While taking care of a loved ones medical needs, it can be just as important to take care of yourself along the way.
You cannot stop the impact of a chronic or progressive illness or a debilitating injury on someone for whom you care.
But there is a great deal that you can do to take responsibility for your personal well being and to get your own needs met.
Regardless of age, sex, and race and ethnicity, caregivers report problems attending to their own health and well-being while managing caregiving responsibilities.
Stress, exhaustion, worry, inadequate resources and continuous care demands are enormously stressful.
Allina Health offers a Wellness for Caregivers group beginning May 5, 2016. Click here to learn more about Wellness for Caregivers.
Gayle MacBride, PhD, LP, Allina Health clinics, is here to explain the importance of taking care of yourself while also helping your loved ones.
Selected Podcast
Self-Care For Family Caregivers
Featured Speaker:
Learn more about Gayle MacBride, PhD
Gayle MacBride, PhD, LP -Allina Health clinics
Gayle MacBride, PhD, LP, has a PhD in psychology and am a licensed psychologist with professional interests in trauma and severe persistent mental illness.Learn more about Gayle MacBride, PhD
Transcription:
Self-Care For Family Caregivers
Melanie Cole (Host): Having a loved one that's dealing with an illness or disease can be very hard on the caregiver. From the moment of diagnosis, your life as a caregiver or spouse or loved one is really changed. My guest today is Dr. Gail MacBride. She's a licensed psychologist with Allina Health Shakopee Clinic. Welcome to the show, Dr. MacBride. So, let's talk about the caregivers because people sometimes are willing to try to take on helping their loved ones but it can be just as hard on this person that is taking care of their loved one dealing with the disease.
Dr. Gail MacBride (Guest): Absolutely and we're looking at people who give care across the lifespan. We see parents caregiving for children as well as adult children caring for aging parents or spouses caring for each other as they go into later years of life.
Melanie: It can be so hard on both people, especially if you're talking about spouses, because it changes the whole dynamic of a marriage. What advice do you give people every day on dealing with that caregiving need because so many of those needs are definitely intimate, different, hard to deal with?
Dr. MacBride: It definitely puts a strain on marriages, in particular, because it shifts that relationship from a romantic, loving one often to just providing those simple activities of daily living kind of cares. And intimacy often drops back and sometimes even the companionship for the caregiver, it's really important to continue to make sure that needs are being met; social needs, staying in contact with friends, having the support needs, whether you're talking to other individuals who have similar struggles and kind of sharing those in sort of a peer support sort of way or even reaching out for professional support and making sure that other people can kind of help meet your emotional needs in a way that maybe your aging or ailing partner no longer can.
Melanie: So, one of the difficult things, and I've been a caregiver myself, quite a few times, is you're working a job at the same time, sometimes, because you have bills to pay and things that you have to do, so what affect does caregiving, with that stress, have on your health and well-being?
Dr. MacBride: You know as many as 1/6th caregivers are working full-time or part-time and there are a number of different challenges for those individuals. You know, if you're caregiving and working a job in a competitive employment setting, oftentimes, those caregivers are returning to that job and they're often fatigued, they're not sleeping well, they're not taking care of their needs, they're not eating, they're distracted because they're worried about their loved one that they're caregiving for, and it really decreases productivity on the job when you're not able to take care of yourself well. And there can be a huge cost to just your employer if you are not a well caregiver yourself. There's a financial cost, and you mentioned the importance of holding that job sometimes to be able to afford to be the caregiver, and oftentimes, because the care recipient isn't able to hold a job, we find that caregivers are not only just trying to afford their own bills, but they're trying to help afford the bills for the care recipient. Whether it's being able to help for the groceries, or the doctor's appointments, or paying off the hospital bill, they are oftentimes taking their own financial resources and putting it toward that care recipient who may or may not be living in their home.
Melanie: So, what do you want caregivers to know about taking on this role and making sure that they have that support that they need because it can change your life dramatically?
Dr. MacBride: You know, the first and most important thing that you need to know as a caregiver is the thing that you learn when you get on the airplane which is put on your own oxygen mask first before you begin to help others. If you're not taking care of yourself, your own health and wellness is compromised to the extent that you cannot adequately help others, it means you need to nurture yourself, eat well, sleep well, get exercise, and keep your life in as much balance as you can, and keep your own structure and consistency so that you can be there as fully as possible to be a caregiver. You also need to know when to ask for help, to bring in other resources and to know your own emotional and physical limits. I add physical in there, because sometimes as you're going down this road, this marathon of caregiving, we can tend to overexert and cause illness or injury to our own body when we are trying to do this as non-trained professionals, but loving, caring family members. We can overexert and harm ourselves to the extent that we can no longer be a caregiver.
