Your world with Dr. Beatrice Hyppolite
Hello,
I am Dr. Marie Beatrice Hyppolite. I hold a doctorate in Health Science with emphasis on Global Health and master’s degree in social work. I have over 14 years of experience in the field of health and human services.
This podcast is primarily focused on mental health and the quality-of-life elements that affect it such as divorce, death, domestic violence, trauma, toxic relationships, and single parenthood to name a few. It is no secret that mental health challenges continue to profoundly impact modern society although not enough discussion is given due to stigma. Research has shown an increase of 25 % in mental health crises after COVID-19. It is important to have honest, uncomfortable conversations about mental health while being supportive. Although we are interdependent, change begins with the individual, hence “your world.”
I welcome you to join me on my journey and look forward to your responses.
Your world with Dr. Beatrice Hyppolite
Caring for the Caregivers: Essential Self-Care Strategies
The weight of caregiving responsibilities often falls disproportionately on a single person's shoulders. This candid conversation explores the critically important yet frequently overlooked topic of caregiver self-care, offering practical wisdom for those supporting loved ones through illness or aging.
Two healthcare professionals share insights from their years of experience working with caregivers who struggle to balance their own needs while supporting others. They emphasize that perfectionism is the enemy of sustainable caregiving, encouraging caregivers to release unrealistic expectations and accept that some days, just keeping everyone clean and medicated is enough. The discussion highlights simple but powerful self-care strategies: spending time outdoors, accepting help when offered, using journaling to process emotions, and scheduling definitive self-care appointments.
The conversation delves into family dynamics that complicate caregiving, from adult children who abdicate responsibility to those who become overly controlling. Particularly concerning are "high-intensity caregivers" – typically middle-aged women providing 40-50 hours of care weekly while balancing jobs and their own families. These caregivers, often from immigrant backgrounds with strong cultural expectations around family care, face significant health risks when they neglect their own wellbeing.
Beyond identifying problems, Dr. Schlegel and I offer holistic approaches to maintaining caregiver mental health, including meditation, proper nutrition, and establishing sleep routines. We emphasize that healthcare professionals must actively assess caregiver wellbeing during patient visits, recognizing that caregiver burnout affects both the caregiver and care recipient's health outcomes.
Whether you're currently supporting a loved one or know someone who is, this episode provides valuable perspective on creating sustainable caregiving practices. Remember that taking care of yourself isn't selfish—it's necessary for providing the best possible care for those who depend on you.
Hello everyone, I'm Dr Beatrice Ippolit and this is your World. Can you discuss the importance of self-care for caregivers and provide some example of self-care activities that caregivers might?
Speaker 2:see, we always know what each other are thinking. It must have been that doctoral program. We've been indoctrinated, thank you, yeah. So again, you have to develop the trust for them to listen to you. So it's going to take time, especially with a caregiver who's frustrated and maybe having a difficult time, but definitely encourage them to just take a little bit of time for themselves. Do something. Definitely they need to do their medical appointments. So if there's other family members, they need to know that your sister's not taking care, your brother's not taking care of themselves. You need to start coming over so they can get their medical care. But encourage them to carve out time. Encourage them to talk about their frustrations or write them down, and just encourage them to realize they're not the police. They don't need to always be policing the client or making sure you know that they need to sort of give themselves a little break too.
Speaker 2:Not everything can be perfect. It's okay if you know you didn't get up. You got up today and neither of you got dressed. It's okay. Don't be so hard on yourself. Not everything needs to be perfect. I often go into somebody's home. They're like I'm so sorry it's not clean or I didn't do the laundry. It's like it's okay.
Speaker 1:Who cares? Who cares? They're in their pajamas.
Speaker 2:The appliance is clean, but they're in their pajamas. They're in your pajamas. The client's clean, but they're in their pajamas. They're in their pajamas.
Speaker 1:If I have to explain to you why I didn't do some cleaning, I may as well invite you to help me out, because, at the end of the day, so it's a lot and there are things that we probably want to do but don't have the time to do it. So one of the things that I always encourage people to do regardless whether you are a caretaker or everybody, it goes for everybody know how to take some time for yourself.
