Respite Care: A Necessary Break That Makes You A Better Caregiver
Providing care can be a demanding job, and it can be especially difficult when the person you are caring for happens to be family. Caregiving is a 24/7 commitment that can lead to exhaustion, stress, and even burnout; if you’re feeling overwhelmed, it is important to remember that taking a break is absolutely essential, and this is what Respite Care can provide.
Respite Care is temporary, short-term relief for primary caregivers, it is critical when you feel your batteries running low, allowing you to focus, recharge, and return to your role with renewed patience, energy and overall perspective.
Caregiver burnout is an emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion that can be the result of prolonged stress. Symptoms often include fatigue, anxiety and the inability to stay focused. Taking care of yourself is important, and regular breaks, even short ones, are needed to ensure your own health. By using Respite Care, it is a preventative measure, ensuring you can continue to provide high-quality care without resentment. When you are stressed, patience can run thin. Respite care provides you the opportunity to step away, manage your stress, and reconnect with your loved one on a personal level rather than just as a task manager. When you feel refreshed, you have more emotional capacity to be fully engaged, loving, and supportive.
When you are caring for a senior, your own needs often take a back seat to their needs, which can lead to missed appointments and errands, loss of quality time with family and friends, and all too often, lack of a good night’s sleep. This can take a toll on your health, so it’s not something you should neglect.
The benefits of Respite Care are that it not only provides you with a break, but it is beneficial to your loved one. Often, by providing a change of caregiver, it can be a positive change of pace and can be helpful in maintaining routines but might also offer different perspective and solutions. Maybe doing things a certain way is just done because it’s how it has always been done, and by taking a step away, it allows time to assess the needs of both caregiver and loved one. By providing you with a competent alternative in the short-term, it can provide you the peace of mind that you have a trusted backup when you need time for yourself. Respite Care is provided to assist you with a quality professional caregiver that can take care of your loved one’s ADL’s (activities of daily living) such as bathing, dressing, light housekeeping and meal preparation, as well as medication reminders and, in some cases, appointments and errands.
Respite Care is a powerful tool in any caregiving toolkit. Often people will wait until they’ve hit the breaking point to enlist the support of others. Searchlight Senior Services of Norwell offers Respite Care by providing the highest quality caregivers that take pride in providing the very best care to all of our clients. Don’t wait, you are making an investment in your own well-being and ensuring the quality of the long-term care you are providing.
