Strategies for Employee Caregivers

Transcript for Strategies for Caregiver Employees

0:00 

Hello everyone. My name is Audra Jones. I’m the Executive trainer for Koelsch Communities. Koelsch Communities is family owned and operated and has been since 1958. We currently provide services in eight states, ranging from memory care, assisted living, and independent living.

0:20 

I’m more than happy to introduce to you all today our speaker today who is a National Dementia speaker and family guide and provides a path to relieve the fear anxiety, guilt and confusion that family members experienced when a loved one needs care. She spent years as an adult child caregiver herself and has helped hundreds of family members prepare and manage their caregiving journey. She is the founder of Alzheimer’s Family Consulting, a Certified Senior Advisor, a Certified Dementia Practitioner, and is Certified in Dementia Care. She is also the author of the highly rated, It’s Not That Simple: Helping Families Navigate the Alzheimer’s Journey, which is based on Pam’s 14 year dementia andAlzheimer’s caregiving journey with her parents. Please welcome Pam Ostrowski.

1:19 

Thank you very much. I appreciate the introduction. And again, thank you to Koelsch Communities for sponsoring our webinar today. This is one of a series where we’ll be helping you as caregivers in working through how do you balance that work life environment? And is it even possible?

1:39 

Now, I want to tell you a story because it’ll help tee up what we’re going to talk about today, back in the early 90s, I had moved from New Hampshire to California. And I was continually being promoted within one of the Fortune 500 high tech firms, things were looking bright. And I was in the process of being promoted to managing 11 people. And my manager said, if you take this position, I want you to promise me that you won’t come back and a year from now and say I’m going move back to New Hampshire because my parents need me. And I said, I can’t promise you that. Because I’m best friends with my parents. And I couldn’t imagine if they needed me to say I can’t, I can’t possibly help them. And he says, Well, we’re going to  promote you and we’re going to make sure that you know we’ll do everything possible to keep you.

2:42 

So a year goes by almost to the day. My dad calls me from the hospital. He was getting a knee replacement. And mom wasn’t used to driving. He was doing all of the driving and she backed into a car. And he was worried about how she was going to manage with his care while he was recovering from that needs replacement surgery. So unfortunately, I decided to, to talk to my manager and say, sorry, you know, that thing that you said where I wasn’t going to move back? Well, I’ve got to because he was going to have another need the other knee replaced in another year. So I knew that mom needed my support. So the director of the entire division at this large company came to me and said, Are you sure you want to do this? He said, we are grooming you to move up the ranks, and we really want you to be stay. And I said I can’t. So then I found the same company, I moved back to New Hampshire to be with my parents and help out with care. And I took a significant pay cut. I moved into what was considered pretty much a dead end job. I was an individual contributor. I could really cared less about what I was doing as a job.

4:02 

So I tell you that story, so that you can understand that the caregiving journey, I was in it for 23 years. It started back then. And then in early 2000s, I moved out to Phoenix, and actually in 1997, and in 2000, I went home for Christmas and noticed that mom was showing signs of Alzheimer’s, dementia at the very least, but anxiety and that’s more Alzheimer’s. And so the journey began and in 2001m I moved them out to Phoenix.

4:38 

I went to doctor’s appointments and I set the doctor’s appointments and I managed all of the care for making sure that the care communities made my parents happy and then did the things that needed to be done. I you know, being a caregiver, as many of you know, is extremely stressful. And it’s very hard on everyone, not just you as an individual, but on all family members and on the receiving end, being a caregiver and having to deal with families.

5:14 

So people like Audra and Paige who’s on and maybe some of the other Koelsch Communities that are on, it’s hard to know how to negotiate us as caregivers, and how they can help us best. So that’s kind of the beginning of this whole thing. So if you can relate to my story, please put some of your situations in the chat. This is an interactive session. So you can certainly, you know, you’re welcome to ask questions. And we’ll do as much as we possibly can in order to make sure that you have what you need when you leave the session. So I created this whole presentation based on a lot of my experiences, but also I work with families one on one, and most of them are in careers and are struggling with how do you how do you manage everything that you have to manage when you’re caregiving? So

6:20 

who was I before all of this? Well, mom and dad and I were very close. And most of my clients, they have a close relationship with one parent or the other. My mom, I was closest with my mom. And you can kind of see here, you know, my parents were dancing, we’re celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary. And we just were having a grand time. And as you can see in the other photo, that was mom, Alzheimer’s, took her ability to speak, eight years before she passed, and her ability to walk five years before she passed. So we had a really long journey is the bottom line here. And but it was a good one. And we had to figure out how do you make it a good one. And I had to figure out, how do I have a career? How do I how do I manage all of this? Because typically, and research shows, most of us as family caregivers do not tell our managers or tell very many people. So what are you gonna learn today? Well, we’re gonna talk about what’s the state of caregivers, right? And we’ve tried, we’re learning that people who are older do not want to be called seniors, AARP has now changed significantly, their verbiage. So they don’t say seniors as much anymore. You’ll notice older loved ones or older people, but you will not see you may see aging, but you won’t see seniors as much. So watch for that.