Melanie: What are some signs that we are overexerting? When do you know that you need to just ask for help?
Dr. MacBride: When you see your own symptoms, either worsen or if you notice new symptoms-- symptoms like fatigue or increase in illnesses. You know, you get that cold and then you get the next one and the next one. You get whatever's kind of going around. Your immune system seems to be compromised. If you notice you're short and irritable, or just kind of tired and run down all the time, you find yourself sleeping too much or not enough, if your concentration seems to be shot or you find yourself resenting being in the caregiver role, these are all things that are hints and signs that maybe you need to step back and have someone else help you.
Melanie: That's an important point that you make, Dr. MacBride. Speak about that resentment a little bit. What do you tell people about dealing with that? Doing what you do, as a licensed psychologist about that resentment, about that feeling of "I'm giving up my life to take care of this loved one of mine." How do you help them reconcile that feeling?
Dr. MacBride: You know, a lot of times it's sitting back with a patient and evaluating the reasons they took on these responsibilities to begin with. You know, they did this, oftentimes, because it preserves the dignity of the loved one in their lives, to allow someone to stay home longer, and helping someone kind of come back to the reason that they made that decision is often very useful. If they made it and it's financially driven and it began from a place of resentment and just feeling kind of stuck, then sometimes we try to see if we can't get hooked up with more resources. So, someone who might be of a social work or homecare kind of background that might be able to expand what we, as kind of lay people know, are out there as resources and be able to kind of add to the caregiving network for an individual. And, if it's not in a local community, oftentimes, there are national organizations that can also step in or provide ideas. The American Cancer Society has a good number of just amazing programs that help families and loved ones financially that oftentimes patients and their caregivers don't even know about.
Melanie: So, you mentioned putting on your own mask before you put on the mask of others and what do you recommend for caregivers to make sure that they are taking care of themselves in regard to making time for exercise or meditation or going out with friends?
Dr. MacBride: You know, I often recommend to my patients that they structure it like an appointment. They make appointments with themselves. You know, my patients are really great at making appointments and they do it all the time. They do it for the person that they're caregiving for and we forget because when we're trying to do these things for ourselves, we fit it in and when we fit it in, it's often the very first thing to fall off of the agenda. If you set it as an appointment or a reminder on your phone or a calendar or you begin to structure it in everyday, then it becomes a more part of your normative routine.
Melanie: And that's what's important. What do you want caregivers to know about when they seek help? if they are looking for somebody professional to help them, what should they be looking for?
Dr. MacBride: You know, first and foremost, if you're looking for professional help, you have to feel like you have a really good interpersonal fit. I tell my patients at their first visit with me, that they need to feel like they've met someone they really kind of connected with. That is an important decision for them to make. I can't make that on their behalf. Things like age and gender and life experience and those kinds of things factor out in service of making sure you have a good fit and rapport with your therapist. It's really important for patients to know they're not alone and to know that you can talk with a therapist or a professional on an individual basis, but sometimes, group interventions are extremely helpful because they allow people to talk, interact, build a support system, and know that they are not the only ones going through these really complicated feelings.
Melanie: That's such an important point. In just the last few minutes here, give your best advice for caregivers out there, when to ask for help and some signs that it could be too much for one person to take on.
Dr. MacBride: The signs that it's too much are when you know that your depression--maybe you're prone to depression--is increasing, and it's really not kind of leveling itself back out and you're going two, three weeks or a month and the depression is really getting quite bad, or the anxiety has gotten up. If you notice that you have started increasing your alcohol intake or you've picked up smoking again and these are behaviors that you've had well-managed for a long time, and you notice that these things are kind of getting to be too much for you to handle, they may be signs and symptoms that you need to intervene in a more aggressive kind of way, like seeing a therapist, or even talking to your primary care provider about what the right intervention might be for you. If you find yourself neglecting your responsibilities or you're cutting yourself off because “I just can't handle one more thing. I can't take one more person asking me for something” or “I just don't take enjoyment in the things that I used to enjoy in my leisure time”. Those are all times to say, "I need help before I do any more caregiving."
Melanie: That's so important. Just wrap it up for us for advice for the caregivers on self-care.
