Caregiver Burnout with Josephine Porokoso

*The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

This is a special presentation of answers for elders with Sarah and getty care. Good afternoon everyone, welcome back to the program. I am here with a very lovely lady by the name of Josephine Porocoso and she is with Saren Getty care in the greater Seattle puget sound area. She’s a registered nurse and case manager for Saren Getty Home Care and she serves all of King Pierce, kids up and snawamish counties. Just sphine, you have a vast amount of experience, about ten years and I am just so glad to have you here that you can share your wisdom with all of us. Welcome to the program. Thank you. I’m so glad to be here. We’re glad to have you guys on board because your organization you obviously work with a lot of not only seniors, but you also kind of help to, you know, help caregivers and help with burnout and different things like that, and I’m excited to talk to you a little bit about caregiver burn out because you know it’s interesting no matter who you talk to, when you’re talking to a senior parent, it’s an overwhelming thing. To have your senior loved one, yes, and then responsibility. Yes, that’s correct. Can’t. You’ve a been out is, I’m real, and is something that we really have to pay particular attention to. It is, it is, and unfortunately, at least you know, in in this there’s been a million studies and oftentimes it’s the you know, adult daughter, and usually it’s the sacrificial lamb of the family that ends up being the caregiver. And often times you really have to learn to learn to speak up, you learn, have to learn about boundaries and and setting your schedule and making sure that you don’t give up your life in the first place. But then there’s these times that are just really intense, and so we’re here to talk about it today. As far as how, you know, we know all that, but tell me a little bit about what is burnout. So, kid, give a been out is a situation where, you know, I doubt, daughters of sons, I caring for the aging parents and in so doing, you know, they find that they find themselves in situation where they just feel so stressed out, because it can be very stressful. So that’s where seeing any care comes in, because we have care give us that right we can send to you to relieve that. And you know the thing, everyone, this is an important issue because if you’re taking care of a senior parent, you’re shuffling likely many other things. You’re Schefferling your career, you’re shuffling your family obligations, you have a home to maintain different types of responsibilities and then all of a sudden, in most cases, the caregiver role is kind of placed on you abruptly and all of a sudden your life changes and it can affect not only you and your life, but it can also affect your entire family and the unity and and really cohesion within the family when something like this happens. And so an organization like Serignetti here, they can help you with many, many things and making your life go a lot easier. In it’s also, in many ways more beneficial to your parent, because now you have an opportunity to really spend quality time with your loved one rather than doing a lot of the things that they can do for you. So how big is the problem when you talk about when we talk about caregiver burn out? They’re not alone, are they know they are not. They actually some serious consequescence of for family. KAIVA’s health connected associated with this tress that becomes it. So the problem is actually very big. There was a study that was done by the National Alliance for kgiving in collaboration with a rap in, remember, two thousand and nine. It’s reported that twenty three percent of family care give us caring for loved ones for five years or more, reported their health as either fair or poor. So that can just write there. I can tell you how big this problem is in the numbers might actually be more than that. Well, and what we’ve learned in our studies, just to verify and confirm what Josephine is sound telling us, is that there’s heart disease and high blood pressure amongst caregivers are twice the national average. That tells us a lot that you guys are stressed to the Max. I know I had my own experience and taking care of my mom and I can certainly tell you what an overwhelming responsibility it is and it weighs heavily on your shoulders and you often times you don’t get sleep at night because you’re thinking about is mom going to fall, if mom you know or mom had a bad fall, you’re concerned about them. Getting up in the middle of the night so that they don’t fall, or do they have the proper types of, you know, things in their homes? And often times that the stress factor, you know, with your life if obviously, and Josephine, you can certainly talk about that, is the fact that you know, you never know what to prepare for at the next crossroads. It’s because you don’t know where it’s going to lead you. You only know it’s going to get worse. That’s great. That’s great, and these actually symptoms that have been associated with this trist that a doubt children running to when they kid caring for their lanterns. These