7:46 

We’re also going to talk about strategies for how do you manage caregiving along with work responsibilities, and frankly, even if you’re not working, you have a family, right? So you’re trying to deal with the family situation. We’re also going to talk about tools for managing your time so that you’re more efficient and productive. And then some resources and tips on how to kind of restore who you are and what your life looks like. So I wanted to share with you quickly some of the caregiving effects and the fact that it does affect productivity and costs. So if we have any people from human resources on the line here today, it’s really interesting employers. Only 24% of employers who were interviewed for this caregiving study that Harvard Business School  said that caregiving influenced workers’ performance. 80% of the employees that responded to those employers said, Oh, heck, yeah, it affects how I perform, most of the time. And what’s also happening, and it’s I don’t think corporate America is they’re just now starting to realize that it’s the higher title and more responsible employees.

9:11 

So those of us in our 40s and 50s and early 60s who haven’t retired, are the ones who are going to be affected. And when you have that much experience, and you need to leave work early, or come in late or not come in at all, because you have caregiving responsibilities. Businesses need to figure out how to solve that problem. And this is where the study also said that a third of employees who had left a position reported that they did so taking care of an older family member with daily living needs. So ADLs stands activities of daily living. And so there was, you know, that’s leaving your job for caregiving. That’s huge. And what kind of stress does that put on your own family? And does your loved one ever want you to do that? Probably not yet some of the expectations that happen make you feel like you have to do that. So we’re going to talk a lot about that. How to handle that pressure. Let’s look at workforce impact of dementia caregiving. So I pulled some of data that’s related to dementia caregiving, because one out of nine people over the age of 65, have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, not just dementia, just Alzheimer’s. And granted, that takes into account about 70% of the people who are reporting with dementia. But how many more are there out there who are not wanting to face it not getting a diagnosis.

10:45 

So when you look at this, this particular study at the bottom, it says, you know, the, and you can see the the green is for caregivers of non dementia people and the purple is those caregivers of those with some sort of cognitive impairment. So all the purples are bigger than the greens. But man, that first one is went in late left early or took time off. So 57% of the respondents said that, yep, I do that for caregiving reasons. And then the next one, the next tallest one is went from full to time to part time or cut back hours. So if you’re a caregiver today, you’re definitely feeling the impact of that particular situation, and making sure that you’re trying to work at the same time. But can you really do that, so that therein lies the rub. And the challenge with being a caregiver and being able to perform even show up, frankly, so here’s the other half of that equation, not only are you struggling to be productive at work, and try to come in on time, and not leave early and not sit there and worry about your loved one, whether they’re whether they have whatever their situation is, right. So whether it’s dementia, maybe they have had a stroke, maybe they have cancer, maybe they’re being you know, their their cancer treatment, maybe they’re just like my dad, where he had knee replacements and mom had driven and she lost her depth perception. There’s there wasn’t really any crisis and or chronic health condition in that situation. And yet, they needed help. And I’ll tell you, you know, I am so grateful for all of the health care professionals that are out there today, I noticed Neighbors Who Care is here from the south Phoenix area and and they are a phenomenal resource for helping Sun Lakes is actually the exact location, if anybody who’s here from that area, and they are a phenomenal resource for helping with whatever someone needs. And there are resources around the country. None of that existed back when my parents were going through this. So we’re very lucky for it to be in this day and age.

13:10 

But here’s the concern that I have about you as caregivers. It’s these top chronic conditions. So if you look from right to left as opposed to left to right, non caregivers, that’s the percentage of people that have reported a chronic health condition. And then the non Dementia Caregivers are in the middle and then the Dementia Caregivers are to the left. And the Dementia Caregivers, obviously they have a much more challenging situation in some ways, because the the individual is not participating in their care. Whereas if someone has cancer or a stroke, they can still try to participate and still understand but as dementia progresses, that makes it more difficult and puts more stress on top of the caregiver. So what I wanted you to notice here is that the numbers of non caregivers are much lower percentage wise to the caregivers as you go left. And so the conditions are higher risk of stroke. And just as an example, 40% higher from being a non caregiver to being a dementia caregiver. That’s huge. So when we think that, Oh, I’ve got this, I can do this. This is this is what I’m supposed to do. You know, they’ve helped me I’m going to help them or we’re married and I want I want this is what it means to be in sickness and in health. And the answer is no, your loved one doesn’t want you to sacrifice your life and your health for them. So we have to come up with solutions. We’re going to talk about that.

14:46 

Things that most older people don’t think about or if they do they don’t share them with the people who are going to end up in the caregiving role. So how much money will they need for noncovered care? Everybody thinks that Medicare covers everything. A Medicare doesn’t cover in homecare, Medicare, and unless you’re on Medicaid, so just to be clear Medicaid, you can get assistance, Medicare does not pay for it. Medicare does not pay for memory care, or assisted living or independent living. So that’s all private pay. And so unless you have a some sort of long term care, insurance policy, your goods coming out of that person’s pocket. And so that kind of freaks everybody out, right? Well, oh, my gosh, you know, and this is important for us as caregivers to make sure we have it in our plan. And we have these conversations with those people who might be caring for us in the future. So the other thing that they don’t think about is, well, how much family involvement might they need? And what does that mean for their, for their loved ones lives. So pretty much when I moved from New Hampshire, back to out to Phoenix, in 97, I started my own company. And thank God I did, because when I moved my parents out, I became immersed in their lives.

