Category Archives: Grief and Coping

Once your parents or other elderly parents get to a certain age, you will need to start thinking about looking for a care home or nursing home for them. This time might come earlier if they suffer from a certain health condition and you and your family are struggling to give them the care they need.

There are lots of different nursing homes out there, some of which cater for different needs and requirements. Not sure which one will be best for your relatives? Here are some helpful tips to let you carefully decide.

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What Type Of Care Do Your Relatives Need?

Firstly, you need to establish which kind of care your elderly relatives will require. You will usually have the following to choose from:

• • Dementia and Alzheimer’s care. If your relative suffers from either of these illnesses, they will need to go into a home that can cater to their very specific needs. If this is the case, you will need to look for a home that employs nurses and carers who are trained in looking after and dealing with dementia and Alzheimer’s sufferers.

• Residential Care. Patients living in residential care have their independence but have people on-hand to help with their cooking, cleaning, and personal hygiene.

• Respite Care. This is short-term care for when a carer needs a break from their responsibility.

• Palliative Care. If your relative is coming to the end of their life, then palliative care will be best for them. It ensures that their final days are comfortable and pain-free.

Check The Standard

To ensure your relative gets the best quality care, you will need to check that a potential care home’s standard of care is up to scratch. There are a couple of ways you can do this. Firstly, check any reviews you can find online. If you only find negative reviews, it’s best to start looking into a different nursing home! It is also important to research whether a personal injury lawyer has ever had to deal with a negligence case against a particular home. If so, it’s a good idea not to use that one unless you are 100% sure that their quality standards have vastly improved. If you get in touch with your local council or health authority, they might be able to show you reports on some homes. You could use these for your research.

Visit Each Home

Once you have checked each home’s standard and have shortlisted a few different ones, you should make an appointment to visit them. This is a chance for you and your relative to take a look around and speak to staff to figure out which home they will be most comfortable in. You will also get the chance to speak to current residents to see what their experience of the home has been like. Most nursing and care homes will be happy to book a viewing if you give them a call.

Hopefully, this blog post has given you lots of tips to ensure you make the best choice for your relative!

Unfortunately, not everyone leads a blessed existence all the time. We might see our friends and family uploading delighted pictures onto Facebook all the time, talking about the amazing dinners they made and the foreign vacations they took, while you’re trying to scrape together enough money for a weekend at the beach and some nights you have to order pizza just so you have time to get on with the laundry. And even worse than that, sometimes things happen like sickness and injuries that mean you really have to work hard to stay positive. Here are a few things you can do to maintain faith in your family through the hardest times…

Be Financially Careful

When less than ideal things happen, it’s usually a good idea to tighten your belts a little – rein in your spending and make sure that you have a good nest egg in the bank to fall back on if you need to. If whatever happened to you is a result of malpractice, make sure you get what you’re entitled to – speak to a lawyer like Salvi Law who really knows their stuff and can help you get money that will make life for you and your family a whole lot easier. A lot of us feel awkward about anything financial but it’s important to remember that it’s not just for your sake – it’s for your kids’ too.

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Spend Time Together

It’s important to spend time together when you’re going through tough things – eat dinner together and make sure that you focus on good things like your kids’ swimming lessons and their artwork and what you’re proud of from work that day, instead of simply thinking about the rougher things in life. Banding together in your own little family clan will make you a lot happier – pile onto the couch together to watch movies, play ships when your toddler’s in the bath, and jump on the trampoline together. Spending time together will leave you with a smile on your face.

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Take Time Alone

However, it’s important to remember that if you’re going through a stressful time it’s absolutely okay to take some time away from your hectic kids to destress and clear your head a little. Start a creative writing class, or go on regular hikes, or take your book to the coffee shop and eat a frivolously expensive cupcake. Don’t feel selfish or guilty for doing it – you’re still your own person away from your kids and you need to talk to your partner to make sure that you get some ‘you’ time.

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Learn To Communicate

Finally, make sure that your kids know they can talk to you if you want. Being the grown up is hard when you don’t feel very tough yourself and sometimes your kids will ask hard questions. Be honest and open with them and don’t get angry for what they’re saying – they’re afraid and confused and relying on you. Being open about your feelings will mean that your kids will grow up able to do the same thing.

