Caregiving Crisis Moments

Often, elders and caregivers reach out to me when they’re having a crisis moment. Sometimes this can be right after a hospitalization, right after a dementia diagnosis, or when the caregiver is completely burnt out and desperate for help. This is why I’m often doing crisis work. I will say that it’s always good when the person is more proactive and reaches out to me to plan, prepare, and try to avoid these crisis moments. However, I definitely understand the urgency and overwhelming stress that comes with these situations and really pushes the person to reach out to me.

When a caregiver has been caring for their older loved one, sometimes they have been caregiving alone, they have been working while caregiving, they are caregiving for aging parents and their children at the same time, or they have been caregiving without any support or guidance on how to navigate this journey. This often leads to burn out and overwhelming stress. A lot of my work involves creating immediate solutions and long-term plans so that we can reduce crisis moments and help both the caregiver and their older loved one to have the best quality of life possible. Healthcare providers very seldom know the guidance to give in these situations and the resources that can help. As a Gerontologist (aging expert), I come in with a very holistic understanding of aging and caregiving. Also, the aging services industry is very spread out, and it can be hard to connect everything and understand what options are best for your situation.

When you have been having aging and caregiving challenges, it can really be so helpful and relieving to finally sit with someone and be heard. That’s what I try to do for my clients. Every aging and caregiving situation is unique and you really need somebody who can come in with non-biased support and offer guidance that is going to save you time, money, and energy. In some situations, you have been navigating this journey through trial and error and it has been all consuming. In other situations, you are brand new to this journey and scrambling to try to figure out what is going to be best for you and your older loved one.

When we really work to reduce these crisis moments, we’re taking you out of fight or flight mode as much as possible. Caregiving is messy. Crisis moments may push you to start searching for help, but when we start to prepare and plan we really take charge of the situation as much as possible. One thing I know for sure, from my experience with working in aging services, is that a lot of these businesses will try to take advantage of you when you are so overwhelmed and desperate for help. Healthcare is a business. We often think of healthcare as this saving grace, but in the end every healthcare provider has a goal of making money. This is not to say that all healthcare providers are bad because there are good ones out there. I’m just saying that this is something to be mindful of.

When I say healthcare is a business, this includes hospice agencies. Every business, regardless of if it’s for-profit or non profit, needs to make money. Some of the people I’ve worked with have been very surprised after I explained that hospice is a business and then they find out for themselves. The point of me saying this is to tie back into the topic being crisis moments and letting you know that people can try to take advantage of you when you are in a crisis moment and desperate for help. Part of what I do is to advocate for you and your older loved one and really cut back on people taking advantage of you when you are in these crisis moments.

If you need guidance in caring for your older loved one or thriving as an elder yourself, call AgeWell Advocacy at 803.486.5322.