Columbia Aged Care

By giving your loved one a mobile, you are giving them a small, portable and light emergency link to you, reducing the stress and worry carers feel when separated. A mobile is something they can carry around with them when they go anywhere, whether it be from room to room or when they go on trips out of town.

However, mobiles have so much functionality it may prove difficult to stop your loved one from feeling intimidated and deflecting the suggestion that they need a mobile phone.

Boomers With Elderly Parents have written some great tips about how to look at, and talk about, using mobile phones without intimidating your loved one.

• Functionality: keep it simple, try to find an end of cycle or starter model that doesn’t have all the technological bells and whistles younger generations love.
• Cost: find a service provider that offers simple plans that can be customised for local use only or have a fixed price per month.
• Ease of use: take the time to teach your loved one how to use the device and limit the amount functions they have to accomplish to stay in contact.
• Speed-dialling: this function is especially useful for when caring for a loved one whose memory is becoming affected.

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Caring for the elderly, whether it is a spouse, parent or family member, is a full-time role that can be demanding and stressful. According to a new Home Instead Senior Care survey, 55 percent of the family caregivers that eventually employed their professional caregiving services appeared to have above average levels of stress when they came on board.

However, it doesn’t have to be that way. There are many easy ways to ensure that you maintain a healthy balance in your life. Care Giver Stress has provided a helpful article with some tips for carers to help deal with stress.

• Work out: Exercise for a minimum of twenty minutes at least three times per week, and do what you enjoy: walking, dancing, bike-riding or swimming. Consider learning a stress-management exercise such as yoga or tai chi, which teach inner balance and relaxation.
• Ask for help: To avoid burnout and stress, you can enlist the help of other family members and friends, or consider hiring a professional non-medical caregiver for assistance. There is no need to feel guilty for reaching out.
• Indulge: Treat yourself to a foot massage, manicure, nice dinner out or a concert to take yourself away from the situation and to reward yourself for the wonderful care you are providing to your aging relative.

For your own health and wellbeing, it is vital to take time out. Caring for the elderly is an amazing role, and you deserve and need to stay healthy and to treat yourself regularly.

Read the full article HERE.

While information technology has become second nature to younger generations, it still remains a bewildering and scary concept to many elderly people.

Technological advances now allow elderly people to have access to new systems and programs designed to help them live independently.

To help them make the most of technology, and stay in contact with friends and family more easily why not set aside some time to help them understand the concept and how to use technology, such as computers, the internet, emailing and even mobile phones.

Chad Hunter has provided four helpful tips on how to teach technology to the elderly these include:

1. Be patient.
Take your time and slowly go through the whole process clearly and concisely. Making the person feel rushed, stupid or incompetent will not help the situation. Remember this is all new and difficult to understand.Take your time and take breaks if you get frustrated.

2. Use analogies.
Elderly people are used to learning new things and have learnt alot during their lives. Use analogies to describe different terminologies and instructions to help them not only understand but remember when you aren’t there.

3. Spoon-feed terms.
World wide web, email, hard drives and symbols like ‘@’ are all new to elderly people with no technological knowledge. Go through it slowly since most of these terms seem like a foreign language to younger learners, you can imagine what your elderly student might be feeling. It would be a good idea to put together a glossary and instructions that they can refer to and study.

4. Practice makes perfect.
Sit with your student and go over concepts and practice exercises with them. Give them tasks and things of their interest to do on the computer. Show them how email can connect them to family. Show them how digital cameras can capture hundreds of photos.

Once you find things of interest for them, have them practice these steps as much as possible.

Caring for elderly spouse presents difficult challenges. It is extremely important to ensure your loved one is properly cared for, but it is equally important to look after yourself. Looking after a loved one is a stressful and strenuous process and sometimes it can all become too much. It is important to constantly evaluate your situation and assess if the current situation is best for the both of you. Care giver stress have provided some hints to help you gauge if spousal caregiving has become too risky for you:

• Missing or delaying your own doctor appointments
• Ignoring your own health problems or symptoms
• Not eating a healthy diet for lack of time Overusing tobacco and alcohol when you feel stressed
• Giving up exercise habits for lack of time
• Losing sleep Losing connections with friends for lack of time to socialize
• Bottling up feelings of anger and frustration and then being surprised by angry, even violent, outbursts directed at your spouse, other family members, co-workers - even strangers
• Feeling sad, down, depressed or hopeless
• Loss of energy
• Lacking interest in things that used to give you (and your spouse) pleasure
• Feeling resentful toward your spouse
• Blaming your spouse for the situation
• Feeling that people ask more of you than they should
• Feeling like caregiving has affected family relationships in a negative way
• Feeling annoyed by other family members who don't help out or who criticize your care

If you are experiencing a number of these signs, it is important to get support. Sometimes even the most resourceful person needs to ask for help from other family members or outside professionals or sources. It is important to take care of yourself, while taking care of someone else.