like loads of patience. Sometimes you just feel like you know your life. You can’t put your life to know, because it’s hard. Yeah, you know, and I’m so glad that you’re here. By the way, we’re talking with Josephine Port Coles so, and she is a clinical case manager with Sara and Getty Care here in greater puget sound, hand covering King Piers in Ahamash KITSAP counties. Did I miss one? I think I think you got him. Okay, want to make sure. So, you know, let’s talk about so if I get burned out and of course we’ve got we’ve obviously got a lot of, you know, signs. Obviously shortness of breath. What are some of the other signs? So some of the signs associated with that can be where you just feel so overwhelmed, you feel like, you know, there’s like cannot in your throat. Sometimes you can get crumps. Yeah, and most of the Times people don’t really mistake these symptoms as just like no, try to ignore them, but these are symptoms that I really in that we have to pay particular attention to. Absolutely. So, how do you avoid or manage burnout? Just be so there are many ways, adaptive strategies that you can use to distress. You know, sometimes you can try having positive thoughts, Uh Huh, stepping away from you know, the moment. Music therapy has been proven to be helpful for some people. That’s and just talking to someone, talking to someone about what you’re going through, because know that you’re not alone. There’s a lot of people in this situation. You know, that’s really true. It’s estimated today that there’s forty five million family caregivers out there that are taking care of senior parents over twenty hours a week or more so when you look at our population and our age group and you realize that, you know, you’re probably in the same room as another family caregiver, but people don’t talk about it and and finding that support network that you can you can talk to is such a key part of that, for sure. That’s right. Yeah, I also taught, you know, I always think about too is, you know, and you talked. You stepped on this thought and I really want to go back to that, is positive thoughts. You know, a lot of us, because it gets overwhelming, we forget to see the gratitude and the and the things that the privilege that we have. I know I have a saying that when I took care of my own mom it was the hardest thing I ever did in my life, but it was also my greatest privilege because I got to be there at the end of her life. I got to hold her hand, I got to, you know, be there in the moments when nobody else was there, when she would share me with me some of her, you know, her most precious thoughts and and ideas about the world and sharing experiences there at the end of her life. And I think sometimes we forget Shaw we forget to sit back and think about, you know, the things that we’re grateful for. And and going back to is if you’re you’re an organization like Serengetti Care, obviously you guys can take care of the lot of the, you know, difficult things that families are dealing with right now. That’s true, and I believe that you know when you give us a call here at Seraingety care, we can take some of these stresses away and allow you to be the daughter or the sun, right, instead of being the care giver. Right. So let us take that burden of caring for mom while still having you be a part of them, like you alluded to talking about, like you know, have positive like memories with your las. Yes, so tell us a little bit about if I were to call yours, your company, what kind of services would you offer my family? So we offer us a wide range of services. We can do bathing care, in continent care, and we can do dressing, you know, lighthouse keeping, we do laundry, all the activities that we we engage people in a day to day life. So we can take that beding away from you. So imagine going over to your parents house and, instead of you having to do cooking and cleaning and laundry and all these things. You can just sit there and have a conversation with them. That’s been quality time. So just feed. How do we reach you? So here at Seraingetty care you we are open t seven. Website is www dot sering getty carecom. Would you spell seren getty please, so it’s s e Ri e n g Ti Geti. Yes, okay, that’s Sereanngeti Care, sea recom. And and then also, just as a as a follow up, what kind of advice do you have for those that are listening and taking care of parent? What? What is something you could do right now? So I would advise you to pick up the phone and call Serenetti Care, because would take away some of this dresses that you might be going through right now and would just help to ease the bed in. Yes, and and you know, I will have to say a lot of us don’t even know that these kind of services exist, and so we’re really thrilled to have somebody like their their services that helps families make their lives a lot easier and coming together for sure. Thank you, Josephine, for being in the program thank you so much for having I’m so glad you’re hair. This has been a special presentation of answers for elders with Sara and getty care. For more information for seeing getty care, go to seeing Getti carecom. That’s seer en Geti see a recom