It may surprise people
to know that there are a significant number of young people barely out of their
teens who have become caregivers for their grandparents. Many of these young
people were raised by their grandparents. In other instances, the grandchild
becomes the primary caregiver because he or she lives closer to the elder than
other family members. Sometimes, it's simply because a particular grandchild
feels close to the grandparent and has the "caregiver personality." Whatever
the reason that care giving begins, I hear from a number of young adults who
are trying to care for one or more grandparents. Most of them love their
grandparent dearly, but they often come up against obstacles that are quite
overwhelming for people so young. One young woman recently wrote about the
problem of getting health information about her grandfather, because the Health
Insurance Portability and Accountability Act laws won't allow her to do
so without the proper paperwork, and her grandfather doesn't see the need to
have this youngster involved in his clinical care. The problem is that the
grandfather doesn't understand that no other family member is available to help
him. The granddaughter is working on the problem with the help of a mature
mentor, but it can be frightening to be faced with the responsibility of an
elder at such a young age.
That's an interesting case that you brought up. I agree, it seems like this happens quite a bit. I think it's great when family members help other family members, especially through the aging process, but I also think that it's important to have trained caregivers doing much of the work when necessary. My grandmother is currently caring for my great-grandmother, and it is very stressful on her. So last week, she finally decided that it was time for my great-grandmother to get full time care. It was a hard decision for my grandmother, because it seems like most people want to be the one to care for their parents/grandparents. However, most of us live busy lives and we simply can't put in the time to care for the elders in our life as we wish we could. Additionally, many of us simply do not have the knowledge to perform such tasks.
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ReplyDeleteWhen each of my paternal grandparents were in their final weeks, the family rallied around and provided most of the care with assistance from Hospice. By taking turns, one or more family members were there around the clock. However both of them were independent up till a few weeks before their deaths. We did the same in my Aunt's final 6 weeks of life.
ReplyDeleteA number of years ago, I was about to move in with my maternal grandmother to assist her and relieve my Uncle and Aunt who lived next door, when she made a rapid turn for the worse and ended up in the hospital. After a few days of hospice care at home she passed on.
Trained caregivers may be necessary to prevent burn out of family members, but from my experience working in skilled care, the care given is less than optimal. when you have multiple people to take care of, people just have to wait and sometimes far too long. And unfortunately some workers just don't care and don't treat the elderly as they themselves would want to be treated to the best of their ability.
I understand that it is a tough decision that people may be forced to make. Care-giving is far too demanding for one person to do on their own.
I found all of these responses to be very interesting. Being very young and faced with being the caregiver for your grandparents would be immensely hard not only because of the consuming work, but also the emotional drain and how much it would keep you from being able to do other things such as travel or move. However, U.S. culture tends have less of a sense of familial duty and so it is much more common for people to be moved into a care facility and to place less burden on the younger generations so I am surprised by the number of people mentioned that have care for their grandparents. A very relevant topic indeed.
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