What caregivers need to be concerned about and where to find help

By Valerie S. Nosek

It’s the middle of the night and your phone rings. You answer to find your elderly mother sounding worried. She thinks someone is lurking around her house; she’s heard some “funny” noises and can’t sleep.

Maybe you make your routine evening stop at your dad’s house after work, and find that he had fallen earlier in the day and couldn’t get up or get to the phone to call someone for help. Or perhaps your elderly aunt is mixing up the times when she’s supposed to take her medications and is repeating doses at the wrong times.

Any of these situations (and many more!) are possible when loved ones begin to age. Some are physically and mentally able to live alone for many years without worrying family members, however, many will begin to experience difficulties, making safety a concern.

But how do you know when it’s no longer safe for an aging loved one to live alone? Does it take a major injury or mishap, or are there ways of assessing one’s ability to live independently before something bad happens?

Some reasons to be concerned about an elderly person’s safety: 

• You notice changes in hygiene or personality
• Physical impairments or disease is affecting one’s ability to manage their daily activities
• Your loved one is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s or are diagnosed with dementia
• You discover they are experiencing slips, trips or falls

 Additional signs to watch for:

• Losing/misplacing keys and other items, such as a purse or wallet
• Leaving keys in door locks or the car ignition
• Leaves doors open or unlocked
• Forgetting about items they are cooking – leaving the stove on
• Not taking medications at the right times/right days
• Has difficulty in performing simple tasks, such as grocery shopping or getting dressed
• Loss of appetite, losing weight, no food in the refrigerator or cupboards
• Lack of desire (or strength) to keep surroundings clean or prepare meals
• Forgets the name of common items, children, grandchildren or friends
• Little or no peer group/no interest in previously enjoyed friends or activities

Finally, families should consider alternatives to having a loved living alone if caring for the loved one is negatively affecting the caregiver(s) family life, work, finances, or emotional well-being. Too often, a caregiver will sacrifice self-care for the needs of an aging loved one – perhaps ignoring their own health warning signs, taking time off from work, absorbing bills that are not their own, or neglecting other important relationships and interests.

Family Meetings

A family meeting may be in order if one person is not responsible for, or doesn’t feel comfortable making decisions independent of others for the elderly person. Holding a family meeting can be helpful in that these meetings allow everyone who cares for the individual to contribute to the discussion, have their concerns heard, and feel helpful to the overall situation.

Often, it’s beneficial to have a outside person who has experience with geriatric behaviors and living issues facilitate the meeting – not only does the family benefit from expert advice, but an objective facilitator can also help maintain balance in what can be a stressful and difficult conversation for many.

Finding Help

Fortunately, there are professionals who can help you and your family member make informative decisions about care and living concerns. Physicians, social workers, geriatric specialists all can contribute to the conversation about keeping your loved one comfortable in their environment, while keeping them safe.

Your employee assistance program (EAP) may be able to help, too. A comprehensive EAP should offer an Eldercare Resource and Referral as part of their menu of employee services. By offering eldercare services, employers can lessen the impact eldercare issues have in the workplace by providing their employees with access to eldercare specialists. These specialists can help assess a loved one’s situation and provide direction in number of different areas such as home safety, memory impairment issues, coordinating family meetings, need-to-know info about health insurance and financial concerns, addressing caregiver stress, and more.

Employees More Likely to be Caregivers

Talk to any baby boomer and chances are likely they have personal experience in assisting an aging parent or elderly relative in some way. In fact, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, 54 percent of the work force will be caring for an elder by 2008.

But why should employers be concerned about employees who take care of older relatives?

Quite simply because eldercare issues directly impact the employer’s bottom line to the tune of billions each year. A 1999 report by the MetLife Mature Market Institute “estimated that U.S. companies lose $11 billion to $29 billion a year in reduces productivity;” an upcoming report is expected to show those losses as even greater (AARP Bulletin, May 2006).

Caregiving Issues Multi-Faceted

Human resource departments are finding elder caregiving issues are complicated; there are two distinct sides to the equation. First, there are the practical concerns – those related to safety, living arrangements, medical costs, insurance coverage and/or assistance, managing doctor’s appointments etc. Then, there’s the issue of what impact caregiving responsibilities have on the employee – stress and the resulting negative influences on health and well-being.

While companies have recognized eldercare as a productivity problem, the focus has been on finding resources for the family member, not in addressing the mental and emotional health needs of the employee doing the caregiving. Fortunately, this is changing.

Re-Focusing EAP Services to Meet Caregiver Needs

A recent Wall Street Journal article (June, 21, 2007, page D1) reported “…in the first shift in elder-care benefits in years, a few employers are offering elder-care programs aimed at the health and well-being of the workers themselves. By encouraging workers who have eldercare duties to take better care of themselves, employers hope not only to raise productivity, but to scale down healthcare costs.”

The Ease@Work employee assistance program has been an leader among EAPs, offering eldercare assistance to caregivers in both – community resources aimed toward the needs of the geriatric family member and for the health and well-being of the employee. The Ease team of eldercare specialists have expertise focused on the separate sides of the eldercare issue; employees seeking assistance through Ease@Work have access to the support they need personally as a caregiver in addition to up-to-date resources and practical information.

“Caregivers are usually working and keeping up a house, and they are on-call 24/7 and feeling overwhelmed,” said Margaret Chesler, an eldercare specialist with Ease. ” That puts caregivers at high risk for depression and health problems.”

It is clear with an increasingly aging population, more and more of those in the work force are going to be responsible for an elder family member’s care. The solution for employers begins with a comprehensive EAP that includes an awareness of, and the ability to address, eldercare and caregiving as an integrated issue.