Understand/Help. Make sure one sibling does not have to handle
the caregiver burden all by themselves. It’s a heavy load. You might be unable
to be there on a daily basis but you can give them encouragement, appreciation,
and offer relief for them on some sort of a regular basis.
Take on a task
short &/or long term. Think
creatively…are there any long-term or short term chores you might be able to
offer to help with. Yard work, cooking, house cleaning, doctors’ appointments,
picking up prescriptions, errands, shopping. Perhaps, offer to do some of the legwork
to help find suitable respite care, or offer to visit long-term care facilities
and local agencies and gather information and paper work and then offer to help
go over them and fill them out. (Even if the caregiver wants to, often times
they cannot find the time to do this, especially when the patient cannot be
left alone.) Don’t call and ask, just take the initiative. Your taking the
initiative will mean more to the caregiver than you know.
Avoid
criticizing your
sibling, no matter what.
They may not be perfect at the job, but there is nothing more
disheartening to a caregiver in the daily grind of the job than to hear
fault-finding from a sibling who isn’t doing the work. If you think more help
is needed, offer to give it, pay for it, or help find it. (Comments like, call
me, let me know, or why hasn’t this or that been done are not helpful and can
often be harmful to the caregiver. You should be the one making the effort to
do the calling and checking in etc. the caregiver is more than likely sleep
deprived, mentally and emotionally drained and can barely remember what needs
to be done much less who needs to be called.)
Be a good
listener. When one family
member is doing the hard work of day to day caregiving, you can check in on a
regular basis and let them vent. It costs you nothing and they need to be able
to do this and not be made to feel guilty for venting. It requires no more than
a patient attitude and the will to show your support by asking how things are
going and then listening. This can be more helpful than you realize. Watching a
parent decline on a daily basis is often heartbreaking. Talking about the
emotions involved can relieve everyone’s stress. Ignoring the situation or
talking to the caregiver about anything but the situation can be hurtful and
can feed feelings of resentment…care giving is a lonely and hard job.
Share. Caregivers often feel left out like there is no
life beyond the grind of numerous chores and responsibilities they face daily.
They desire to be kept in the loop about what is happening outside the
boundaries of their limited life. Are there things going on in the community or
extended family that they might not be aware of? Is there some news or funny
stories you could share? Caregivers often don’t get the opportunity to share in
a lot of laughter or be involved in a positive environment. A thoughtful card,
or a small token gift to let them know you are thinking about them. Perhaps a
daily devotional or inspirational journal or book for no reason at all. Caregivers
need to know they are thought of as a person with feelings, desires, and dreams
and not just a caregiver.
There is no reason any child
should feel useless in the face of a parent’s dementia,
there are ways to be useful. You don’t need a special skill or expertise. What
you can do is to put forth the effort to read and learn about what is needed, to
willing extend yourself, stick with your efforts, and know that the time could
be short and if you make the effort now you’ll be able to look back on this
time in your life without regret. It might also prevent causing an unnecessary
rift between siblings. Everyone can do something on a consistent basis to help.
Sporadic one-time offers of help aren’t really that beneficial in the grand
scheme of things. The caregiver needs to know they are not in this alone.
Avoiding contact because you
feel helpless or because it’s difficult for you to watch your parent or listen
to your sibling vent is the worst thing you can do, not only for the caregiver,
but for you and your parent. Avoidance only causes resentment, regret, and
family separation. Get involved. Regardless of the state of your parent’s
dementia, they know if you visit them on a regular basis. You might not think
so, but they do.
