It’s late at night. The moon has long been shining. So long, in fact, that you swear the early morning’s dawn is beginning to break. Sleep hasn’t found you this night and all you feel is exhaustion. Every waking moment of your day is now overwhelmed by that simple feeling: fatigue. This could be the result of taking care of a parent with Alzheimer’s. Is it time to consider Alzheimer’s care services?
It’s been years since your elderly mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Your dad, rest in peace, did the best he could to help, but in his declining years, he was easily overwhelmed, too. You’re starting to wonder if your mom is going to outlive you, too. In your 50s or 60s, you may feel (or had felt) completely healthy … once upon a time, but you can’t recall the last time you actually felt good. It’s been years, you think.
Today, everything seems to be falling apart. Your mother is getting more ornery. She’s getting downright nasty. You’re giving up more and more of your life (and time) to her needs, and nothing seems to make a difference. You need a break. You need help.
But where do you turn?
Many people dismiss professional home care services. It could be Alzheimer’s care or something else but rarely do people actually consider it. Why? They take this as their responsibility, their job. It’s something they were chosen to do (or for whom there are no other viable options).
After a while, the pressure, and the stress start to break you down. You get frustrated. You become angry … at everything and everyone. And yet, you have to remind yourself (daily) that it’s not your mom who deserves your wrath, but the disease, so you bite your tongue and hold back. Then she utters an accusation, yells at you, or throws something across the room.
“What am I doing?” you may ask. Maybe you lash back. Guess what? You’re not alone. This is what most family caregivers deal with, often on a far-too-regular basis when they’re helping an aging parent or spouse through the twilight years of Alzheimer’s.
What can you do? Hire Alzheimer’s care?
You can consider senior home care. Experienced Alzheimer’s care, to be more precise. The kind where you have someone working with your mom who’s done this with other aging clients diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia.
One of the saddest realities of life when it comes to this topic, though, is that most adult children or spouses honestly believe this responsibility belongs to them and that if they turn to something like senior home care, they’ve failed. Or worse, that their loved one will think they don’t care or love them anymore.
Don’t allow yourself to fall into that trap. Not about this. There’s only so much you can do to support someone with Alzheimer’s. The disease affects not only memory, but cognitive functions, behaviors, language, and how a person reacts to various circumstances, sometimes in drastically different ways than they ever had before.
The best thing you or anyone else can do when there’s a family member with dementia is to be thorough and find out everything you can about Alzheimer’s care support. It can make the biggest difference in your life.
