KristinaTo have someone care for you when you grow old is something that everyone would wish for. However, there are times that it is nearly impossible to have your own family or children to take care of you, especially when they are thinking about pursuing their own career that is far away from the home. As such, they can hire oakham care in the home in order to ensure that you elderly folks are attended to.
The day-to-day activities of caring involves a lot of tasks in order to fulfill the needs of the elderly. These are activities that are carried out daily, sometimes exceeding the standard working hours. Depending on the amount of attention needed by the elderly, care workers may feel exhausted by the end of the week that they will need some time off from caring. On the other hand, care workers may find it difficult to leave their ward to take some time off, especially when the patient is not comfortable with their relievers. Here are some methods on how to safety take a break from providing care:
Introduce your reliever at least a week before your actual time off. It is expected that your patient may have been comfortable with you as their carer. However, it is not logical to be with the patient for extended days and time as it will also drain you of your energy. Care workers need to take some time off in order to recharge for the next work week ahead. If they don’t, stress and burnout symptoms will start to manifest.
Allocate time to work together with your reliever. The reliever may not be too successful with establishing rapport with your patient. As such, it would be helpful to at least work with your reliever for an hour or two before finally leaving him to your patient. This way, you are endorsing your reliever to your patient and you will also be able to gauge your patient’s response. Take note of facial expressions and other nonverbal clues. Make sure that your patient will eat food prepared by your reliever.
Always tell your patient how long you will be gone. Telling your patient the length of your time off will help to establish trust and contract setting with your patient. Make sure that you arrive within the specified time you told your patient so that there will be no breach of trust. In cases that you cannot return on the specified time you mentioned, call ahead of time so the care agency or your reliever as well as your patient will be informed and will take necessary actions so that the patient will not be left on their own.
It is vital that care workers take some time off from caring, even for just a day or two, aside from the normal break periods during their work time. It will help them not only to replenish their own energy, but also to take care of their personal needs. This is also to ensure that stress and burn out do not happen.