I spent 7 years taking care of my elderly mother, and I learned a few things from that experience -- the hard way. Nobody told me much. I just had to figure things out. I never trained as a nurse or CNA. Taking care of her as she slowly declined taught me a lot -- particularly about kindness, dignity, and compassion.
So here in no particular order are some things I learned.
1) Take away the car keys sooner rather than later. You can reassure your senior they will get rides to where they need to be. It's SO important.Mom had an elderly friend who nearly killed a car full of kids because her reaction time was too slow and she stubbornly refused to stop driving. You can call an Uber for someone else, if you cannot take them where they need to go.
2) Don't try to exclude your kids from helping. Any child over 10 can help with caretaking for a senior and its a good thing, trust me. It teaches them patience and kindness. My son was a doll when it came to taking care of his granny, even when he was struggling with substance abuse issues. He adored her. They were very close. He could lift her in and out of her wheelchair when I couldn't manage. He could pick up prescriptions so I didn't have to leave her. He could just sit with her for an hour so I could have a break. He fixed her computer and Kindle countless times when her shaking hands messed up something. She called him her "knight in shining armor."
3) For years I carried around two things in my purse: a list of Mom's medications including name, dosage information, and prescribing doctor. I also carried a copy of her durable healthcare power of attorney [aka "living will"]. More than once I had to hand those to EMTs or nurses to copy. A typed page of her medical history was also helpful. When I called an ambulance for her the last time I just ran and copied everything and handed the packet of papers to the EMT. He was impressed. I couldn't go to the hospital with her because of Covid. She died four days later.
4) Most seniors have incontinence issues. My mom slept on an incontinence pad for a couple of years before she passed. Sometimes they were hard to find. A "puppy training pad" is the exact same thing and most bigger grocery stores carry them.
5) My room was upstairs and my mom's room was downstairs. Sometimes in the night she needed me. We tried lots of different ways for her to call me -- yelling, walkie talkies, bells, whistles. Finally, we got a baby monitor. It worked best, but she got up several times a night so I had to learn to sleep through that noise.
6) Eventually, food didn't taste good to her. I found that a carton of Greek yogurt was easy on her tummy and her teeth and she started eating it daily for breakfast.
7) Sometimes at night she would wake up screaming and/or crying from the pain of leg cramps. Her potassium would be depleted due to diarrhea because she had IBS. What helped was to let her drink a glass of tonic water and eat good old salty Lay's potato chips. Potatoes are a great source of potassium, better than bananas. It also helps to gently massage the place that's cramping. Those things work much quicker than taking a potassium pill, trust me. We tried both.
8) She stayed at home and seldom went out the last few years because of a host of physical issues. It was important for her to connect with friends and family, though. She didn't see her older brother for years before she died because he was in a nursing home in NC and neither one of them could travel during their last few years. We would do phone calls, though, and those really helped her. Also, calls to old friends were vital to her emotional well-being. Her hands got so bad she needed help dialing the phone. A couple of times my cousins and I were able to set up video calls, and those were a true blessing.
9) The last few years of her life, Mom was plagued with UTIs [urinary tract infections] and I had no idea that those could cause dementia-like symptoms and even hallucinations, plus general weakness. The issues lingered for a while after each UTI, and weakened her. She wore heavy pads due to incontinence and those were the problem. Women can have surgery to repair leakage and we should have urged her to do that. Hindsight.
10) After Mom died, I realized with deep regret that I didn't have but two tiny 5 minute videos of her telling stories. I should have taken more! We talked every day and she was a wonderful storyteller. I just wish I had recorded more audio and videos, just to feel like I could visit with her after her passing. I really cherish those videos now, of course. You may think there is time but don't wait, act! Trust me, when your mom or dad or grandma die, you will really regret not having more of them on video.
11) Drinking straws that bend are a godsend. Her hands were weak and shaky the last few years, and we put straws even into hot coffee.
12) Computers are a blessing. Mom loved her computer. She sent out funny emails, spent time on Facebook daily, and even learned to Google. She googled everyone she knew. Yes, as her hands got worse she would "mess up" the computer a lot, but it helped her feel connected to the world and kept her brain more agile than if she had just been staring at a TV.
I am very blessed that she liked to write blogs, and she wrote a blog for years, with my help. After she passed, I collected her best blogs into an anthology and it's available on Amazon, Singing to the Cows.
I still miss her every day.
#caretakingforasenior, #caringforaparent, #tipsforcaretakers, #elderlyissues, #learningtobeacaretaker
