Boomer Watch: Caregiving Baby Boomers - The Unrecognized Challenges

Being a caregiver is unbelievably hard. Most people who receive professionally trained level of care, or, people who provide the specialized care would know just how hard it exactly is. It’s one of those careers or professions that takes a part of you for you to be able to be sincere without losing professionalism. Most people claim they know what a caregiver is but they probably don’t know anything about caregiving.

Photo credit: californiaagriculture.ucanr.edu

What exactly is a caregiver? By common definition, it is a form of career or profession that deals with providing services that are mostly related with taking care of the overall well being of another, but not just ordinary type of care but needs to undergo study and training. Sometimes these people addressed as nurses or nursing aides but are in fact different professions.

So what is the job description of a caregiver, you might ask. To differ from nurses or nursing aids, by training, study and practice, caregivers undergo completely different courses to be able to obtain the skill set needed in becoming a certified caregiver. To simplify, caregivers provide other services which may not be clinically inclined such as grooming, bathing, or relocating. These are simple daily tasks that seem normal and easy to perform but many late adult American seniors find it very difficult to perform.

From here it is clear and established that caregiving is unlike nursing. Though the objectives are similar, by which aiming in providing service to obtain a better and healthier well being, there are still major differences in terms of authority and licensure. One factor for comparison is the grounds reached by caregivers in providing assistance with daily living whereas nurses are not trained for such tasks.

Most caregivers endure the sacrifice of having to deal with difficult patients. Though not all caregiver patients are not easy to get along with, most are actually accommodating and easy to talk with, there are still some patients who can be tolling both in physical and emotional terms. Examples of these patients can include elders or late seniors who can be suffering from terminal diseases such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s. Once more, you can imagine the challenges faced by a caregiver.

Caregivers are often not given credit for their efforts in providing services and treatments such as monitoring of medication or therapy with or without facilities. True, medication monitoring can be advised by a doctor but administering the medicine, the actual labor of it and most other procedures are all performed and done by caregivers. Sometimes nurses get to perform such tasks but not as efficient nor being at par with professionally and emotionally trained caregivers.

Having been emotionally trained is a necessity for a caregiver since taking care of another person will eventually lead to being fond of the patient. At sad times, some patients still end up passing away and this is one of the most emotionally tolling part that caregivers are trained and braced for. Emotions may affect work ethics which is why caregiving is never considered easy since it deals with the whole package, from taking care of the body and keeping the mind and spirit feeling secured and assured.

But what if you are one of the baby boomers providing care for another aging parents? How are you going to deal with the task if you are also needing care? Ann Bettencourt provides helpful tips and answers to aid baby boomers who are caring for their parents.