Being a primary caregiver is tough and it is universally known that the job of becoming one is a difficult transition in life. It is extremely tough to go through a reversal of parent and child in a family. It was your mom and dad who where the strong ones earlier telling you things like, “It is ok, everything will be fine soon”. They encouraged you and helped you out when it was most needed.

But as your parent starts aging, things start to change a bit. This is especially when your parent is going through a tough period health wise and is going to kick the bucket soon. When you know that your parents are soon approaching death, it becomes highly difficult to cope up with your daily challenges as well as your life in general. It will take a lot from you to stay upbeat and active.

Caring for an elderly person can be immensely satisfying and overwhelming. You will have to face their financial, medical and other problems though. If they are battling a disease or soon approaching death, you have to have concerns over their health and mental state. The parent will love to be cared but you will have to do a lot of work to block them mentally and emotionally sometimes.

You tend to feel very disturbed and distressed when your parent is on the death bed. It is very disheartening to watch your parent deteriorate. A caregiver, hence, must give his 100% to his parent who is soon to approach a certain outcome.

The general problem with caregivers is that they have other obligations too apart from taking care of their loved ones. You will need to spend enough quality time with your family and also keep your health good. So it is very important for caregivers, the family of caregivers and even the one being cared for to open their eyes and be aware of a caregiver burnout. It is equally important for the caregiver to take care of himself if he so badly wants to take care of his loved ones.

A caregiver sometimes develops guilt which isn’t very healthy. It can keep building and the outcome is not very fruitful. They feel guilty for not only their mom or dad’s sickness but also for the fact that they have other issues in life. They know they can’t devote time for his family needs and thus feel guilty about it. Guilt is a powerful force that can let a person down easily.

A burnout to a caregiver can result in the decline in health of the caregiver and also what it does is change the attitude and approach of the caregiver. A nervous breakdown can be very serious when it strikes a caregiver. Lack of sleep and loss of appetite are the first signs of this burnout. When this happens, it bogs down the caretaker massively. H should ensure he is in perfect health in order to help his parent. As a result of all this, the caregiver will be unable to understand the needs of his parent.

If you can spot these symptoms of a burnout in yourself or any person, act swift to get some medication. Taking care of oneself is a major part of the whole caretaking process.
There can even be situations were the elderly person it self spots the fatigue in the caretaker and sends him back home giving him a break. This will do a lot of good to this caretaker as taking care of oneself is as important as taking care of the parent. If there is a good understanding between the caretaker and the elderly person, the caretaker can afford to spend time for himself and is family.