Personal and family caregiving is a fundamental part of caregiving. Caregiving entails looking after people who are not physically or mentally well. It could be professional (by having assisted living with health providers) or familial (having untrained family members look after you). Personal and family caregiving has some issues that need to be looked at in-depth.
- Time spent caring for the person.
When you spend long hours caring for a person, especially older people in assisted living, it becomes more of a burden for you. It hinders you from doing much outside of caregiving. Over time, you may begin to feel weary about it. However, depending on your culture, you may feel guilty for not spending enough time caring for the person as they are your family; therefore, you may feel stuck caring for them. This feeling can affect the mental health of the caregiver.
- Lack of Social Support
Caregivers that dedicate their time to caring for family members, especially in hospice care, may lack social support. It may be challenging for you to get emotional, physical, and financial support from friends and relations. This gap can lead to a mental breakdown and the transfer of negative emotional feelings to those you care for. Social support is needed for caregivers to let out emotions that they feel in healthier ways, not to hurt the person in their care.
- The severity of the illness
The more severe the illness of the family member, the more tasking and demanding the caregiving is. Because of the level of assisted living needed, especially those in hospice care, day-to-day needs increase. You may need to bathe the family member, help them eat, do their laundry, dress them, amongst other things. These can seem very simple but are very demanding, especially when done daily.
- Life satisfaction of the caregiver
Caregiving is something that affects the quality of life of the caregiver. You may be unable to do the things you love because there is simply no time. Caregiving can affect you negatively due to the severity and duration of the illness. You may often feel cut off from life, and sad thoughts can take over. This situation can happen, especially when there is no social support for the caregiver.
- Lack of good coping strategies
Coping with stress is vital, and caregiving can become stressful on an individual mentally, physically, emotionally, and psychologically. Caregivers with family members who go through hospice or assisted living cope with stress poorly and other issues that caregiving causes. You may find it challenging to use healthy coping strategies to help you with the burden of caregiving.
Caring for a family member is no small task as it can also affect your personal life. There are many personal and family caregiving issues, which can impact you in many ways if not effectively managed. Looking into the methods of addressing these issues can make caregiving more manageable for you.
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