Friday, December 9, 2005
Fifty million Americans are caregivers including more than a million caring for older adults in Ohio. It's a big group, but many in it feel very much alone. In this next segment of our series, "The Aging Boom", we discover that along with the aging population, caregiver stress is also increasing:
 (Click for larger view.) Jean Wales supervises the care of her father, Clifton C.Gray, at Canterbury Villa in Alliance.
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At six foot four with massive shoulders and a wistful smile Cliff still basks in the glory of his high school football career. He was the pride of Alliance, Ohio. But that was more than 70 years ago. Now he's in a wheelchair.
I've come down with a hernia, cancer in the prostate. Outside of that, I'm still enjoying life.
His daughter Jean enjoys her own life a little more , now that 92 year old Cliff is in a nursing home. She tried for a while to keep him in his own apartment:
I met him at the hospital emergency department on many, many occasions when he would have some incident, with me living in Hartville and him living in Alliance, we couldn't manage and I would say call the ambulance and I'll meet you at the hospital.
Now she meets him at least once a week at Canterbury villa in Alliance.
Administrator Ted Powell says Jean is more involved in her Dad's care than most family members are:
I think we're all so busy in our lifestyle that families just feel, you know, dad's being well cared for here, so I really don't need to be part of that process.
But there's a growing need for family members to get more involved. A 2002 federal study projects that almost half of those over 65 will need nursing home care in the next 20 years. Jean Wales keeps a constant vigil over her Dad's care:
When there were big transitions, such as him losing his ability to stand by himself, I was here almost every day.
Jean leads us from the lounge where residents can either watch TV or some caged parakeets .. Her Dad's room is nearby and he's in the bathroom when we enter, emptying his ostomy bag, although he's supposed to wait for an aide to do that:
Now this is his home. He lives in one room. But at least it's his room. He has his own bathroom.….
Whether they're trying to find a free aide to empty an ostomy bag, or caring for their elderly parents in their own homes, family caregivers are the largest source of elder care services in the U. S. Eighty percent of the care older Americans receive comes from their families and 60 percent of family caregivers also hold down full or part-time jobs. Caregiving women spend an average of 18 years caring for their elderly parents….. about as much time as they spend raising their children.
Jean's stress level was highest when she tried to care for her Dad in his own home:
I was working fulltime for a non-profit in Canton. Our son lived at home. What happened is my life got entirely out of balance and I was ill and depressed and on anti-depressants. So what happens…you get tired, you get sick, you get angry and you wish the person would die.
Kent State University psychologist Mary Ann Stephens says caregiver stress often doesn't improve when the patient enters a nursing home because the family member doesn't stop caring:
They don't feel the nursing home staff is providing the care that they would or in the way that they would if they were still providing care at home and so some have actually said that the stress sometimes actually gets worse rather than better.
The grief of watching a loved one deteriorate adds to the stress of family caregivers, but even total strangers can experience caregiver stress, Kent State Nursing student, Sara Brazofsky moved in with an elderly woman whose children offered Sara room and board in exchange for taking care of her. But things didn't work out:
She couldn't get up by herself anymore and she couldn't go to the bathroom by herself and it was almost like having a child. I had to get up every couple of hours in the middle of the night and so that's when it started, you know, I didn't really want to do it anymore.
She said the last straw was when the woman refused to take her medication and insisted on drinking soda pop although she's diabetic. Sara tried to get the woman's children to intervene but they didn't want to get involved:
Roberta Satow can understand that. She had no intention of becoming involved in her Mother's care:
My mother was a very angry woman for much of her life. She felt very deprived and a lot of anger at my father and her children for not giving her enough, not making her happy. I was always self-protective with her. So it was a surprise to me when I was the one who became the primary caregiver.
Satow, a psychoanalyst, wrote a book about it entitled Doing the Right Thing: Taking Care of Elderly Parents Even if they Didn't Take Care of You. Satow says she couldn't have her 91-year-old mother live in her home without going crazy, but she has taken over the financial burden, put her in a nursing home and hired surrogates to oversee her care.
I don't feel loving toward her in the sense, it's not like I see her and I want to kiss and hug her, but I want her to be O.K.
Vivian: And that helps you be O.K. ?
That helps me be O.K., yes because I'm doing for her what she did not do for me and that is the satisfying thing.
In her book Satow recommends caregivers get psychological counseling . That's available weekly at Cleveland 's Fairhill Center for Aging in a therapy group for elder caregivers:
78 year-old Jesse Copeland says the group support helps. She's caring for her 89-year old husband who has dementia.
And I get pictures out and we got the names of the people on the other side of the pictures so when he sees them, he'll know them. Sometimes I'll tease him about stuff and he'll laugh and he'll remember jokes and stuff. So it's pretty good some times
But sometimes its pretty hard:
I just feel like sometimes that it's overwhelming. I have grown children, but then they have families of their own.
She says one of the lessons she's learning is to get some respite:
For myself, I had not been doing anything, but now friends, they told me to call them so I can get out some time and they said well just call ……so that works.
Trying to do it all yourself can be fatal . Mary Ann Stephens remembers the husband who refused all help in taking care of his severely demented wife :
His kids, he didn't want any help from them and he really tried desperately to care for her at home for as long as he could and he ultimately, he ultimately, uh…killed her and killed himself.
I thank the lord everyday that I am able to get up and do for myself.
As chirpy as her pet canary, 78 year-old Dottie is one of the lucky ones. Thanks to the volunteer Senior companion program she has Susie to help her be able to stay in her Kent apartment, and… keep from worrying:
Volunteers like Susie can give family caregivers like Jean Wales a break, but she also needs understanding:
This isn't easy. I have become my father's parent. I'm very tired. But we always have to remember that these folks deserve respect and patience and that they have dignity, that they're human beings with histories. And when my father tells me for the 50th time about being on the 1932 football team that was undefeated, I listen.
I'm Vivian Goodman, WKSU News
Web Resources
Jean Wales web site for caregivers
Children of Aging Parents Family Caregiver Alliance Visit our "Aging Boom" homepage for more about this series
Sponsorship for the aging series provided by:
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