What is a Caregiver?

@cafe41 - You mentioned that some cultures assume people in need will be cared for by the family. (Unpaid of course.) This also extends beyond the elderly folk.

A friend of mine was working in South Korea last year. After slipping on some ice she was admitted to hospital with a broken ankle. Surprisingly the nursing staff are not trained to give a lot of personal care.

So while the other women in the room had family members staying with them and helping with washing and so on, she had to track down paid assistants who spoke English.

@Cafe41 -I agree and I wanted to say that my aunt has a caregiver stay with her a few nights a week and my aunt loves the companionship. This is another great thing that caregivers offer elderly patients because many have limited mobility and when someone comes in and focuses on them it can seem really nice to get that extra attention.

I think that it would be especially nice to be able to discuss current events and things unrelated to their health condition. I know my aunt really enjoys the companionship because she became a widow about a few years ago.

@ElizaBennett - I agree that this could be difficult, but there are cultures where it is expected to take care of elderly parents. It can be challenging.

I had a friend that cared for her ailing mother at home and had to quit her job because it just got to be too much. She said that this caused her to think about getting long term care insurance for herself and her husband so that they would have the money to have a full time caregiver in case they decided to stay in their home.

A lot of people don’t plan on end of life care because most people don’t want to think about it, but if you are close to 50, it is something to consider because the premiums are a lot cheaper if you start this early.

@rugbygirl - It sounds like your grandfather was very devoted to your grandmother! She was lucky to have him and it's definitely fortunate that they had good savings so he could have some caregiver relief.

One barrier with caregiving is that older people can be very proud; they don't always want to admit that they need help with cooking or driving or other little details like that. It has to be handled very delicately.

A family that I know has grandparents still going strong in their 90s (!) but they can no longer cook because their grandma left the stove on. So now a nephew's wife, who is a stay-at-home mom, brings their meals by for them. They think she does it just to be nice, but actually their children pay her. They have trouble with the idea of having a "professional caregiver," but the SAHM needs the money, so the "kids" (who are in their 60s themselves) have found this way around.

Being a caregiver is so much easier when there's enough money. My grandfather cared for my grandmother for eight years between her first stroke and her eventual passing. But they had plenty of money. So he hired a housekeeper to come in during the day. She did all the housework and a little light cooking, but Grandpa referred to her as "Grandma's companion" because she would also keep Grandma company during the day when Grandpa needed to run errands or had a club meeting to go to, that kind of thing.

He also had good family support. Their kids would take turns coming to visit, so several times a year he got relief from that, too. Even just knowing that he could have a third glass of wine because there was another adult in the house was such a lifting of the burden.