So it was, you know, whatever they needed to do, or wherever they needed to go, I usually went with them just to make sure everything was going okay. And that dad was making sure mom was dad was in resisting the the behaviors of mom, and so I had to pay more attention than he did. Because you know, as a spouse, it’s really hard to except that this person that you love is kind of disappearing every day or week or month. And so it changed my life. And it became for 14 years, it was all about her. And my dad had vascular dementia the last three years of his life, so from 2008, to 2011, with him and then 2015, for her, I was dealing with two people with dementia, you know, in a situation where I was so lucky to have an excellent doctor, excellent memory care director.

And you know, he didn’t want in home care health. And we’re going to talk about how you address that with your loved one. Because all of this is in your head as a caregiver, when you go to work. And you you can’t put it aside. That’s the hard part. That’s why we’re here today. So we they also don’t think about how, you know, basically how little prepared we as family members are, are for taking on a caregiving role. You know, I was traveling a lot for business. And I had to figure out, well, how am I gonna go to Connecticut, and still check in with them. And I was lucky that Dad and Mom both lived together. And they were still together as a married couple, because at least they could watch each other. And then I could give directives to once they moved into a care community. But they had six years there where they lived alone. And that was the six years that I was most fearful with, you know, their care and what would happen to them.

18:04 

So the other thing that that we have to think about is what if a couple who planned on living together can no longer live together due to their medical needs. It’s heartbreaking, my mom had to move to out of their apartment, two bedroom apartment where they live together in memory care, to a special unit because she needed more than one caregiver for lifting and dressing and showering and everything. And that’s a really specialized level of care. And dad was furious. So we don’t think about that. So if somebody has a stroke, and they have to go to a skilled nursing facility and live there, how does the spouse feel about that? How do you deal with those emotions and still be able to have a career still be able to even if it’s not a career, maybe it’s just a job to you? And, you know, how do you mentally cope with that? The other one is that family, you know, they don’t think about how the family is, is becoming responsible for making sure that all the paperwork is done, and all of the paperwork is available.

So I had one person. I said, Where’s your dad’s POA? Your power of attorney? I don’t know. Actually, I wonder if we I wonder if we took that from his house. Like, this is a big deal. You have to know where your power of attorney is. You have to know where your healthcare power of attorney is because the hospital will stop you before you even get your loved one gets in but you don’t. Because they’re like, Okay, who’s your healthcare power of attorney, if you don’t have that paperwork, you have to go home and get it. You better know where it is. If it’s in another state, you now have a problem because they need paperwork showing that you have authority to change, make medical changes and medical decisions for that individual.

And lastly, the thing that our loved ones don’t think about is if they’re diagnosed with with dementia, they are no longer allowed to legally sign documents, because and the estate attorney will make that determination. That’s their privilege, I guess. And there’s some criteria that they have to follow. But if the person is not comprehending the document, we had this happen. That’s the reason why I put this in here. So I’m sitting there as the caregiver. And you guys may have done this too, where were trying to manage everything that’s going on. And if you are a person who likes things to go a certain way, and you’re kind of, I didn’t know, I was a control freak, I guess. I wanted things to go a certain way. And, you know, I started noticing that mom really wasn’t processing information.

So you have to realize that everything that needs to be put in place should be done, so that you can have peace of mind, there’s a there’s a thing that doesn’t happen to many family caregivers have peace of mind that you have the right documents in someplace you can find them, so that if anything happens, you’re able to make decisions, believe me, that is a really big one that will help you release some of that need to, to panic, basically. So the bottom line, the conclusion here is that you’re going to need some help.

21:23 

And here’s the number one mistake that we as working caregivers, meaning I’m employed by by a company, the biggest mistake we make, I’ve got this, don’t worry about it. So I have two brothers. They’re both back East. And when you have siblings, you have to you have sibling dynamics. And I’m sure everyone is sitting there going, Uh huh. I remember sibling dynamics. We want to make sure that we want to understand that it’s okay to ask for help. So the you look at this woman, she’s sitting in front of her computer, she’s got her coffee, and she’s looking off into the distance and the person in the backgrounds typing away. And your mind is not focused on your work. And that means that there’s more of a likelihood of having making mistakes, of not being as productive because you can’t focus.

So I prepared this discussion, these discussion lines here, because it’s important to realize if you don’t already that the caregiver role includes a lot of responsibilities that honestly I was not going to sign up for my parents never lived with me. I don’t know how people do that. It’s especially with dementia, it’s very challenging you and you do probably have to quit your job or, or figure out how to manage other people coming in to care for your loved one while you’re working.

So the question is, are you ready to be a caregiver? And if so great, but understand, you know, you’re going to have to have answers to these questions. Are you willing to accept this, this is mostly for dementia. But in other situations, when you become a caregiver, you lose your role of either as a spouse, or as a daughter or a son. Because especially with dementia, you become the person who’s toileting, me, showering me feeding me, you know, preparing my meals, taking me out places to keep me entertained. And honestly, you know, even when you don’t have dementia, you have some of that going on as well.

