Six Caregiver Survival Tips For Busy Home Health Workers

The demand for home health workers has been increasing each year. So if you’re interested in a career path where you can provide caregiving services to the elderly, sick, and disabled. Then this career path can be for you. But when you need to provide caregiving services every day, this can end up taking a toll on you. Home health workers are known to suffer from burnout. You’ll need to care for multiple patients, at their homes, every week. Although you can be flexible regarding your work schedule, especially if you’re an independent home health worker, you should still expect to work long hours. Home health workers often forget to take care of themselves, choosing to instead devote their time and energy to their patients. But if you keep this up, it will affect your health in the long run, and you may end up with burnout. Then, you’ll be forced to take time out of your schedule to recover. Or you may also try to work but find it more difficult to provide quality care services. So is there anything you can do to care for yourself, while also providing quality caregiving services to patients? Here are six tips to help you survive and thrive at work.

1. Redirecting Your Thoughts

Since you’ll be caring for people who are sick and ailing a lot of the time, it’s easy to feel negative and overwhelmed. Even if you have the best intentions when caring for someone, they still may not recover. Home health workers suffer from feelings of anxiety, doubt, exhaustion, anger, and more. This is why you need to prioritize your mental health. Even if every patient doesn’t recover, that doesn’t mean that they don’t need your care. Redirect your thoughts if you ever find the negative thoughts creeping up on you.

2. Talk To Family And Friends

Being a home health worker can feel isolating. You won’t have colleagues to help you care for the patient, and you’ll usually be working alone. This is why you need to take time out of your weekly schedule to talk to your family, as well as your friends. If you’re feeling emotionally exhausted, let them know why you’re feeling that way. Sharing your experiences can better help you cope with the stress from work. Should any of your friends or family offer to help you, then remember to accept their help as well.

3. Do Your Research

You could find yourself in unfamiliar environments, providing caregiving services to patients. You may also not know what ailment the patient is dealing with, every time. If you are ever unsure about what you’re supposed to do, then get in touch with the doctor, or the supervising nurse, to learn more about your role. If you ever feel like you’re in a situation that’s out of your control, then you should know who to reach out to. Keep handy a list of emergency medical contacts. Also consider doing your research on the ailment the patient is dealing with, to provide better care to them. You should also consider investing in insurance for caregiver. Working as a caregiver can leave you exposed to certain risk factors, such as getting sued by patients. When you have insurance for caregiver, you can better protect your career as well as your finances. If you would like to learn more about caregiver career, then click here.

4. Taking Time Off

Working through the day, multiple days every week can be exhausting for you. The nature of your work can also take both a physical and mental toll on you. Even if you need to work every day, you should still consider taking a few days off. Even if you can just take a day off every week, then this can be useful for you. If you can’t take the whole day off, then just a few hours would do. But you need to provide yourself with the time and space to relax.

5. Learn To Detach

The nature of being a home health worker is such that you’re bound to deal with patients passing on, from time to time. It’s also important for caregivers to build personal relationships with their patients, in order to provide higher quality care. But, if you feel the toll of losing patients affecting you, then this can affect how you do your work, going forward. This is why you’ll also need to build emotional detachment from your patients. You’ll be protecting your mental health as well.

6. Forgive Yourself

If you do lose a patient, don’t blame yourself. People who are elderly, or those with chronic health issues, are the ones who need supportive care at home. It’s highly likely that you won’t be able to save everyone, but you shouldn’t blame yourself for that. Instead, forgive yourself and focus on providing the highest quality of caregiving service to all your patients. When you’ve done your best by the patient, and they still don’t recover, understand that it’s not your fault.

Conclusion

Working as a caregiver can be physically and emotionally exhausting. This is why you need to prioritize self-care, even while you work. From confiding in friends and family to forgiving yourself, these were six tips to help you survive in your caregiving profession.

Sources:

1. Kelley, DK, ‘How To Survive As A Caregiver: Six Essential Tips’, viewed November 24th 2022, https://caregiver.com/articles/survive-caregiver-tips/
2. Staff, ‘Caregiver Stress: Tips For Taking Care Of Yourself’, viewed November 24th 2022 https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/caregiver-stress/art-20044784
3. Laverty, CL, ‘How I Survived Caregiving’, viewed November 24th 2022,                                                    https://www-agingcare-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.agingcare.com
4. Staff, ’11 Tried And True Caregiver Survival Tips’, viewed November 24th 2022, https://www.laservices.ca/blog/11-tried-and-true-caregiver-survival-tips