Dr. MacBride: Self-care is critical and those things that we've said before like getting good sleep is one of the most key things that you can do. We're not looking so much at quantity of sleep as we're looking at good quality of sleep. Being able to fall asleep and stay asleep; eating healthy, balanced meals every day; getting that exercise in and adequate hydration are the four basic things that you can do for wellness, no matter what the disease or condition. For the caregivers, ask for an advocate, ask for support, ask primary care, ask your therapist to direct you to a treatment that might be best to kind of support you. Don't forget relaxation, mindfulness, prayer, meditation--all of those things carved into your life help create a lot of balance as you go through really stressful times.
Melanie: What great information and so beautifully put. Thank you so much Dr. MacBride for being with us today. You're listening to The WELLcast with Allina Health. And for more information you can go to allinahealth.org. That's allinahealth.org. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening.
Self-Care For Family Caregivers
Melanie Cole (Host): Having a loved one that's dealing with an illness or disease can be very hard on the caregiver. From the moment of diagnosis, your life as a caregiver or spouse or loved one is really changed. My guest today is Dr. Gail MacBride. She's a licensed psychologist with Allina Health Shakopee Clinic. Welcome to the show, Dr. MacBride. So, let's talk about the caregivers because people sometimes are willing to try to take on helping their loved ones but it can be just as hard on this person that is taking care of their loved one dealing with the disease.
Dr. Gail MacBride (Guest): Absolutely and we're looking at people who give care across the lifespan. We see parents caregiving for children as well as adult children caring for aging parents or spouses caring for each other as they go into later years of life.
Melanie: It can be so hard on both people, especially if you're talking about spouses, because it changes the whole dynamic of a marriage. What advice do you give people every day on dealing with that caregiving need because so many of those needs are definitely intimate, different, hard to deal with?
Dr. MacBride: It definitely puts a strain on marriages, in particular, because it shifts that relationship from a romantic, loving one often to just providing those simple activities of daily living kind of cares. And intimacy often drops back and sometimes even the companionship for the caregiver, it's really important to continue to make sure that needs are being met; social needs, staying in contact with friends, having the support needs, whether you're talking to other individuals who have similar struggles and kind of sharing those in sort of a peer support sort of way or even reaching out for professional support and making sure that other people can kind of help meet your emotional needs in a way that maybe your aging or ailing partner no longer can.
Melanie: So, one of the difficult things, and I've been a caregiver myself, quite a few times, is you're working a job at the same time, sometimes, because you have bills to pay and things that you have to do, so what affect does caregiving, with that stress, have on your health and well-being?
Dr. MacBride: You know as many as 1/6th caregivers are working full-time or part-time and there are a number of different challenges for those individuals. You know, if you're caregiving and working a job in a competitive employment setting, oftentimes, those caregivers are returning to that job and they're often fatigued, they're not sleeping well, they're not taking care of their needs, they're not eating, they're distracted because they're worried about their loved one that they're caregiving for, and it really decreases productivity on the job when you're not able to take care of yourself well. And there can be a huge cost to just your employer if you are not a well caregiver yourself. There's a financial cost, and you mentioned the importance of holding that job sometimes to be able to afford to be the caregiver, and oftentimes, because the care recipient isn't able to hold a job, we find that caregivers are not only just trying to afford their own bills, but they're trying to help afford the bills for the care recipient. Whether it's being able to help for the groceries, or the doctor's appointments, or paying off the hospital bill, they are oftentimes taking their own financial resources and putting it toward that care recipient who may or may not be living in their home.
Melanie: So, what do you want caregivers to know about taking on this role and making sure that they have that support that they need because it can change your life dramatically?
Dr. MacBride: You know, the first and most important thing that you need to know as a caregiver is the thing that you learn when you get on the airplane which is put on your own oxygen mask first before you begin to help others. If you're not taking care of yourself, your own health and wellness is compromised to the extent that you cannot adequately help others, it means you need to nurture yourself, eat well, sleep well, get exercise, and keep your life in as much balance as you can, and keep your own structure and consistency so that you can be there as fully as possible to be a caregiver. You also need to know when to ask for help, to bring in other resources and to know your own emotional and physical limits. I add physical in there, because sometimes as you're going down this road, this marathon of caregiving, we can tend to overexert and cause illness or injury to our own body when we are trying to do this as non-trained professionals, but loving, caring family members. We can overexert and harm ourselves to the extent that we can no longer be a caregiver.
Melanie: What are some signs that we are overexerting? When do you know that you need to just ask for help?
Dr. MacBride: When you see your own symptoms, either worsen or if you notice new symptoms-- symptoms like fatigue or increase in illnesses. You know, you get that cold and then you get the next one and the next one. You get whatever's kind of going around. Your immune system seems to be compromised. If you notice you're short and irritable, or just kind of tired and run down all the time, you find yourself sleeping too much or not enough, if your concentration seems to be shot or you find yourself resenting being in the caregiver role, these are all things that are hints and signs that maybe you need to step back and have someone else help you.