So are you also ready to prepare your home and your family for someone living with you?

Or are you living with them? If you don’t have a family and you’re able to move into your loved ones house?

Or if you’re all alone with your spouse? Where’s your respite? Where’s your break from that individual? No one is meant to spend 24/7 with another person. And so it’s one of the reasons actually that the divorce rate is highest among people over 65. I thought that was a really interesting statistic. I read that last last weekend.

24:09 

Now, the other thing is, is are you prepared? Do you know how to keep them safe? Right. So even if it’s a person with cancer, or a stroke, and not dementia, if you have a two story home, and they need to go to the bathroom, and the bathrooms upstairs or downstairs, they’re weak, you know, or they might not have full capacity of their their limbs. So how are you going to manage that? Right and and so when you’re thinking about all these things, the reason why I’m bringing this up is that these are the things that are weighing on your mind in your subconscious trying to solve these problems, because and that’s why managing the work side of things is very difficult is because these types of things are going through your mind. Are you willing to spend hours coordinating their care and negotiating decisions with other family members, which I hear a lot from my families that work with me. They they actually hear like, Oh, my sister said that we can’t do that. And she’s healthcare power of attorney. So we really don’t have a way to make that happen. And then it’s like, well, this is called a conversation. And we work through wording, and we get on the family on the line, and we talk about things. And, you know, it’s a challenge, and everybody’s affected.

25:22 

Do you remember those statistics I shared about employers not really recognizing the impact of caregiving, we have got to get corporate America on board with not just flexible hours, but also, you know, possibly job sharing, figuring out, you know, most importantly, the flexible hours allows you to work at night. Well, if you work at night, you’re missing your family. So how’s that a solution? Right? So we’ve got a big puzzle going on here with this particular situation.

25:55 

But there are ways to help you as an individual. And we want to make sure that you you understand that, you know, a lot of I’ve had one person say, Oh, well, my siblings, and I will take care of mom and dad. And I said, Do you have the skills to do that? And she said, Well, what do you mean? And I said, Well, do you know how to how to help a person out of a chair? Do you know how to communicate with an individual who might have some cognitive impairment? Or has cognitive impairment due to a stroke? Do you know how to do all of these different things that you have to do? And she’s like, Well, no. And I said, well, then what exactly are you going to do to help your loved ones in their later years? And she’s like, I guess I never thought of it. So I want to make sure that we’re dotting our i’s and crossing our t’s on what this responsibility looks like. I’m sizing the responsibility.

26:46 

And so the other thing you have to think about is could you would you quit your job, or cut back on your hours. So these are all very personal questions, and we want to make sure that you’re thinking about them. So again, feel free to put questions in the chat, as we’re going through this. So strategy number one, the talk. So most families, and by most I mean more than 50%. Don’t ever talk about end of life, or worse yet, pre end of life. So there’s this period where everybody’s capable, and like, just like Dad and Mom, that was walking fine. Well, actually, it wasn’t a lot of pain. But then he had the knee replacements, and he had to go through all of the recovery, and then physical therapy, and How’s mom supposed to get to the grocery store, dad’s the only one who’s been driving lately, so she had to reorient herself on how to drive. And that’s a huge responsibility. And so we need to have a plan before all of this goes down.

What we should have done is when dad said, okay, the doctor says, I need to have knee replacement surgeries. We all as a family, my brothers myself, and then my parents should have sat down and said, alright, what does this mean? How are you going to get around groceries, everything? Honestly, it never occurred to me that it would be this big of a deal. And I don’t know why I when I look back, and this is what I don’t want you guys to do, is I don’t want you to feel guilty or feel regret.

When you look back and go, gosh, what was I thinking? Why didn’t I ask that question? Why didn’t we have this conversation? It’s so important. And yet, you know, most people just don’t have it, you don’t think about it. So talk with your aging loved ones, your older loved ones, go through the what if scenarios, now, you may get some pushback, you know, it’s like, Well, realistically, you have to get groceries, how are you going to get groceries now?

Again, thank God, this is the day and age that we live in, which is well, you would just call Instacart or call the grocery store, like Safeway has their own delivery services. Great. That’s fantastic. Check. We got that done. We know how you’re going to eat. Okay, you know, what about getting medications? How are we going to do those? Well, you know, guess what, there’s new services for that as well. So we just want to make sure that we cover all of the basics and have that conversation. And it trust me, it helps them have peace of mind, peace of mind.

29:17 

My focus is on you as the family caregiver and making sure you have peace of mind. So we want to get clear on everybody’s roles as well. So when I moved my parents out here to Phoenix, so that I could keep a closer eye on them and be more there for them. My brothers were like, okay, you know, you’re in charge, you know, you’re the primary now. And neither one of them could, could or would take on that responsibility because they had family and other stuff.

