Avoid Caregiver Burnout: Hire a Home Care Provider
Are you feeling irritable, overwhelmed and frustrated?
Do you find it hard to sleep, and either overeat or have no appetite?
Is your family saying you are irritable, moody and stressed?
Has your overall health declined recently?
Home Care in Skokie IL: Avoiding Caregiver Burnout
If you are a family caregiver for an elderly relative and you are experiencing these symptoms, you may be experiencing a condition known as caregiver burnout. Not only is caregiver burnout dangerous to your mental health, but it can negatively affect your physical health. One of the best ways to remedy caregiver burnout is to get some respite from your duties. Hiring a home care provider allows you to step away and take care of yourself for a change.
What is Caregiver Burnout?
Medical experts have found that family caregivers are at a high risk of developing chronic stress. With chronic stress, the triggers such as frustration, boredom, worry, and more are always there. Without breaks, family caregivers continue to put stress on their bodies and minds.
Chronic stress can weaken the immune system, raise the blood pressure, affect the appetite, cause insomnia, and trigger anxiety and depression. All of these conditions put an undue burden on the heart, lungs, digestive system, and more. Chronic stress opens the door to developing even more health issues. Because chronic stress is so common in family caregivers, medical experts recognize caregiver burnout as a real and dangerous health condition.
Why are Caregivers So Stressed?
Caring for an elderly relative can be very rewarding but it is also filled with constant demands and repetitive duties. Seniors who need a family caregiver are usually physically or cognitively impaired enough that they cannot live independently. This means a family member must help them out all day, such as with bathing, dressing, grooming, toileting, hygiene, transportation, shopping, finances, meal preparation, housekeeping, laundry, and pet care.
Family caregivers usually take on the burden of care on their own, because they cannot or will not find others to help. Sometimes other family members live too far away, or the family caregiver doesn’t think they need help. It’s hard to plan for breaks or personal time with a dependent elderly loved one. When the responsibilities pile up with no respite, the stress grows.
How Home Care Providers Can Help.
Home care providers are professionals that work with aging adults in their own home. Home care providers are trained to assist seniors with all the duties of a family caregiver. The family member and the home care company set up a schedule where the aide comes regularly to help out. This way, the family caregiver can spend some time on their own doing what they need to achieve some balance between their elderly loved one and other things in life. Family caregivers can avoid burnout when they take regular breaks as agreed on with a home care provider.
Whether you are new to family caregiving or you are starting to suffer from the effects of caregiver burnout, it’s wise to hire a home care provider to help take care of your elderly relative on a regular schedule. You’ll be healthier and happier when you can count on a professional helper.
If you or an aging loved one are considering home care in Skokie, IL, contact the caring staff at Companion Services of America today at (847) 943-3786. Our home care service area includes Northbrook, Highland Park, Deerfield, Glenview, Buffalo Grove, Evanston, Des Plaines, Skokie, Lake Forest, Wilmette and the surrounding areas.
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