By Kim Painter
The Caregivers is a unique series focused on the challenges and triumphs of caregiving. These stories have been created through a strategic partnership between AARP and Word In Black.
Caring for a loved one at home can mean managing everything from medications to finances.
It can also mean cooking all the meals, cleaning the kitchen, doing the laundry, pulling the weeds in the garden and driving your loved one everywhere they need to go.
The weight of those everyday tasks can sometimes crush caregivers, whether they live with the care recipient or not, caregiving advocates say. Finding hired or volunteer help can lighten the load.
“These kinds of services are the things that can sometimes make the difference between someone being able to stay in their home or not,” says Amy Goyer, AARP’s family and caregiving expert and author of Juggling Life, Work and Caregiving.
If you have enough money, “you can always hire someone,” Goyer says. Everything from gourmet meals to freshly ironed laundry can be delivered to your loved one’s door — for a price. Families that have never hired a mowing or snow removal service may splurge to keep a loved one at home. But caregivers with more limited budgets have more options than they might suspect, Goyer and other experts say.
Read the full story and get more tips on Caregiving from AARP.