Caregiving for Older Relatives with Disabilities: Staying Productive
While becoming dependent is a concern of most older adults, it need not be. Those who wish to continue working can contact the vocational rehabilitation project in their community for help in making changes on the job to adjust to a visual or hearing impairment. They might even seek a new career.
Volunteer organizations are always seeking assistance, everything from church groups to drum groups to elementary schools. Preparing the food for a community event, sitting at a table and passing out flyers on community programs during a health fair, helping with Red Ribbon Week - there are hundreds of opportunities. These volunteer hours involve older adults with others - the opposite of isolation -- provide a real benefit to the community and increase the volunteer's self-esteem.
Contributions to community and family can be great in older adulthood. As we discuss in many of our workshops, a relationship with a caring adult is a major factor in preventing many risks for children and youth, including school failure, youth violence, drug abuse and alcohol abuse. Who is the most common 'significant adult' when parents are unable to provide care? The grandparents.
Even when parents are very capable of caring for their children, grandparents and other older relatives can play an important role. In Spirit Lake Consulting, Inc.'s special education workshop we talk about the importance of a 'literary environment' for children. That is, children who are read to, read to others or read to themselves do better in school. Having students reading to their older relatives who are visually impaired develops the children's reading skills. Even if the child is reading "See Spot run," the grandparent will appreciate it because cross-culturally, grandparents think their grandchildren are pretty wonderful no matter what they are doing.
A second factor in school success for children is being exposed to live language. Those stories grandparents, aunts and uncles tell provide children exposure to language, increasing their vocabulary, increasing their general knowledge of the world and often increasing their knowledge of their own culture.
Sigmund Freud, the father of modern psychology, said that a person needed two things to be happy, to love and to work. Whether it is volunteer work, paid work or taking care of younger family members, older adults should have the opportunity to love and to work.
What about me? What about MY needs?
Family members who play a major role in caring for elderly relatives frequently ignore their own needs. Some find themselves relentlessly spending much time at home consumed by caregiver tasks. When this goes on over months it can be harmful. Next, we will discuss stress and how you can deal with it to benefit the person whom you are providing care. Remember it is just as important to take care of your own needs as to provide the best care for your loved one.
