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Home Instead
You thought that caring for children was a challenge. They’re grown now, but you may be feeling that same work-family tug in looking after your senior loved one. You’re not alone.
Is there a stigma around family caregivers of older adults? Drew Holzapfel from ReACT (Respect a Caregiver’s Time) points out that senior caregiving issues often are not accepted like child-care issues and might even be stigmatized.
Caring for your dad is becoming more difficult. You’re exhausted and struggling to keep up with your workload. Maybe it’s impacting multiple areas of your life.
“Ted”—one of three adult sons – had a stressful career as a newspaper copy editor with limited time to help care for his elderly mother, who lived three hours from his home. “The demands were so great and, quite honestly, my job didn’t allow for me to take off time. Care mostly fell to my sister-in-law, who lived in the same community.”
With a family of her own to care for and a full-time job, Christy still found time to make frequent trips to see her father who was living several hours from her in another part of her state. After a second stroke, her dad was admitted to a skilled nursing community a bit closer -- 62 miles from Christy's home.
If you’re caring for an aging loved one and trying to manage a job, you may have seen your own health decline, even if you’ve tried your best to stay on top of things. According to Statistics Canada’s Portrait of Caregivers, 1 in 5 caregivers said their physical and mental health suffered in the last year as a result of the responsibilities of caregiving. If you're a working family caregiver, consider the following tips.
When it comes to talking about the caregiving landscape in Canada, young caregivers are often overlooked. Typically, we think of “the sandwich generation,” or people who are tasked with balancing care for a senior loved one with care for younger children. However, there are many young people providing care to loved ones, and they are investing a significant amount of time to the cause.
Being a caregiver is one of the most important and personally rewarding roles a person will play in their lifetime. Yet, when we talk about caregiving we tend to focus on the challenges caregivers face, instead of the special, intangible benefits.
Think you can’t afford to develop family-friendly business practices for your employees who are caring for an older adult? As the latest research suggests, perhaps you can’t afford not to address these issues. According to a recent Ceridian report, caregiving costs Canadian employers an estimated $5.5 billion annually in lost productivity.
As an employer, you may feel that your employee’s personal life is just that – private. But if your staffer is a family caregiver, it could be helpful to know what they are facing.
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