So then that was fine with me. I was fine doing that and actually preferred it. And so just understand what everybody’s supposed to do and how they do it. So as an example, My dad was very resistant to moving into assisted living. He thought that they’d he said eventually, yes, but we’re not ready. My dad said that he was 89 years old. So it’s like, yeah, when do you think that’s going to happen? When you’re 100. So he was very cute. And they were such a sweet couple. But they, they, they wanted to live life to the fullest to the very end, and their bodies and their brains just didn’t cooperate.

30:32 

And so the reason why it’s so important to have roles and have each person understand what their job is, isn’t my eldest brother’s job was to call my dad down, he would get angry and and that’s part of vascular dementia, by the way, it’s one of the behaviors. And, and he would get so upset, and I’d be like, Dad, I’m in the middle of pulling together a presentation for one of my clients. You called me five times today and complained about the same thing. It’s the answer is no different. And, you know, call Joe. And then I text my brother and say, Okay, you call him or he’s going to call you, but you two need to talk because and then he would just sit there and listen to him for an hour. I didn’t, I don’t have that kind of patience. I’m like, Look, I can solve problems.

But I am, I’m not the person who’s gonna sit on the phone and go, Aha, ah, that’s a shame. So figure out what your role is, what your spouse’s role is, if you’re in that spouse, situation, a marriage situation, or if your siblings figure out what the strengths are of each person. And on my website, Alzheimer’s family consulting.com, there’s actually some tools that you can download, to help you guys keep track Google Docs, and that type of thing, so that you can all see what the other people are doing. As long as you enter that information. Make sure everybody knows about, I’m going to say this, again, durable power of attorney and healthcare power of attorney, you have to know their completed, you’d got to know who is responsible, who’s secondary, always list the secondary on both of those documents, Advanced Directive, make sure that’s in place, everybody thinks that a will is all you need. While you’re still alive, you need these other documents. So and then build a plan, write it all down. And I’m going to show you an example of for dementia, what the plan includes, right?

32:20 

So we’ve got this journey that I created the eight stepping stones of the dementia journey. And you can do this for any journey, right, any health journey, but you’ve got a diagnosis and what the prognosis is, what are the care needs? And what are the triggers to the next level of care? What are your care options. So for instance, and we’ll talk about this in a second in home care, is usually one of the first ones, and then possibly, you’re gonna move into independent living or assisted living. And then then if needed, we move into memory care, it’s not a given that you have to move into memory care if you have dementia, building a care team who all’s on the team, which doctors which nurses which hospice, you know. Hospice is a SWAT team to help your loved one rally, anytime that they take a significant decline in their health. So there’s a whole bunch of people that you you know, want to know who they are, find the names, write down the phone numbers, and they have the websites and all that good stuff, you know, talking, you know, how to how do you communicate? How do you engage with each other emotions, because there’s going to be some believe me, and that’s part of the big stressors, right? Is that you get you get weary or exhausted, you’re frustrated, you’re overwhelmed.

So and so as we walk through this, you know, all of the both the loved ones and the family’s emotions, visiting, you know, whether you’re visiting at their home or visiting, you know, senior living community, those are all things that you need to plan for, how are you going to do it? When are you going to do it? How often are you going to do it, and then when the end is near, so this is pretty typical of almost anybody’s journey. So again, have the talk strategy number one, for how you’re going to help you focus on being a being how do you are going to be able to focus on your career and managing two things at once and intensive caregiving situation, and being productive at work and being focused and getting as much done as you can or need to get done in order to maintain job performance.

34:27 

The next one, manage your tasks. So everybody’s heard about time management. And I don’t believe there is such a thing as time management time marches on, as they say, and we don’t really have a way to stop it. So that means that we need to change what we do in the time and therefore I talk about task management. So one of the things in talking with one of my clients, I said you like spreadsheets, right? She said, Oh I love spreadsheets. I’m all about the spreadsheets. I said, Great, then I’m going to take your action items, and I’m going to put them on the spreadsheet. And then you’re going to update that. And we’re going to go through it on our calls. She said, I would love that.

35:11 

So getting organized, because like, I would see her write down notes. And then when we talk the following week, I’d say, Well, when you were going to talk to this person, and that was going to happen, and she’s like, Oh, I forgot. And so being able to have someone in, we affectionately call this the accountability, accountability buddy, where you’re being you have someone who’s reliably holding you accountable for the things that you need to do.

35:36 

When you’re organized, you’re taking stuff from up here in your head, and you’re writing it down. That is the number one way in any situation, to take the pressure off of you not being able to sleep, you not being able to move forward on a project, write it down on what’s going on in your head. And what that does is it frees up there’s a kinesthetic connection there, where it frees up your subconscious mind to focus on whatever it is you really need to be focusing on, because you’ve written it down.

36:08 

So tip number one, get organized, write stuff down. And then if you think you have a crazy busy day, write down night before, not the day of, but the night before, write down all the things that you need to do, that you think you need to do. Because sometimes I think we like to keep really busy. And we feel kind of I don’t, I don’t want to call it self important. But we do feel like we’re the only person who can do it. Right. And I speak from experience.

