Spousal Caregiving with Daphne Davis
Daphne Davis at Pinnacle Senior Placements talks about planning for senior care and the need for the caregivers to think about themselves and their own minds. Caregivers statistically can harm own health if they don’t maintain a good life balance, particularly if the caregiver is the spouse of the senior loved one.
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*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.
The following podcast is provided by pinnacles senior placements LLC and answers for elders radio. Welcome back to answers for elders. This is chuckolmstead filling in for Suzanne Newman. Our guest today this full hour is Daphne Davis. She’s the owner of pinnacles senior placements and Daphnee, we in the last segment. We’re talking about planning for a senior care and and you and I were chatting a little bit about the need for for the caregivers to think about their their own selves and what’s going on in their own heart and their own mind and their own body as they’re working with their loved one that may have a special need. Yeah, it’s an important piece because caregivers statistically can get into the weeds in their health if they’re not intentional about self care, and so it’s really important for people to have a balance in their life when they are a caregiver. And let’s just talk about spousal caregiving. You know that that it’s a wonderful thing when you can stay in your home and you have a helpmate, a wife or a husband or someone in your life that can help you through your challenges and on the other side you’re going to be helping that caregiver to it’s symbiotic. It works together. But but the the thing to to pay a close, close attention to is not to sacrifice your own health, physically, spiritually, emotionally, mentally. And so there’s something can sometimes be some signs and things that are happening and you go, Gosh, you know, my patients are just wearing thin. I’m snappy, you know, it’s only eleven o’clock in the morning and I’m already not on my game. m things are irritating me. or it could be I just don’t want to make lunch today. I want somebody else to make lunch for me. Oh, I want to be taken care of. Yes, you know, those are real, real feelings and they should be acknowledged. They can be taken as just weariness or they can be taken as kind of signs that says, okay, maybe I need a break, and the word that we use for that in senior caring is respite. HMM, so that’s a word that you might be able to share with other people that are coming a crossed in your life. Maybe there’s a home health person that’s coming in into your home. Maybe it’s with your family, your friends, or you’ve heard that word respite. That’s where you get a little bit of a break where you can have somebody come into your home. The person that you’re caring for, depending upon your story, could go outside of the home for a certain amount of time. They might. Can you help somebody in that transition, I mean for a respect care? Absolutely, yeah, it’s what I do all the time. So I’m that information post that says, Daphne, this is what’s going on. No story is too simple or too big, no story is dumb or wrong or embarrassing, that it’s life, hmm. And so I’m an information post. All of our advisors at Pinnacle senior placements are at, you know, information posts, and we’re here to help you get through these chapters of life that are are wonderful but challenging. You know, Daphne, the thing that I’ve discovered about you is you’re easy to talk to, but that’s such a an important thing because I think in this in this business, if you want to call it business, of senior care, the the requirement for honesty is really good. I mean honesty is important in all relationships. Yes, but for for for the dynamics that happen with senior care. Mean there really has to be a level of honesty about the situation and what’s happening within all the relationships, whether it’s the person that’s that’s going through the health crisis or it’s the family member that is dealing with that crisis. Yes, I mean there has to be that that level, and you’re able to help draw that out. You’ve got that skill set, you know how to do that. You’re that trustworthy person and that’s really important, isn’t it? Yes, it’s huge. That’s the piece that allows for success in transitions. It’s the piece that allows for dignified care. It’s a it’s the piece that allows for quality care. That’s where the conversations that I have with families might, for some personalities, feel like you’re a little to probe. Yeah, like why are you and yeah, are you asking me this question about my finances? Yeah, that’s a good area. I mean, finances are very personal personal and I try really hard to to be respectful to where you’re at as a family. There are minimally some information. I mean, I need to know if we need to look at Medicaid. Or if we have an estate that’s, you know, in a trust and we have a finite amount of money, I need to know if we’ve got, you know, fiftyzero dollars to work with for till till life is done, because I don’t want a lot of changes in someone’s life. Or I might ask about, you know, what did your dad do in his s and I get sons that give me the raised eyebrow. Right, who cares? Right, he’s eighty five now. And the reason I ask that is I want to know who he is as a person. HMM, his person and hasn’t changed his his mind or his body might have changed, but his person is still there. And so if your dad was a woodworker or he puttered around the yard or he had, you know, roses that were unbelievable, I want to know that about him so that I can duplicate that or I can have him be in likeminded communities or access to those hobbies. He may not be able to do them, but he certainly can talk about them. MMM, even if his mind is challenged, you’re going to see a