Overlooked Reasons To Be In Long-Term Care
BY SHAWNA WASKO
I spent some time with my parents this weekend and was hit with an epiphany. My last caregiver support group and articles for senior center newsletters were about recognizing signs of when it is time for your loved ones to look at long-term-care (LTC). Mostly, the signs to look for are falling, losing weight, not keeping up with personal hygiene, getting lost, not taking care of financial needs, etc. It may be time to look at options. But the most important reason is often NEVER spoken about for considering LTC—it is loneliness and boredom.
My dad loves to fish and go camping but can’t now because of my mother’s growing needs because of Alzheimer’s disease. At least he FEELS he can’t go. His best friend lives at Magic, right by the lake. We have tried to persuade Dad to go, but like most caregivers, he feels only he can care for Mom (with a lot of help from me). So, Mom and Dad are lonely and bored out of their minds.
COVID-19 has isolated them, also. In a March 2020 article by verywellhealth, Recognizing Loneliness and Boredom in Dementia, Ester Heerema, MSW, wrote that loneliness and boredom are often overlooked, and challenging behaviors can emerge when loneliness and boredom go unchecked. She explained that a United Kingdom Alzheimer’s Society Dementia 2012 Report stated that 61 percent of people with dementia felt lonely, and 77 percent were depressed or anxious. This report also found that loneliness increased hallucinations in people with Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers theorized that hallucinations in dementia could be a result of the mind compensating for a lack of social stimulation. Dad has told me that Mother is hallucinating more than ever.
Boredom, according to Heerema, is also linked to depression, anxiety, apathy, wandering, agitation, and excessive daytime sleepiness. Mom sleeps all day, and most of the night. On a resent doctor visit, her doctor asked her if she was bored, and my mom gave her a one-word answer: “incredibly.”
My mom, a few years back, had to go to rehab after a hospital stay, so was placed in LTC. The workers helped her dress in the morning and took her down to breakfast with the other residents. She was put in a therapy exercise class and worked with puzzles. There was entertainment and crafts. She was taken to lunch and dinner also daily. She visited with other residents. She later told Dad she would love to move into a facility if he would go with her. He does not want to go. She physically and mentally did well at the facility.
I am aware that many LTC facilities are NOT doing activities they usually do for residents because of COVID restrictions, but hopefully that will change, with many companies getting approval for COVID vaccines. I am taking the shot when it’s available; I want to stop living in fear that I will contract COVID and infect my parents with it.
Dad is bored because he is a goer. He loves to shop and visit. He does everything VERY slowly with his end-stage COPD. But I see depression and loneliness in him also. Exhaustion also. If he and Mom were in a facility, he could leave and visit his friend at Magic, he could shop and stay out for hours as someone would be caring for Mom in LTC. Yes, he still drives, very slowly. Mom could be helped to engage with others throughout the day, lessoning her boredom and loneliness.
I have said many times that being a baby boomer and a caregiver to your parents is difficult, to say the least. My parents’ parents died when Mom and Dad were in their late 40s. Caregivers nowadays are baby boomers in their 60s and 70s, many of them working full time. We are required to work longer to get our full Social Security benefits. We are exhausted, lonely, and depressed also. Most of us are simply too old to be caregivers to our parents. There are many studies that show the caregiver dies before the care receiver. Care receivers can get cranky just like caregivers.
I was chided by my parents last week because, according to them, I don’t spend enough time with them. Well, with COVID, full-time work, and exhaustion, I am sure this is true in their minds. I put a boundary around them and myself this weekend. I simply explained that neither of them had ever done what I have done for the last four years. My work suffers, my mind, my sleep, the not-so-clean house I live in, my relationships with family and friends all suffer. I leave work almost weekly to care for them, helping Mom to the eye doctor along with many other activities.
The boundary I put in was that they could no longer scold me. I explained I was doing the best I could. I have them on a homemaker program where our office contracts with agencies to clean homes for elderly, qualified clients. They don’t like strangers in the house and tell me I should clean their house. I explained I would not do that, and insisted they needed more hours from the homemaker program. I told them the homemaker program helps me as much as them. If you are interested in the homemaker program, please call our office for more information: 1-208-736-2122. We also have Respite, where we can give the caregiver a break from their duties. Call us for more info on that, too.
Many seniors, caregivers, and others are so isolated right now. Hopefully, the vaccines will stop all the madness that we live in right now. And hopefully a lesson we have learned from this pandemic is that it is unreasonable for baby boomers to caregive for parents without lots of resources to help them through it. It is also unreasonable for older care receivers to expect baby-boomer-age children to be able to take complete care of them without allowing many available resources to take over the load.
The holidays are upon us now. Please, as a caregiver and care receiver, keep things simple. Less is more right now. I am having an early-in-the-day Thanksgiving dinner and later an early-Christmas dinner at my house with my guy Jack, Mom and Dad, and assorted poodles we all have; namely, Angel, Blaine and Elvis.
Happy holidays to all. I wish you peace and a COVID vaccine.
Shawna Wasko, M.OLP Group Facilitator CSI Office on Aging swasko@csi.edu