So you look at that list. And then you say, alright, if I get totally derailed tomorrow, what are the three things I need to get done? Just pick three, what are the three most important things, and this is what I was helping my client with today with this spreadsheet is to say, Okay, what’s the most important thing, okay, that’s a long term thing that we can get done, we’ll break that down, and we’ll put it into smaller action items. And then you can eventually, you know, eat the elephant one bite at a time. Now, one of the big things that we think we can do is multitasking, it is impossible to multitask. I don’t know how many people know that. But computers can’t even multitask. It’s just that they’re going at such a fast rate of speed that you don’t you think they’re doing multiple things at one time. And actually, I think the first multitasking computer chip was created probably a couple of years ago now. But as humans, we don’t have that capacity.

37:31 

So what happens is, you start one thing, you shift the following rings, you get a text message, you remember something, and you go over and you start that this thing didn’t get done, then this other thing happens. And then you’re like, Okay, well, do I, I’ll do that thing now. Because I’m thinking of it. And it’ll only take five minutes, 30 minutes later, you’re still working on it. And so if you can discipline yourself. And I said, if to stop multitasking, to stop trying to do less than one thing, or more than one thing at a time, and be able to say, Alright, I’m going to focus on this, and I’m going to get that done, then I’m going to focus on this and get that done. And even you know, I actually coach people that you know, write down the time you started in the time you’ve finished, because a lot of times you’ll think, oh, this will just take five minutes, and it takes 30 This will just take an hour and it takes four. And it’s not your fault.

But usually, I will say usually, you end up in a situation where you are multitasking. And the reason why the thing that should have taken an hour takes four is because you were doing 10 Other things, and probably not well, letting them interrupt that one task. Rarely are you off based on how long a task will take. It’s because you let it something else interrupted. Well, that became a higher priority, did it? What’s long, at the end of the day? What’s the most important thing and then you go back to your little three circles and say, Is this thing really that important?

39:07 

And I know people always push back and say, well, sometimes there’s emergencies and I respect that. Yes, there are emergencies. The question is are you the person who has to be the one who resolves the emergency? And do you have a task force a team that can help you and that goes back to you’ve got to get help.

39:28 

You can’t just be the only person watching over and caring for these individuals. So work on task management by sign sizing the amount of time so that’s kind of what you what we just talked about. But while I’m taking that one step further calendars are your friend. And I don’t care if it’s like I have I don’t know if you’ll be able to see this but I have this little desktop calendar. I love this thing because I can look at the date figure out where you know what part of the month I’m in. Some days are worse than other But getting a big so if you have someone that’s living with you who’s struggling and needs care than having a big desktop calendar hung on the wall, and then writing down what you have for that day, or you can even get a calendar, whiteboard, and that way you can erase it. But I like the paper one’s better because one, it’s easier to write with a normal pencil or pen. And then on top of that, you can just tear it off, and you can do whatever you want with it, versus erasing and having to redo all of the dates and all of that type of thing. So I’m a big fan of the big paper desktop calendar and hanging on a wall and put it someplace where everybody can see it, this is not the time for modesty or making the house look perfect.

40:42 

So calendars are your friend, then this is a hard one would have been for me is to talk to your manager about flexible hours and what your deliverables are. So if you’re if you’re just if you’re doing a job where you don’t have deliverables, you just need to show up and do what you do every single day, then you’re going to have to have a conversation about how you work through that. But it’s your manager’s job to help you do your job. It’s not your manager’s job to berate you for not performing. And the other thing you don’t want to have happen is that you make a mistake, you don’t show up, you show up late leave early, you start creating performance issues, before you talk to your manager. You don’t want to do that either, right?

41:33 

This is about planning, preparing and putting thinking through how to solve this problem in advance of when the problem actually happens. I hope that makes sense.

41:44 

Then make sure that if you’re in an environment, and this can work with siblings, by the way, that an email can’t serve the same purpose as a phone call. Because it’s an email serves two purposes for you as the family caregiver, you’re writing stuff out, getting it out of your head and getting it onto the screen in this case, or a piece of paper. And then you’re also able to communicate and allow the other person the recipient to process it in their time.

42:21 

A lot of times we pick up the phone, and we interrupt someone, and they can’t actually think about what it is that you’re talking about. You’ve interrupted their day, which is why most people don’t answer the phone anymore. And then on top of that, you’re expecting them to be in the same mindset as you are, you know, you’ve got all this data, hey, I want to share a bunch of information with you. Well, now’s not the time. So that is the beauty of writing things down in email. Because you can express yourself, you can share information easily and the other person can assimilate the information and understand it. And then maybe you do a phone call. And that’s going to be a much shorter phone call than you actually trying to explain it all. And the other thing is you also have a paper trail. paper trails are so important when we’re family caregivers because what if something happens to us, you know, then nobody knows what’s going on to,

43:18 

Hey, here’s an idea. What if you go on vacation. Nobody knows what’s going on, because you haven’t communicated it. So and you need a vacation. Trust me as a family caregiver, you need respite. And then the other thing about, you know, being able to write things down is that it’s just better for your mind and your peace of mind and your mental health and your heart health. So please, please, please write stuff down. Make sure that your family is on board with any odd work hours. So I know that there’s some saintly families out there. But there are also families who are like, You know what, we miss you and we’re tired of you spending all of your time with grandma. So it’s important that we understand how to make our lives more productive.

