Why family caregivers need a helping hand

Explore how live-in care can support you as a family caregiver and help you spend more quality time with your loved one.

Family caregivers have an exceptionally important role in the care process.

But, with full-time care requiring a significant amount of time and energy, this responsibility inevitably poses challenges.

Here, we’ll explore how live-in care can support you as a family caregiver and help you spend more quality time with your loved one.

Challenges facing family caregivers

As a family caregiver, you might well be able to relate to at least one of these challenges:

Time

You find it hard to invest as much time as you’d like, which makes you feel like there’s more you could be doing.

Balancing a full-time care requirement with a job or family life is a real stretch for anyone. Providing care for a family member in this way has even been shown to increase the risk of stress-related health problems.

Emotion

You learn that the emotional strain is greater than you’d expected.

Many family caregivers have difficulty adjusting to seeing their loved one in a different role. It may be that you’re faced with caring for a parent or other senior relative, and seeing them as someone who now needs support changes the perception you’ve grown used to.

You might also come to feel frustrated at the complexities of the care system, and how it restricts what you’re able to achieve.

Specialist care requirements

You’re faced with situations that require specialist training.

Even with the best will in the world, it’s difficult to learn all the specialist techniques, stay up to date with care developments and integrate these into the overall care plan.

Other aspects of care organisation – such as power of attorney and coordination with medical professionals – can also become barriers to providing the standard of care you aspire to.

Benefits of live-in care for family caregivers

Setting up a live-in care arrangement can bring so many benefits for you and your loved one. These are just a few:

• 24/7 support: A live-in care team is on hand all day, every day to provide medical support, specialist care and companionship.
• Care techniques: Live-in carers use their regular training to optimise the care plan over time and adapt to changing care needs.
• Quality time: Live-in care lets you get back to spending quality time with your loved one, rather than just performing necessary duties.
• Specialist care: Live-in carers are likely to have received specialist training that can improve quality of life for people with certain conditions.
• Care system: Live-in carers are well versed in the care system and know how to get results by advocating on behalf of your loved one.

Families and close friends should always have a role to play in the care process. However, with live-in care, you can focus on spending more quality time together, safe in the knowledge that your loved one is receiving the level of round-the-clock care and companionship they need.

If you want to find out more about our respite care service and how it supports family caregivers, call on our friendly team.