CareEasy’s Tips to Make Caregiving Easier

SPONSORED CONTENT

CareEasy’s tips on how to make caregiving easier, as you start — and continue — your caregiving journey.

Maybe your mom is forgetting things just a little too often. Maybe Dad has received a worrying diagnosis. And so, you’ve made the decision to ramp up your caregiving efforts. Here are some things to consider as you start — and continue — the caregiving journey.

 

Share Responsibilities

Caring for a senior with multiple needs is challenging. Trying to go it alone is a recipe for stress and burnout. The CareEasy App helps you build a team to take on caregiving together. Once you’ve downloaded the app and created an account, you can create a Circle of Care and invite family members to participate. You can invite caregivers already in your contact list, or by typing in their email address. CareEasy will let invitees know about the request, and give them a brief overview of how the app works!

Your Circle of Care might consist of:

  • Family
  • Friends and neighbours
  • Professional caregivers and doctors
  • Community services (Meals on Wheels or adult day-care or Alzheimer’s programs for seniors with dementia)
  • Other professionals (house cleaners, dog-walkers, or landscaping companies)

Once you’ve identified team members, figure out who’s in charge. Your team needs a captain: someone who deeply understands the plans and priorities, and can keep things moving along.

Click here to build your first caregiving team!

 

Make a plan

With your team in place, you can start to plan, for both the short and the long term.

Short-term planning includes understanding how much help your mom or dad needs, right now, to get through the activities of each day, and who will be responsible for providing that help.

In some cases, they may need only a bit of help with occasional grocery shopping, heavy-duty cleaning or yard work jobs, or transportation. The CareEasy app lets you create tasks for each team member, as well as track expenses associated with a parent’s care.

To make it easy for your Circle to keep track, CareEasy lets you schedule and share tasks and events within the same joint calendar.

Longer-term planning addresses needs that might come up in the future, as a parent’s needs become more complicated or pressing. For example, a senior with mild dementia might function well with regular check-ins and support around grocery shopping and meal preparation, while someone with full-blown Alzheimer’s disease may require 24/7 care.

 

Assign roles, and be honest

Once you’ve identified your parent’s needs, you can create a spreadsheet that outlines each task, when and how often it occurs, and who will be responsible for it.

Here, it’s important to be honest about your resources: how much time, energy, and money does each member and the team as a whole have to devote to a parent’s care? Include your parent in these conversations where you can.

Once you’ve assigned roles, make sure everyone is clear on their responsibilities. Log in to the CareEasy app and assign responsibilities to each member in your Circle of Care. And remember, you can also use the app to keep track of who’s doing (and paying for) what, and when.

Click here to coordinate your caregiver tasks today!

 

Keep talking!

Aging is a dynamic process, and it’s very likely that your parents’ needs will change over time. It’s important for circles to communicate openly about these changes, and to adjust plans and roles as necessary. CareEasy can help to make sure that mom or dad is getting regular visits, phone and FaceTime calls, and check-ins, and to keep up-to-date on their condition and care.

 

Click here to try the FREE CareEasy app

This article offers general information only and is not intended as legal, financial or other professional advice. A professional advisor should be consulted regarding your specific situation. While the information presented is believed to be factual and current, its accuracy is not guaranteed and it should not be regarded as a complete analysis of the subjects discussed.  All expressions of opinion reflect the judgment of the author(s) as of the date of publication and are subject to change. No endorsement of any third parties or their advice, opinions, information, products or services is expressly given or implied by Royal Bank of Canada or its affiliates.