Melanie: That's an important point that you make, Dr. MacBride. Speak about that resentment a little bit. What do you tell people about dealing with that? Doing what you do, as a licensed psychologist about that resentment, about that feeling of "I'm giving up my life to take care of this loved one of mine." How do you help them reconcile that feeling?
Dr. MacBride: You know, a lot of times it's sitting back with a patient and evaluating the reasons they took on these responsibilities to begin with. You know, they did this, oftentimes, because it preserves the dignity of the loved one in their lives, to allow someone to stay home longer, and helping someone kind of come back to the reason that they made that decision is often very useful. If they made it and it's financially driven and it began from a place of resentment and just feeling kind of stuck, then sometimes we try to see if we can't get hooked up with more resources. So, someone who might be of a social work or homecare kind of background that might be able to expand what we, as kind of lay people know, are out there as resources and be able to kind of add to the caregiving network for an individual. And, if it's not in a local community, oftentimes, there are national organizations that can also step in or provide ideas. The American Cancer Society has a good number of just amazing programs that help families and loved ones financially that oftentimes patients and their caregivers don't even know about.
Melanie: So, you mentioned putting on your own mask before you put on the mask of others and what do you recommend for caregivers to make sure that they are taking care of themselves in regard to making time for exercise or meditation or going out with friends?
Dr. MacBride: You know, I often recommend to my patients that they structure it like an appointment. They make appointments with themselves. You know, my patients are really great at making appointments and they do it all the time. They do it for the person that they're caregiving for and we forget because when we're trying to do these things for ourselves, we fit it in and when we fit it in, it's often the very first thing to fall off of the agenda. If you set it as an appointment or a reminder on your phone or a calendar or you begin to structure it in everyday, then it becomes a more part of your normative routine.
Melanie: And that's what's important. What do you want caregivers to know about when they seek help? if they are looking for somebody professional to help them, what should they be looking for?
Dr. MacBride: You know, first and foremost, if you're looking for professional help, you have to feel like you have a really good interpersonal fit. I tell my patients at their first visit with me, that they need to feel like they've met someone they really kind of connected with. That is an important decision for them to make. I can't make that on their behalf. Things like age and gender and life experience and those kinds of things factor out in service of making sure you have a good fit and rapport with your therapist. It's really important for patients to know they're not alone and to know that you can talk with a therapist or a professional on an individual basis, but sometimes, group interventions are extremely helpful because they allow people to talk, interact, build a support system, and know that they are not the only ones going through these really complicated feelings.
Melanie: That's such an important point. In just the last few minutes here, give your best advice for caregivers out there, when to ask for help and some signs that it could be too much for one person to take on.
Dr. MacBride: The signs that it's too much are when you know that your depression--maybe you're prone to depression--is increasing, and it's really not kind of leveling itself back out and you're going two, three weeks or a month and the depression is really getting quite bad, or the anxiety has gotten up. If you notice that you have started increasing your alcohol intake or you've picked up smoking again and these are behaviors that you've had well-managed for a long time, and you notice that these things are kind of getting to be too much for you to handle, they may be signs and symptoms that you need to intervene in a more aggressive kind of way, like seeing a therapist, or even talking to your primary care provider about what the right intervention might be for you. If you find yourself neglecting your responsibilities or you're cutting yourself off because “I just can't handle one more thing. I can't take one more person asking me for something” or “I just don't take enjoyment in the things that I used to enjoy in my leisure time”. Those are all times to say, "I need help before I do any more caregiving."
Melanie: That's so important. Just wrap it up for us for advice for the caregivers on self-care.
Dr. MacBride: Self-care is critical and those things that we've said before like getting good sleep is one of the most key things that you can do. We're not looking so much at quantity of sleep as we're looking at good quality of sleep. Being able to fall asleep and stay asleep; eating healthy, balanced meals every day; getting that exercise in and adequate hydration are the four basic things that you can do for wellness, no matter what the disease or condition. For the caregivers, ask for an advocate, ask for support, ask primary care, ask your therapist to direct you to a treatment that might be best to kind of support you. Don't forget relaxation, mindfulness, prayer, meditation--all of those things carved into your life help create a lot of balance as you go through really stressful times.
Melanie: What great information and so beautifully put. Thank you so much Dr. MacBride for being with us today. You're listening to The WELLcast with Allina Health. And for more information you can go to allinahealth.org. That's allinahealth.org. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening.