Keeping In Close Contact with Eldercare Providers
January 22, 2012 by admin
Filed under Featured, Healthcare
When caring for aging parents or spouses, it’s important to be able to communicate to doctors and other providers so you can make the best possible decisions regarding their care.
It’s also important because if a crisis occurs, you want to be prepared with the back-up support you need.
First, you must have a doctor’s Power of Attorney in order to talk to a provider. A power of attorney (POA) or letter of attorney is a written authorization to represent or act on another’s behalf in private affairs and business. A doctor will not talk to you unless you have this document in place.
Therapists can help with issues such as depression and anxiety that aging parents and spouses may possibly be struggling with on and off. There can also be a lot of confusion and frustration involved on their end because things are happening to them that they don’t understand.
Also, having a good therapist on-hand to help in dealing with speech difficulties after a stroke, makes life much easier for you and your loved one.
If you are being assisted by an in home caregiver or long term care caregiver, you will want to make sure you get a daily report of how your loved one did each day and the activities they did. This helps prevent double work, and it also gives you a good assessment of not only how your loved one is doing, but also how well the care provider is doing their job.
Be sure to get to know your pharmacist because this is the person who will be more aware of the different medications your loved one is taking – especially if your loved one is seeing several different doctors.
Keep all care provider information in an easy to access place so you can call with questions or be prepared in case of an emergency.
When you do call, get organized before hand. Prepare a list of questions, have all the information you need handy, such as POAs, lists of medications and any symptoms. Ask questions and make sure you understand the answers – have them repeat any information if needed and take plenty of notes.
Better care and effective communication with all the providers leads to a better quality of life for your loved one.
Another informative and timely post. Even if you’re not yet in this position with a parent or spouse it’s so important to be prepared and have this discussion, as uncomfortable as it might be. Thank you, Lisa.
Great post Lisa, and such valuable information. It is so important to know POA arrangements ahead of time, it can be very difficult to deal with once a loved one is hospitalized. This happened with my Dad, we were totally taken by surprise when he got sick, his POA arrangements were not communicated to his children which made it very difficult dealing with doctors, nurses and care givers. We learned this lesson the hard way, thank you for bringing such an important issue to light.
Very good information Lisa. We went through that with my Mom about 15 years ago. We know how important advanced directives can be.
Great info, Lisa! I especially appreciated the comment about getting a report…I would imagine that keeping track of the communication among all the doctors and practitioners, via the central caregiver, would be essential in this situation.
Great information Lisa, So important especially having support and that all information is recorded!
Several years ago I was contracted to work in a couple of nursing homes to assist in supporting the residents by using Aromatherapy and essential oils. Many of them had dementia and we focused on working with their emotions to aid in memory recall and associate a smell that they enjoyed to feeling happy.
I use to make the blends and the DT’s would give them a hand massage each week. It was so lovely as they would be very excited, SMILE, and enjoy a simple tactile therapy. many did not have family visiting and this was a truly healing experience for all concerned.
xxx