Speaker 2:And if somebody offers you help, hey, can I bring you a meal, take it. Somebody from the church calls and says, hey, can I come over Come on over. We're still in our pajamas or the house isn't all that tidy. But come on over. Exactly, Accept the help.
Speaker 1:And sometimes, if I were not to bring lunch to work and go and sit, even at a McDonald's, wherever even buy something, and go and sit at the park yeah, you know, enjoy that fresh air and watch kids, people, dogs walking around, so passing by.
Speaker 2:So just have that moment for yourself go sit at the, go sit in your car at the beach, take so a lot of times. Caregivers have to purchase a certain amount of time, you know, like four hours or whatever. So if they do have that doctor's appointment, then you've got four hours. Do some things for yourself, you know get your nails done, or go get your hair cut, or go down, go for a walk or, as you said, just you know sit and think and just you know, have a chance to get some fresh air a movie.
Speaker 1:So I don't know if you like movies, so go out for a movie, do something exactly. Have some. That me time it's, it's important.
Speaker 2:And that's why journaling can be important, because you're going to tell them I want you to do at least one or two things for yourself this week. So they're writing it, they're thinking okay, I gotta make sure. So they might be journaling more and thinking more about things that are really important and putting them on their schedule, like I'm gonna take this one hour today and this one hour on thursday.
Speaker 2:You know, make. Make so using a diary or journal so it'll hold, you know. So they make a little contract with themselves that they're going to do something and if sometimes, when the healthcare provider comes, that could be your chance to go out, you know, you could say you know I've got to run out, You're here, Is it okay if I run to the store? Absolutely, Please Go, Take that 45 minutes or hour, Take the time. You know if your therapist is there or your nurse is there, that you could take that little time or you could go for the walk while they're there. So take offers of help and take the opportunities. Try to focus on priorities.
Speaker 2:You know some things are obviously really important. Your care, your child or your you know the person you're taking care of has to be changed and clean and you know there may be they have to have their medicine. But other things. Give yourself a break. Or maybe get somebody in to help with cleaning or laundry or, you know, if you don't want them taking care of your family member, maybe have people come in and do other things to support you.
Speaker 1:And one thing I've seen, you know, with some family members and I'm going to keep on taking that lady who passed away last year as an example I've seen the way that her daughter treated that home attendant. So even though the home attendant was there, you know, to remind the patient to take the medication, cook for the patient, clean, you know, make sure the patient, you know, lives in a clean environment, or do the patient laundry. But the daughter, you know kind of caught down on many of those tasks for her. So the doctor always makes sure that she does her mother's laundry and she will tell the home attendant relax, I know my mom can be a burden, so I'll do the laundry. So she makes sure that you know every doctor's appointment she will take her mother and not let the old maternity back, gives them a little break and she always mentioned that to her.
Speaker 1:I want you to have some break absolutely.
Speaker 2:And if you are the adult caregiver and your siblings aren't doing as much as you which could happen because maybe you're the caregiver that lives the closest or lives with the person, fair enough. But you can ask them to do other things, give them or ask them to do other tasks, like the laundry. Why can't they take the laundry to their place and wash and bring it back, or to help with you? Know you, you're gonna do doctors appointments. Can you help with laundry? Can you? You know, try to dive, try to divide up some of the responsibilities so that it can be helpful, but I definitely respite.
Speaker 2:As you know, respite is very important for a caregiver Very important, even if it's four hours, or one day a week, or whatever.
Speaker 1:It's very important. Even if it is two hours, but you have to have some time for yourself.
Speaker 2:And if there is only one caregiver that's a spouse or just you know there's only one person to take care of it, then we have to really try to help them find the resources so that they can't get that respite.
Speaker 1:For the mental health component, therapy may be something, but therapy may not be needed at all times, right, so what would be your recommendation? If somebody feels stressed out or anxious, Well, I'm big into holistic medicine.
Speaker 2:so I love you know, like the deep breathing, relaxation, you know yoga, like that they learn some self-care strategies. If somebody's religious prayer, of course, is a good one, you know to engage in meditative prayer, music, spiritual music. So encouraging them to use the things that we've learned in our education, different strategies to help their mental health, things like meditation, deep breathing, relaxation strategies I mean I've got a ton of them because I've learned them a lot.
