Care Giving

What is Care Giving

The demand for health care providers has greatly increased over the last few years. To compensate for this need for health workers, there are hundreds of thousand schools and colleges in the United States and around the world that offer courses in the basics of health care. The medical profession does not only provide employment opportunities for doctors, registered nurses, therapists, and other professionals who hold medical degrees. In fact, nurse assistants and caregivers are also in demand in many countries. The people who go into these careers should be well-certified for their jobs, and many persons believe this industry to be a rewarding one.

Care giving is a term that is used for the idea of caring for others. Care giving involves many aspects in it. It may seem a simple task but is actually a very difficult task to accomplish. Care giving may refer to the type of health services being offered to a patient in the comforts of his own home. There are instances when a person diagnosed with a disease feels more comfortable recovering in his house rather than being confined in a medical facility. Sometimes, this is also as per the recommendation of family members who want to keep a close eye on a relative who is ill. There are also situations when doctors strongly advice home care, as patients can recuperate better when they stay at home and are watched by a caregiver.

Mostly caretakers are some physically and mentally strong person especially when they start looking after someone. Care receivers are the people who receive the caring services of the caretaker. Care receivers in the most cases of the world are the elderly people or the one with the disable mind or the handicapped person who cannot perform the functions that are necessary for living himself. These caretakers may also not be the professional persons rather they can be people from the society and family of the care receiver. For instance, the younger members of the family look after the older members of the family or any family friend in dependent stage of life receiving caring services from the family or any disable child being looked after by the other normal members of the society. Most number of caretakers is a woman. Caregiving jobs are very noble and are the souse of personal and moral satisfaction of the caretaker.

Formal Care giving

A caregiver is a licensed medical practitioner that should have finished a minimum of two years in a college or school specializing in health care training. There are also examinations and evaluations that help assess whether a person is fit to begin practicing as a caregiver. These medical practitioners are able to perform basic routine check-ups for the patients under home care, such as monitoring of blood pressure, temperature, blood glucose levels, and many others.

Care giving Training

Caregivers also hold special responsibilities for administering medications to the patients under their care. They should have advanced understanding of the kinds of medication that a patient needs for a specific condition. Caregivers are also trained in first aid and safety. Aside from those, caregivers are also all around employees, as they also manage the meal preparation, bathing, clothing, exercise activities, and many other needs of the patients.

In Home Care giving

There are caregivers who stay-in with the patients they work with. In some cases, caregivers arrive and leave at certain times of the day, and are paid per hour of work. Some families who have an ailing relative hire a temporary caregiver to facilitate for the needs of the patient in case that they should be at work or at school. There are also home care facilities in which several caregivers are under employ, and several patients live together in one house.

Caregiving is a very tough work and requires huge amount of responsibility and concentration with the power to bear the questions and untimely requests of the care receiver that may happen at different times. As care receivers are almost alone so they try to find a friend in the caretaker and make different queries and talk without realizing the amount of other tasks a person has to accomplish. Caregiving also requires physical strength along with mental strength. Many people are totally dependent in the sense they cannot even change their clothes themselves and need a helper to help them in going to the bathroom and performing routine works necessary for life.

Care giving Responsibilities

1. Assistance with personal care such as bathing, dressing, grooming and hygiene
1. Assisting with Personal Grooming and Hygiene like bathing, dressing .
2. Assistance with overall cleanliness like doing laundry (sheets, towels, clothes), changing linen.
3. Preparing meals, including any specific diets prescribed by doctors. Cleaning the kitchen.
4. Running errands like grocery shopping, buying medicines and other necessities.
5. Assisting with transportation and accompanying to bank, doctor, airport etc.
6. Maintaining the home cleaning, dusting vacuuming.
7. Timely administration of medicines.
8. Assisting the incapable to move around; shifting to and from bed to chair, wheelchair or in trips to the bathroom.
9. Take care of pets, water plants.
10. Assisting with exercise as directed by doctor.
11. Emotional company.

Caregiving Stress

When a job is very demanding in the sense of its works and duties then there is likely to be a stress created on the person giving such services. This risk is manifold when the caretaker has more than one job to perform like a full or part time job and taking care of minor children at the same time. All of these demanding works can affect the working of the human body and can create a mantle situation that can be termed as mental stress. Caregiving is such a difficult job that people need other family members or relatives or friends to help them to take care of the loved one but unfortunately most number of caretakers do it alone for their loving one. This extra amount of work on the caretaker makes them more vulnerable to any kind of disease and is responsible for the deteriorating health of the caretaker.

Coping with Caregiving

It is very important for the caretaker to work out the stress and take good care of his or her own health. Only caretakers good health can ensure good caregiving to the dependent. The amount of stress created on the caretaker can be reduced with the help of very good diet and rest. Seek assistance from the other members of the family or hire some professionals for rare visits. Spend some time with the friends and find time for the exercise. Caretaker will himself has to try to be good in health despite all the precautionary measures told.

Long Distance Care Giving

In certain cases, the caregiver lives away from family members. Parent might be living in their home town while their children have moved to another city, state or country for work. In such cases, the caregiver mainly help with financial planning, organizing in-family care giving and providing emotional support etc. A long distance care giving is not primary caregiving since the caregiver lives away and cannot provide round the clock care. As such, long distance care giving can be quite stressful. The key in such family caregiving is to care as much as possible, visit frequently, observe and recognize any changes that might be adversely affecting the loved one.

Long Distance Caregiving Tips

If you are a long distance caregiver, its important to keep the following things in mind:

1) Check out alternative options. Ask your loved one if he or she is willing to move to the same place as you. If yes then decide together what would be best suited- living with you, with another family member or separate housing.

2) While visiting the loved ones observe and decide if he/she requires more help than what is already present. Although initially help might be required for certain tasks like cleaning etc, with the passage of time, more assistance with day to day activities might be required. Its important to recognize these signs and arrange for private caregiving accordingly.

3) Small gestures like making phone calls, writing letters etc keeps your loved one happy.

4) Keep in touch with other family members taking care of your loved one or other partners in caregiving. Also keep yourself aware of all important facilities concerning him/her. Keep yourself informed about doctors, medicines etc.