Relationship Management Is Important For Both Patient And Home Care Aide

It is very common for elderly patients and senior parents to change their caregivers every now and then. It is not always that these caregivers are inefficient but in most of the times it is because either the care giver or the care recipient is not in-sync. It is very important to have a friendly and compatible relationship between the patient and the home care aide to have the best care given and get the highest value in return for the money spent.

Relationships take a long time to build but it can be broken in weeks, days, hours and in seconds. To make sure that the caregiver stays for years and get a better service it may be required sometimes to intervene or negotiate a multiplicity of issues between the patient and the caregivers.

Ideally, the primary reasons for such frequent changes in caregivers can be varied and diverse but the most common ones are:

• The problem in communication between the two
• A difference in opinions
• A difference in expectations and
• Not being able to cope up with the tantrums that elderly patients usually are known to throw.

Sometimes the patients show reluctance to take medicines, deliberately skip medicines or meals and might not even want to take a bath simply because the caregiver is younger than him or her.

Finding the right solutions

A perfect bond will make relationships between the patients and the caregivers last for long and therefore, the caregivers as well as the hirers need to look for and know the easy and effective solutions to these issues.

In most cases the first and foremost thing that comes to the mind while looking for such solutions is to change the caregiver altogether. Yes, it is a very easy option given that fact that there are a large number of such caregiving agencies and you will find a huge list of names and alternative options. Visit agencies such as myallamericancare.com and just see the search results and be amazed!

However, this may not be a feasible solution always because of several reasons such as:

• Making frequent changes of caregivers mean making changes in the scheduling all the time.
• It is also required to start everything afresh, even the efforts of building a new relationship which once again might fail.
• You will not be able to focus on your daily jobs easily and properly leaving your mind and worries at home uncertain of what you will see when you come back home in the evening.

Therefore, it is required that you look for more feasible and productive alternative rather than change the caregivers every time your elderly parent asks you to do so citing some reason or the other, which most of the times are strange.

Keep everything in perspective

As an overseer of the relationship between the patient and the caregiver, it is important to ensure that everything is in perspective. It is important to believe that there will be specific ebb and flow in the relationship between the aide and the patient as that is the natural nature of any relationship and this is no exception to it.

There are a few things that you will need to take into accounts such as:

• The individual personalities
• The daily life activities
• The experience and
• The expectations.

This will help you a lot as an overseer in mediating these issues. You will be able to reassure your parent that even if he or she is not satisfied, you are there beside him or her as his or her advocate. Listen to his or her issues with the caregiver carefully and discuss it with them directly and objectively. You will see that most of the issues are resolved quickly and automatically.

• Care, concern and a reassuring tone can do wonders in elderly adults just as it does for kids and young children. You must remember that your parents are almost at the stage of completing their human life cycle of child, youth, adult, elderly, coming back to childhood, well at least in nature not age.
• It is natural that they will feel that at times they are not getting enough attention and care from the caregivers while they are busy with their other responsibilities such as preparing meals or tidying up. In these situations you simply have to remind her of the various responsibilities that the caregivers have and none of their works should be overlooked as everything is related to their better living.

The relationship between a patient and an elderly with the caregiver is very dynamic and therefore needs to be modified constantly and adapted.

Provide more choices

The caregivers on the other hand must also work towards maintaining the relationship with their clients. It is important that the care recipient feels comfortable and wanted, loved and attended.

The best way to achieve this is by preserving the dignity of the care recipient knowing that there may be several physical as well as mental issues such as:

• Mentally acute and extra sensitive
• Very emotional in nature
• Facing physical mobility issues is specific activities to perform
• Ambulatory and fully dependent or semi-independent.

Over the years things will even become worse with added issues such as:

• Hearing growing worse
• Weakening of vision
• Reduced or distorted speech
• Worsened cardiac conditions
• Broken limbs after a sudden fall
• Confinement to a wheel chair
• Reduced or complete inability to process information
• Short term memory fails and much more.

All these conditions will make him or her feel helpless being unable to convey what he or she wants for the caregiver which is need to perceive. The patient must not have the constant and disheartening sensation of dependence as that will affect the relationship for sure. Instead, the caregiver should make it a point that the feeling of self-worth and independence is heightened in the patient by allowing a few very simple jobs to do by himself or herself.

When the caregiver understands the patient well and makes decisions just as required, the patients will be happy and the relationship will grow stronger.