44:08 

Here are two books one is getting things done the art of stress free productivity by David Allen, that’s one of my favorites. It’s it’s, it’s based on the concept of just do a little you do you need to to change your whole life. But to just do something small and it’s really easy read and so is Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy. And so it’s in that’s more about stop procrastinating. And how do you actually get things done because it’s easy to procrastinate both your own work and caregiving tasks that you just don’t want to do.

44:46 

The third strategy is to get help, and I’ve kind of sprinkled number three throughout this presentation. So first of all, talk to family and friends say Hey, I can’t do it all. I know that Pamela Ostrowski said, so she said, I can’t do it all, throw me under the bus, it’s okay. It’s important that we allow ourselves to be vulnerable. And it’s hard to be vulnerable, isn’t it? Because we want to be in control, we want to make sure that everybody understands that we know what’s going on, we got this, you know, we’re in charge, and we’re doing our responsibilities. And we should be respected for that. And, and that’s important. And to a degree, I get that, but I can tell you, it will kill you. It’ll exhaust you. It took me four years to recover from that 14 years with my parents.

45:41 

 So if you can ask friends and family to check in on your loved one, ask them to say and people, let’s be honest, if somebody asks you, Hey, would you help take care of my dog? Would you check in on George, you know, and see how he’s doing? Well, you’re gonna probably bring cookies over to George and find out, you know, hey, what’s going on with you. And it gives George mental stimulation, which is so important. And we forget about that, because George might be home alone and won’t pick up the phone or doesn’t remember how to use it or, you know, newfangled technology, whatever it might, the reason might be, it’s really important to ask people for help, because it makes them feel better, too. It’s a win win. You get somebody else in there, George actually to when when when George gets somebody new, because I hate to tell you this, but if you have the same caregiver every day, if you were to if that once someone’s taking care of you, and it’s the same person over and over again, you know, that kind of looking for some variety we all do, right?

46:47 

We need different exposure to different people so that we can have a unique experience. So people feel valued when you ask them for help. So do it. I know I made that sound like it was going to be easy, right? It’s not.

47:05 

Now, here’s my next word of advice. Hire an in home care agency. Now I did not say, an in home caregiver, because I’m a big fan of hiring an agency for a couple of reasons. One is that they have backup caregivers. So if you make a plan, you’re going to go out with your friends to you know, go go to a movie, go to a play, go golfing, whatever it might be. All right, make that plan. And then you’re one sole caregiver who’s your neighbors friends caregiver that they recommended. And they may be fine for what they what you need. But they call up and say my, my child is sick, and I can’t come guess what that means you have no backup plan. So having an in home care agency, they have a bench as we use in the consulting world, a bench of caregivers, and they’re able to look at the schedules and be able to move things around and say, okay, you know, we do have an issue with one caregiver, but we’re going to send another one who’s comparable, and that good so that you can go on with your life, you have predictability. And that is very important. Especially like God forbid, so we’re talking about work, right, you have to go travel for work, or you have to go to a meeting and you have to go into the office as opposed to, you know, maybe doing a zoom call.

48:34 

So having reliable caregivers and an agency that provides enough backup support is critical to both getting you know getting time off as well as being able to get your job done. And honestly, the best thing to do would have be to have your own office and have your caregiver in the other room with your loved one. And if they need anything great. If they don’t, you’re busy working. And that gives you some peace of mind that you don’t have to be there doing everything for them all the time. But it also is good for just getting out of the house. And that’s helps with your sanity.

49:13 

And so when we talk about productivity, one of the biggest challenges is that list of emotions and that information I provided earlier, is what will tax you, it makes you feel exhausted. And you can’t stop thinking about that. So you certainly aren’t going to be paying attention to your work. So you have to get help. And you have to figure out ways to do it. And in homecare agencies are phenomenal. So those are the people you see like Home Instead and Visiting Angels. And then there’s organizations as I mentioned, we have someone from Neighbors Who Care is here, and they provide that kind of of help to some degree as well. So you know, it’s all about if you ask for help, it’s out there.

49:59 

You just have to to ask for help and be vulnerable. And that is so important because it takes courage to be vulnerable Brene Brown talks about that in her book Daring Greatly.

50:11 

Now the next thing you could do to get help is to identify senior activity centers, workshops that are happening, it really depends on what your condition of your loved one is, and seminars that they’ll enjoy. Like, there’s a aviary in Phoenix, and you can go there for a workshop in the middle of the day. And they’re just sit there and educate you. And sometimes they have lunch. And so I think you could make it a three hour thing where you can take your level and drop them off, they can sit there, they can listen to the lecture, they can have lunch, they can watch birds, and you get to do your work. And you don’t have to worry about it, because you know, they’re okay. And if you really want to worry about them, hire the homecare agency caregiver to take them to that event. And that gives you even more peace of mind. So you see how the puzzle started, the pieces start to fit together. But you have to start the wheel moving by asking and getting help.

