primarycaregiver2022

  On Tuesday, September 24, at 8:52 am, we made the call to our long-term care case manager and asked for Mom to be put on the emergency long-term care waitlist. It was clear to us that we could no longer manage Mom's care needs on our own. Her needs had exceeded our capacity (strength) and our capability (managing toileting needs). By 10 am we had confirmation that 24 hour care would be put in place for Mom starting that evening.  This was a relief, and also a logistical challenge. Our heritage house has flour floors - the basement, the main floor, the second floor and the attic. In 2021 we moved Mom into our basement suite and set up arrangements for a live-in caregiver. That live-in caregiver ended up being me at least 75% of the time. Gradually, over the years, I setup extra beds, work stations and art / music studios on each floor so that I I always had a place to work no matter who was staying with Mom, or if we had extra family visiting. I spent the majority of my time ...

  Registered for emergency long-term care. In-home caregiving starts tonight because Mom is not strong enough to hold her weight and I am not strong enough to make up the difference.  We talk about Activities of Daily Living (ADL) as a measure of care recipient function. We need to talk about Activities of Daily Caregiving to measure the capacity and capability of family caregiving. We measure the ability of a care recipient to fend for themselves by assessing their ability to do basic tasks defined within Activities of Daily Living (ADL). Where the care recipient is unable to function according to assessment requirements, then someone else is going to be needed to make up the difference in functionality. Family caregivers perform to fill this functional gap. They make up the difference between what a care recipient can do, and where they need help.  We need to measure the capacity and capability for a family caregiver to fill the functional gap on behalf of their care re...