Family Caregiver Investigation

 

 

  I finally got the April caregiving schedule sorted out and now I know how many hours I am on caregiving duty this month if there are no changes (398.5 hours / 720 total hours) or 55% of the caregiving time. This also means I am providing caregiving duty for 55% of my lifetime for the month. That leaves me 45% of the month to my own work, my self care, caring for my household and property, etc. There are 6 days of the month that I am not scheduled to cover caregiving. Put another way, I am on caregiving duty 24 days of the month. On the days I am not on caregiving duty, I am on call in case there are questions are problems arise that need my help to reduce tension (ie. Mom won't let the Home Support Caregiver give her regularly scheduled shower and shampoo). Mom has a team of 7 family members contributing their time to her care. This schedule means that she is never left alone. There is always someone who is attending to make sure she has what she needs and her risk of accident or...

  It is difficult to understand why it has taken this long for me to understand the real impact of family caregiving on time cost in a family caregiving household. I knew what it felt  like after the first three months. I did not know specifically what it was  until now. For two years I kept thinking there was something I could do to finally get it right. That I only needed to manage my time, my caregiving routines, my household, well enough, and I wouldn't feel so resentful, put upon, taken advantage, trapped. It should come as no surprise that providing a family caregiving bed for a frail elder would have a significant impact on time cost. Additionally, it should come as no surprise that the time cost of providing family caregiving is going to have a significant impact on the capacity and capability for a family caregiver to also perform paid work in addition to family caregiving work. When we brought Mom home, we also brought home her needs for caregiving 24/7. We brou...

  This is what it looks like for our family to provide 24/7 caregiving for our frail elder Mom for the month of January, 2024.  Mom enjoys having her children and grandchildren taking care of her. It gives her a lift to spend time with her family. She loves all her children and their offspring. It gives her life meaning to be with family during this final phase of her life. This schedule breaks down a caregiving staffing schedule for 7 people, including the primary caregiver. The schedule also breaks down to 91 caregiving shifts, or an average of 3 caregiving transitions each day. Of course, some days are 24 hours, other days have 4 or even 5 shift changes. In addition to the family caregiving schedule, there is also the schedule of Home Support caregivers, who come 6 days a week to provide personal care (4 days per week) and shower/shampoo (2 days per week). In the month of January there were 26 days of Home Support caregiving visits - so add 26 transitions to the 91 shift ch...

  This was our sixth month of caregiving since Mom came home. Mom was more agitated and starting to show signs of significant memory loss. It was extremely difficult mentally and emotionally to be with her every day. We were still giving her the extra puff inhaler twice a day as well as her regular pills and inhaler in the morning and pills at night. We did a video consult with Mom's doctor and he suspected a UTI. We got her started on antibiotics right away while we waited for tests to come back. We continued to try to keep our costs for paid caregiving down, while I continued to try to keep up with my paid work. At this point I had one overnight away from Mom while my sister stayed with Mom. We logged 88 transitions over the course of the month, this count does not include the daily caregiving for showers and sponge baths. So the number of visitors in and out was more like 6 additional visits per week x 4 weeks = 24. Make the total transitions for the month 112. That is an averag...

 This was our fifth month since bringing Mom home Nov 1, 2021. We were still nursing her through the COPD exacerbation that almost took her life in December. She had quit smoking. We were giving her extra puffer medication to help with her breathing. I was still trying to work full time and manage Mom's caregiving at home. My vision that the second bedroom in Mom's suite would be occupied by a rotation of siblings staying over with Mom was not realistic. I was the only one staying overnight with Mom.  We continued to work on trying to figure out a workable arrangement for caregiving. Home Support would provide 2 hours a week respite care as part of their service offering. In this month we started a schedule of external paid in-home caregiving that included light housekeeping. We also now had a regular schedule of Home Support caregivers coming in six days a week to provide personal care (sponge bath and weekly shower/shampoo). This meant, on any given day, I would have at leas...