51:10 

And then lastly, and I didn’t ever get HR involved in my situation. And then when I had my own company, when I moved out to Phoenix, I don’t have HR. I’m HR. So ask them if they have any caregiving benefits or support for those caring for aging loved ones, because most of the caregiving term you hear in corporate America is for children. And I think that’s, you know, we all have parents, we all have aging loved ones. And not all of us have children. So why aren’t we paying attention to this as a benefit? So ask your company about that. And then if they say no, then say, well, what are you going to do about that? Because that’s important.

52:00 

And this is the last one, which is strategy number four is taking care of yourself. And again, I’ve smattered this one through the presentation. It’s about you hear this all the time get you need respite caregivers need respite caregivers need to take care of themselves self care. So you know, you hear all of those terms, but nobody really breaks it down for you. And so you kind of say, Yeah, I’ll get to that, you know, that’s on that list of 50 things, and it’s probably number 49, or 50. I’ll get to it. So we want to make sure, first of all, that we accept that it’s quite possible, you’re on a multi year journey. I didn’t think I was on a multi year journey, I just kind of micromanaged each event. And that way, it was easier for me to be able to to not worry about what’s going to happen next year, right? I mean, how long can they possibly live? How, how bad can this get? And I found out, right? And, sometimes keeping that micro view is helps your brain like go okay, this is this, this is one problem, we’ll just deal with everything else later. So that’s not a bad strategy.

53:11 

But there’s something that no one I mean, no one ever talked about in the 90s and the early 2000s. And even frankly, in the first teen years of the 2000s 2010 to 2015. Really, no one really talks about respite. Nobody really talks about getting help. It’s only really I think, in the last five to 10 years that we’ve really seen people, organizations and companies step up to provide things like in home care, and hospice has been around forever. But it’s it’s has that perception of not being the SWAT team coming in when there’s a decline in health to help your loved one rally. And instead, people think, Oh, well, that’s just for someone who’s three days from dying. And that’s not the case. So there’s a lot of educators like myself out there. And if you can just talk to us, we will give you hope. And we will help you feel well, you know, be able to be vulnerable enough to get more help. So getting help from in home care, contact someone like cash communities, they will they know resources, all have this community of senior health care networks. Everybody knows everybody else. That’s a beautiful thing. So if I don’t know if I can help you, I know 50 other people who have connections and I’ll reach out to them for you and get you that information no matter where you are in the country in my case. So it’s when we talk about self care. People say get out in nature, nature actually is very good fresh air, Sky. Trees. All of that stuff is really good for your brain and your mental health. I didn’t say to take an two hour hike. Just go out for 10 minutes, just 10 minutes. Yeah, make sure that your loved one is safe and secure. But it’s important to get outside and then do something that makes you focus. So this is really good. So if you’re Reading in don’t read something analytical or, or that requires you to think too hard. But instead read something fun, right? That you don’t get interrupted by. Do other things that focus the mind yoga, right, because you’re paying attention to not falling over. And okay, that was me strength training, low strength training, but you really have to focus on your muscles, it isn’t just a matter of doing a bicep curl. But if you do it slowly, and how you activate each muscle and then release the the weights, you know, dancing, meditation, anything that causes you to just focus on what you’re doing, will help your brain take a break. And that is really what this is about.

55:44 

That’s what self care really means. It’s eat properly, so that you don’t end up in health situation. But give your brain a break. I swear, that should be a bumper sticker, right? You are constantly thinking about the other person. And that’s what makes it challenging. And lastly, ask yourself, if something happened to me? What would How would my loved one get cared for? That one is the one I asked most spouses because most spouses would give their lives to help their their spouse. Excuse me. So that’s a big challenge, right? We’re struggling with, you know, how do we give up our lives for someone else’s, and we don’t want that, right, you don’t want to give the other person, the other person doesn’t want you to sacrifice your life. And if you’re not careful, you’ll resent them for it. But this is your choice. And you have to decide how you’re going to spend your time and how you’re going to take care of yourself. But most importantly, you need to do that. And this is never gonna wrap up. Now. Here’s some caregiving resources. These are hyperlinks. So if you need me to provide this slide to you, or any of the slides, just let me know, you’ve received several emails reminders from me, and I’ll give you my contact information on the next slide.

57:14 

But there are there’s Arizona for Arizona people there’s one for every state coalition caregiver coalition. So no matter where you’re from, there’s a Caregiver Coalition, USA Caregiver National Alliance for Caregiving national family caregiver support program. So if you need financial help, it’s out there, the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America, Alzheimer’s Association, and then some of the data that I provided is from the Harvard Business School Research, and it’s the the articles that they wrote is the The Caring Company.

57:50 

And so if you need additional resources, this is just, this is just a snippet of 1000s of resources that you have. So what I’ll do to help you out is I’ll include this slide, I will be emailing you the recording a link to the recording, because you can email recording. And what I’ll do also is include that information in there. And then of course, you can always reach out to me there’s I do answer my emails.

58:19 

So because you’ve stayed on the line for the hour that we were doing the presentation for, I would like to offer you a free session with me. It’s free 30 minutes to the first session. And if you have specific questions about anything about caregiving.

58:46 

You can just email me at [email protected]

59:04 

 And this is my website, Alzheimer’s family consulting, when you can find me on Facebook and you can also find me on YouTube and LinkedIn.