Do you have employees who are acting as caregivers for aging parents? Have you noticed that they seem distracted, sometimes show up late and that their job performance is not what it used to be? I’d like to share my personal experience to give you some insight into what being a caregiver for an aging parent involves.
I work at several jobs, one of which is my own business, and also act as a caregiver for my 93-year-old Dad, who suffers from dementia. Despite the fact that my Dad is well cared for in a specialty dementia care facility, acting as my Dad’s caregiver feels like another full-time job.
To give you some idea, here is a log of my caregiving activities in the last week:
- • Making several follow-up telephone calls to the hospice provider and facility staff to schedule a Care Plan meeting to discuss better communication and coordination between the service providers
• Visiting my Dad every other day
• Making a videotape of Dad, figuring out how to upload to YouTube and sending it to other members of my family so they can see how he’s doing
• Taking a telephone call from the facility’s nurse about my Dad’s most recent fall (fortunately he was not injured)
• Making several contacts with the facility to remind them to call me at my home office number rather than my husband’s cell number (still not remedied)
• Following up with the facility regarding the cost of a specialty wheelchair cushion they ordered which was not necessary (one had already been ordered and paid for by hospice)
• Participating in Care Plan meeting at the facility and learning of additional instances of lack of coordination between facility and hospice provider (this will require additional follow-up)
• Scanning and emailing invoice for cushion to facility for reimbursement due to their error
• Taking a day off from work to pick up my out-of-town brother at the airport and spend the day with him visiting Dad
• Worrying and stressing out over the cost of my Dad’s care, his recent viral illness and what might be triggering his nasty outbursts
What cost-effective strategies do you use to help keep these employees productive?
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