The CaraVita Blog

As our parents or family members age, we take the time to check in on them, help them run errands, and in some cases, provide daily assistance and caregiving. But what if you’re at a distance from your loved one? While a long-distance caregiver may need to take on different roles than a traditional family caregiver, you can still be actively involved in your loved one’s care.

Being a caregiver for a loved one is an honorable action that can require a lot of patience, care, and love. If you have undertaken the role of caregiver for someone you love, you likely have realized that it is a full-time job with many responsibilities. Though caregiving is the perfect way to show your loved one you care and appreciate them, it can take a toll on your personal life and potentially, your health.

Caring for your elderly loved one can be hard to manage, especially if your loved one is resistant to receiving senior care. It’s normal to feel anxious, especially if this is your first time providing senior care to a loved one. CaraVita Home Care knows first-hand the importance of family caregivers and the stresses they go through attempting to provide the best senior care for their loved ones. CaraVita Home Care would like to provide you some tips to help you better adjust to the caregiving journey.

Having a job as senior caregiver can be a very fulfilling and rewarding career, that will provide for complete job satisfaction. When you care for an elderly loved one, there is a great sense of honor and purpose in your life. It may sometimes become a little tough to exert a lot of energy into helping someone else, so it is important to seek help to avoid caregiver burnout. CaraVita Home Care wants all caregivers and family members who care for others to feel appreciated. Here are a few words of wisdom for senior caregivers.

At CaraVita Home Care, we are proud of the services we provide in senior home care and the partners we work with. One of our partners, Aloha to Senior Solutions, believes the act of aging should be treated with the Aloha spirit, otherwise known as a harmonious and respectful way of living.  The following information was provided by our guest blogger Dawn Reed, CEO of Aloha to Senior Solutions and Founder of Aloha to Aging, Inc. In a previous article, we discussed ways caregivers can remain positive, in this edition we are expressing why caregiving should be a team effort.

It can be easy to neglect your own health when you provide in-home care for a loved one. When you overexert yourself caring for another, you will most likely encounter caregiver burnout which can lead to more severe outcomes, such as depression or physical ailment. You can avoid the detrimental effects of caregiving by remembering to take care of your own health and stay positive with in-home care. However, preventing pessimistic thoughts can be easier said than done. At CaraVita, we know it can be challenging to stay positive but it is essential, so here are three tips to aid in optimism!

CaraVita Home Care is proud to partner with Senior Advisory Services (SAS). SAS provides excellent guidance for senior living and senior care options. They provide education to help individuals make the right decision about transitioning to a senior living community. In this guest blog Stephanie Fiber-Sutton, CEO of Senior Advisory Services gives tips and resources to balancing a personal life, work life, and caring for a loved one.

Caregiver burnout is a state of exhaustion that affects a person's physical, emotional, and mental health and leads to a change of demeanor and attitude. This condition affects family caregivers who have taken on too much responsibility (either physically or financially) in caring for a loved one and are not getting the help they need. Symptoms of this burnout are fatigue, stress, anxiety, and depression. 

If you are providing home care to a loved one suffering from any stage of dementia related symptoms, you have a lot of trial and error in your future. But we're here to help. After hundreds of combined years experience providing in-home senior care, we have learned a thing or two. Whether your caregiving journey has just begun, or you are about to nod knowingly as you check these off your mental list of things to avoid in care, these are the ten biggest things you can avoid doing to make your communication and caregiving that much more effective.

The dreaded parent-child life talks. Odds are you've been having them with your folks since the first time you cut your sisters pony tail off, or did some other childhood things to warrant the "go wait in your room, your father will be hearing about this when he gets home," bomb from mom. You probably slinked away, awaiting that conversation with anxious energy. Funny how some things never change. Now that everyone is a little older, a little wiser, surely we can all talk about things like aging, right? Of course not.