twinkle. He can communicate about those things. Yeah, and so that’s why it’s important to be really honest in some things are just like that has no pertinence to today. Other things are more specific in terms of today. Do they need help dressing? Are they getting up at night? What’s their appetite like? Do they need help being fed? There’s all kinds of things that go into that exploration. But in terms of the caregiver right, in terms of the caregiver and needing to have some respite, those kinds of questions would be asked to help that short term relief for the caregiver be successful for both parties involved. HMM, you know, I you and you and I know that you’ve been working with me and helping me in a family situation that I have back a back east, and you know I was I was back visiting this last January and coming back from that trip I was just as concerned for the caregiver as I was the person being cared for. I had it was just kind of this innate feeling that there they are going to need some help because, first of all, they they don’t know how much stress they’re under right now. They’re just trying to they’re just trying to get make things better. Yep, they’re living it, they’re living right and they don’t understand that they’re kind of in crisis to and they may or may not be willing to accept that help. They may still be hiding. You and I were talking about that. They still might be hiding thing from things and issues from friends and family, you know, because they want to honor their loved one and and it’s almost a dishonor because they’re hiding what’s really going on. So there’s all these different levels going on with the caregiver, isn’t there? Yeah, there is. There’s a lot. Sometimes our pride gets in there. The way that we were raised, the generation that we were raised in. We still, as our seniors are elders, still have a lot of pride. A privacy is as a common thread in how you interact with other people. And and then the other pieces. There’s a difference in terms of specifically for our health, in terms of our involvement. Most of the time, and I don’t know where the ages so I’m just going to pick a number, but over seventy five right. The doctor knows everything. The doctor is there to take care of me and I’ll listen to the doctor. MMM, and our healthcare system doesn’t always allow for just the doctor to be your advocate. You many times have to have another person to help navigate through that healthcare piece, whether it be physical or mental, and so that that’s an uncomfortable and foreign it’s like, no, you’re just my son, you’re my daughter, you’re just somebody, social worker. Let me talk to the doctor. You know the doctor, is it? Yeah, and that’s not exactly how it works these days. The doctor is certainly a source of information and certainly a piece of the puzzle in helping have quality of life, but not the end all, and that takes courage to step out of the model that you know, that you’ve lived with all your life. This is talking to the seniors. You’ve lived with this, you know this. I shouldn’t have to educate myself about things. What they say is really how it is. But in reality, think about the time that you spend with your doctor and if you at a lot of time with your doctor, don’t change doctors. You’re right, right, but they don’t know you. They’re not asking about what you were like when you were fifty. No, they don’t have time, they don’t, and it’s not that they don’t want to write. They just don’t have time. And so to have a team of people that help you through this navigation. The doctor is a part of that team. Your family is a part of that team, a professional, the social workers, your pastor, I mean your friends, we’re all a part of the team to gather information. That takes openness, yes, it takes a lot of courage well, and I found in this situation too, that there was not necessarily a real clarity with the doctors as far as being honest with them. And the one thing that I encourage the family to do is listen that doctors not omnipresent, and I’m missioned. He doesn’t know. Unless you tell him, he’s not going to know what’s going on, right, and so you’ve got to be honest with them and let not let you know, not let those secrets stay. Yeah, and some of that is just, you know, the privacy piece, right. Some of it is that, the pride, the Ego, the privacy, all of those things. The other part of it is you may not just know, hmm, and that’s where they advocate to come in and help you figure out what you don’t know. Right, like having someone do a repetitive action. May mean nothing to you, but it might mean something to a healthcare professional thinking in terms of well, my spouse can do this, you know, usually you know whatever this is. They can, they can get dressed. Well, yeah, there’s some days that we can’t. We need to know the some days, you know, to help figure out the mystery of what’s going on or to be able to provide enough support for the caregiver and for the person who’s going through the journey. We need to know the details. Yeah, and there’s no shame in letting the details be known. I always tell people constantly you’re very wise person to be so open. That’s right. You’re very courageous and wise because you’re you’re giving a gift of information to help solve a situation, of a problem. must a challenge be open. That’s right. That’s right. Well, listen, we’ve got another two segments coming up here and I want to dig in a little bit deeper on this. We’ve got to take a break right now and we’ll be right back with Daphne Davis with pinnacle senior placements. Great the preceding podcast was provided by pinnacles senior placements LLC, and answers for elders radio. To contact pinnacles senior placements, go to Pinnacle Senior Placementscom
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Originally published May 18, 2019