In a perfect world, you and your family would be able to live your lives simply and happily without having to worry about anything happening to disrupt that feeling. However, as anyone who has ever looked out of their window could probably tell you, we don’t live in a perfect world. The world that we do live in is deeply flawed, and because of this, there is always the chance that your family will go through some kind of trauma that can be incredibly difficult to come back from. Of course, that doesn’t mean that there’s nothing that you can do to get back on your feet. Here are just a few support networks that you should reach out to in order to help your family recover from any kind of trauma.

Legal Support

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It might not be the things that you usually want to think about but a lot of traumatic situations, from illness to accidents, come with a lot of legal ramifications. It’s a very good idea for you to seek out some kind of legal support in order to both protect your family and also make sure that anyone who is at fault for what happened is held accountable for it. Whether it’s a firm like Gray and White Law who can support you in the event of a road traffic accident, or the protection of the police if you and your family are feeling unsafe, there are plenty of ways in which you and your family can be supported by the legal system. It’s not always easy dealing with the legal ramifications of any kind of trauma, but it is important that you deal with it as soon as possible.

Financial Support

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Trauma can be costly, not just on an emotional level but on a practical level as well. The financial consequences of any kind of traumatic event can often make the whole thing even worse. Fortunately, there are often plenty of ways in which you can reach out for financial support. If you’ve found yourself in some form of debt, there are plenty of charity organisations who are able to offer you the kind of advice and support that you need, and there are also plenty of welfare opportunities for those who are in truly dire financial situations.

Emotional Support

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Of course, while the practical side of dealing with any kind of traumatic event is incredibly important, you should never discount the emotional toll that it can take. You should never feel as though it’s inappropriate for you or any member of your family to need dedicated emotional support in the event of some kind of trauma. Whether that takes the form of reaching out to the people in your life or if it’s something more serious like dedicated counselling will depend on your personal needs, but it’s incredibly important that you don’t try and deal with any emotional burden all by yourself. Sure, many of us pride ourselves on our ability to be independent. However, there’s no shame in needing to reach out to others for help every once in awhile.

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As we are moving into Spring, it is becoming increasingly more apparent that the weather can affect how we are feeling. The sluggishness that we were experiencing post New Year (you know, after the resolutions have worn off…) is starting to flourish into something exciting now that we know that warmer weather is on its way – but how can we shake off the feelings that are going hand in hand with what’s going on outside our windows? Sometimes, it’s not possible…

Winter is Coming…
It’s a weird concept to grasp a hold of – that our moods can literally change with the weather. The most common problem related to what’s on the outside that’s affecting our inside is Seasonal Affective Disorder – otherwise known as SAD (kinda appropriate, huh?) . This usually starts to make its appearance when daylight savings time rears its head, so around the October mark and through into the early part of the next year, i.e. when the nights start getting longer and the days start getting shorter. The lack of sunlight that we are presented with causes havoc with our sleeping patterns – often without us knowing it. Melatonin levels are high in people who are affected by SAD, which means that you are more likely to feel sleepier during the day, which can then have a domino effect on how you are feeling all-round. Melatonin is produced with the help of sunlight, so there’s nothing really that you can do to naturally help yourself apart from tricking your body into thinking that the sun is there – so using artificial lights to help you awaken in the morning, or maybe go a step further and just book a holiday away somewhere nice. At least you’ve got good reason for it!

Under Pressure
Many people believe that they are more sensitive to pain when the rain starts falling from the sky – especially those who suffer from arthritis. There is truth in what they are saying, though; barometric pressure drops occur just before a storm is due to start, meaning that pain felt more due to the expansion of sensitive tissues surrounding affected joints. You can get ahead of the game by following some super tips online to keep you somewhat supple and calm before anything is about to kick off weather-wise – read 108 Reasons Why Meditation Is So Beneficial and 38 Health Benefits of Yoga for starter points as to how to get your mind and body prepared for what’s to come. There isn’t any harm in giving it a try if it’s going to work, especially if you are someone who is more sensitive to the pain when it rains but could never previously explain why!

The Fine Rain that Soaks You Through
Although there are some experts that dispel the theory that rain makes you sad, for the majority of us we know that we are fine examples of pathetic fallacy as soon as the droplets start hitting the ground. There is little more that you can do than embrace it; put on your coat, take your umbrella, get out there and splash about. It’s the least you can do.