What to Do as a Caregiver If You End Up Sick
As a family caregiver, you are responsible for ensuring your parent’s care needs are met. This can include a wide range of care efforts from running their errands for them to taking them to appointments to cleaning their home to offering physical support and assistance for personal care needs. These are critical efforts to support your parent through their later years and keep them safe, healthy, and comfortable.
What happens, however, if you are not able to fulfill these care tasks effectively because of your own health?
Elderly Care in Northville MI: Caregiver Options When Sick
Often when caregivers think about cold and flu season it is in terms of how these sicknesses can affect their aging parent. It is important, however, that you do not lose sight of yourself and your own health needs. If you were to contract a cold or the flu, not only would you not feel your best and need to take care of yourself, but your caregiving efforts would be threatened as well. Being prepared for this possibility is an important step in guarding your own well-being, as well as your parent’s.
Some things you should do as a caregiver if you end up sick this cold and flu season include:
• Pay attention to it. Do not try to ignore the symptoms or “stay strong” because you have responsibilities. Instead, when you start to feel symptoms of being ill, pay attention to them and get the medical care and attention that you need so your recovery can be as fast as possible
• Get help. You need your rest when you are sick so that you can get over the illness. This means that you will need help with your responsibilities, including care for your children, your home, and your aging parent. Seek out this help and be willing to accept offers of it so that you can focus on recovery
• Consider respite care. Attempting to care for your senior while you are suffering a cold or the flu could be disastrous. Even if you think that you are not “that sick” you could spread germs to your parent that could make them extremely ill. Viruses that do not seem extremely serious for younger people can develop into much more challenging infections, such as pneumonia, very quickly. Respite care is additional elder care that can step in to fulfill care needs when you need them so that you can rest assured your parent is getting the care they need even when you are not able to be with them.
Can elderly care help?
Starting elder care for your aging parent can be an exceptional step toward boosting their quality of life and supporting a more fulfilling, independent, and engaged lifestyle throughout their later years. An elderly home care services provider can be with your parent on a customized schedule that ensures that they have access to the care, support, and assistance that they need at all times, whether that is several hours every day or just occasionally to handle specific tasks.
Knowing that your senior parent has access to the personalized services of an elder care provider can give you peace of mind as their adult child, knowing that they are comfortable, safe, and happy, and also ease your stress as their family caregiver, knowing that even when you are not able to be with them, or if you have certain limitations, that their care needs will be fulfilled in the way that is right for them.
If you are considering hiring elderly care in Northville, MI, contact the caring staff at No Place Like Home Health, LLC today. Call (734) 259-4200.
Source:
https://www.healthline.com/health/cold-flu/deadly-flu
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease/65over.htm
https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/flu-guide/fact-sheet-elderly-people#1
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/index.htm
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