Respite Care: Self-Health isn’t Selfish

Providing care for a loved one can become quite grueling for both the family caregiver and the patient. Caregivers may find themselves feeling burned out from the stress of consistent assistance, often falling into troubling sleeping patterns and neglecting their own self-care. Respite Care provides a mutually beneficial third party resource for caregiver and patient, in which additional short-term assistance is made available in forms such as adult day centers, in-home care and counseling services, or as recovery from a hospital stay.  It’s clear that a family caregiver is only as effective as his or her own self-health, and as the emotional weight of an aging loved one persists, taking a break to relax and recalibrate becomes invaluable.

Where to Find Respite Care?

Short term stays at assisted living or nursing facilities, along with additional information including webinars and Medicaid/Medicare assistance can be found at the ARCH National Respite Network’s Respite Locator: https://archrespite.org/us-map. By simply entering the age of the patient, along with the State, Zip Code, and preferred mile radius, you will find plenty of Respite options at your fingertips.

What does Respite Care Provide?

Respite care amenities may vary by community but will typically provide 24-hour supervision, bathing assistance, meals, and medication management. This resource can be for an afternoon or up to a couple weeks.

What are the benefits of Respite Care?

Respite care provides the necessary perspective into the reality of a caregiving situation. The emotional and physical toll of caring for a loved one can never be overlooked. Maintaining a special connection against the persistence of relentless dementia is profoundly draining. As a caregiver finds their own lives changing and slipping away from them, the quality of care often dwindles, as exhaustion and frustration can start to damage this relationship in the last couple years they have together.

Access to Respite as a temporary resource allows the caregiver to simply get back to their own lives for some time. From simple sleep and relaxation to going out with friends or running errands, this bit of freedom is a way to recharge the batteries and reassess the balance necessary to maintain their own self-health.

It’s hard to acknowledge that family caregiving is often a necessary undertaking in which all parties involved wished it wasn’t necessary. Respite provides a valuable outlet for the guilt a caregiver is prone to feel when they stop and think about themselves in these troubling times. The assistance of Respite care can assure that the threshold of caregiving remains an active task to help a loved one in their final years, as opposed to a burden.

Article Provided By:
Retirement Connection
www.RetirementConnection.com