to put
some interventions into place.
There are caregivers that are,you know, coming once a week or
twice a week, but thehigh-intensity caregiver are the
(18:29):
ones, and typically it's amiddle-aged woman taking care of
a parent.
Those are typically yourhigh-intensity caregivers, and
some cultures are very at riskfor this type of caregiving.
Because of financial reasons,they become this full-time
caregiver.
So the Latino orAfrican-American are more often
(18:52):
the high-intensity caregiver.
What about the Caribbean?
I think they probably would fitin there too.
So they're because of the wayit could be cultural too that
they're there, the way theirculture is you must always take
care of your aging parent.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
You know, they're programmed to do this too.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Yeah, so they are going to be engaging in this
high intensity caregiver.
So it's typically it's a woman.
It could be male, but typicallyit's a woman taking care of her
parent.
This could go on for years.
This could be something wherethey're going to.
You know, they say average isabout five years.
So this is these are caregiversthat are doing it for a long
time and they're helping themfor 40 to 50 hours a week with
(19:33):
things like bathing and gettingdressed and also like taking
care of their finances, cooking,you know medical household
tasks and then, of course, themedical and nursing tasks on top
of it.
So this high intensitycaregiver is kind of a newer
term that we should be zeroingin on.
Those caregivers, you knowadult children that are sort of
(19:55):
sharing the load and somebody'scoming twice a week.
Or you know you have a parentof a child, but they have
support, they have babysitting,they have a child goes to school
maybe not as much risk.
But the high-intensitycaregivers that are doing these
long hours for many years, thoseare the ones we need to really
zero in on and those are theones that would be good to do
(20:15):
the assessment caregiverassessment and because of the
way the economy is going and thefact that we may be seeing a
lot of programs being cut rightnow, a lot of funding.
We might see more of these highintensity caregivers right,
because there's not going to beas many state programs maybe, or
there's going to be some cutsto federal programs.
We've seen that already we'regoing to be as many state
programs maybe, or there's goingto be some cuts to federal
(20:36):
programs.
We've seen that already.
We're going to see more of this, more people, you know, because
, of course, the united statesis built up of all of us.
Most of us came from anothercountry.
I came from ireland, you camefrom haiti.
You know we're going to see alot of these people that are
working, working, working toachieve, you know, the american
dream, but they also have thepressure of taking care of their
(20:59):
parents or their elderlyrelatives and they're trying to
do it all.
They're trying to work one ortwo jobs, or their spouse is
working one or two jobs andthey're working one job to try
to make it stay on top offinancial actually, with food
prices going up and housingprices going up, everything you
know.
Everything's going up now, youknow, cost of transportation and
(21:22):
all of that and then whatthey're trying to do is do it
all and we need to just bereally aware of that.
And it does seem to affect somecultures more than others and
it's typically your immigrantfamilies that are just trying to
get started.
Get it it going, get you know,make it that are going to be
also taking care of theirelderly relatives and they may
(21:44):
bring them, you know, from othercountries to you know, have
their good medical care here,but now they become the
caregiver.
So we really need to payattention to that high-intensity
caregiver and be aware, oh,this person's giving, like, wow,
so many hours a week, orthey're living with the person.
They've had the parent come andlive with them.
(22:05):
Those are the caregivers wereally need to be paying
attention to, because they'reoftentimes neglecting themselves
and they're not gettingservices.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
It can go both ways.
They may be neglectingthemselves, but they may neglect
the patient as well too.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Yeah, especially if they're trying to work.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
You're doing way too much.
It's a lot for one person.
You work one or two jobs, youhave a family on your own and
you have a patient that needs a24-hour gear.
So it's like if you were togive that person a shower twice
a day.
That person may end up gettingonly one shower a day.
(22:45):
Or one a week, that's evenworse.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Yeah, so it's just, it's really important to pay
attention to those.
You know, caregivers that aredoing too much.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
They will be at more higher risk For burnout, for
mental health issues, forphysical health issues.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Keep an eye on your caregivers, be observant.
Look when you go intosomebody's home, or even if it's
their hospital room or theirroom in the skilled nursing
facility facility.
Pay attention to what's goingon with the caregiver, okay, and
and be there for them okay?
Speaker 1 (23:23):
is that your final message for everyone?
That is okay.
So, my darling, was that notenough to thank you for driving
all the way from Connecticut toNew York?
I know traffic was not easy,yeah, but it was kind of nice
because I was alone and I had mymusic and no kids.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
So you know that was the caregiver taking care of
herself.
No teenagers yelling at me fromthe backseat.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Okay, so you know what?
So I took some time.
You know what?
So we're going to have our time, you know, after the show.
Yes, okay, thank you.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
My love.
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
You have to come up again.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
I will.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
I will.
All right, it was with you, drIpulet, with your walk.
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