Speaker 1:I've been interested in that, so I've learned it over the year Healthy diet. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Yes, diet, hydration just making sure that they realize that their diet is very important for their mental health and that eating properly because I think that's another thing that could happen with the caregiver is they're so focused on the client that they don't eat properly. So making sure, yeah, that they have. If they don't have the opportunity to eat, you know three regular meals a day that they're. If they don't have the opportunity to eat, you know three regular meals a day that they're eating healthy things in between or they're doing things like protein shakes or things like that to help keep themselves. You know?
Speaker 1:make sure you have a good sleep pattern sleep is very important.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, for caregivers, that can be disrupted, whether it be a child or an adult they're caring for, they can often have, you know, sleep disruption. So then, how do you, you know, take care of that? How do you make up some of your sleep? Do you take it? You know, take care of that. How do you make up some of your sleep? Do you take? You know, do you take naps when they're napping?
Speaker 1:And in between, you know, if it is, your role is to provide the care for that person in the morning, then you will have the opportunity to sleep at night. Do I understand? At night now you have your own family that you have to take care of, and that's why getting extra help is so important it's for a few hours so that it's not all falling on one person.
Speaker 2:Now it's really not proper care for somebody to be like a paid caregiver, to be 24-7. Like they're supposed to get like the weekends off or one day a week off. So family members shouldn't be doing it either. They should not be doing that 24, 7, 7 days a week. You know cycle of sleep disruption. They should be getting two days or one day, at least you know one or two days off. So that really is important. But the other family members too, or they they're going to need to get some paid resources very unhealthy to do that yeah, it is unhealthy yeah 24 7.
Speaker 1:very unhealthy. It's a serious issue and I don't think people really sometimes, you know, consider and see it as an issue.
Speaker 2:It's very serious it's very serious and especially unfortunately. I think spouses end up, as as you said, in that situation because that's our duty as a spouse. But then you know other people are like well, you know they've got each other, but it could be a real burnout situation.
Speaker 1:And sometimes you even have the kids who will not offer any support. Right, you know, this one may move to California, that one may move to another state and you have four or five of them living in 5G. That's what I find a lot, you know. So it's like they're not there. They're not there.
Speaker 2:But sometimes I'll pick up the phone and say you know, this is not a good situation and they will come, like they'll say, oh, they'll hear it in my voice. They'll be like, okay, we're going to come for a week, but a lot of times they don't.
Speaker 1:So then we have to try to find supports in the community. Years ago, I remember I conducted a home visit and, to be quite honest, I fell for the patient and that day I even spent my own money. My supervisor told me that you know, you're not going to get reimbursed by the agency. I'm like this point, I don't really care. If she was my mother I would have to care over. So I'm not gonna leave the lady in the house with no food, absolutely.
Speaker 1:So it's like I've got dear a bunch of the. You know she was really frail, so from that day. So I started put it, you know, putting paperwork for her to have the proper assistance that she needed. But prior to that, god dear, it was an emergency, it was, you know, and to even leave the lady that night, I was concerned. So when I called my supervisor and I said this is the condition, so I'm just calling you to inform you that I'm going to buy food for her, she killed me that day. At least if she had told me you know that's not the agency policy, because it was not cooked food, you know, it was most likely bread, eggs. You know food that I will not, you know. So it's like, and for you to say, the first thing to say is that, oh, you know, the agency will not reimburse you. And I'm like I don't care.
Speaker 2:I'm not doing it for the money, so how much?
Speaker 1:money. I'm going to spend $20? $20? That will kill me and I'm like, no, don't worry about the money. So, since you know you are the supervisor and you know that I was going to do the home visit and I will have to report anyway, I'm telling you exactly what the situation is and what I'm about to do. It was sad, when you know. I asked her if she had children. She told me yes, she had five kids and she didn't even know when the last time she saw them.
Speaker 2:That's shocking.
Speaker 1:Each of them live in a different state and I'm like no, I understand that. You know, as adults, we have our lives, we have our own burdens with our own family. I got it, but at the same time, know that our parents you know they should be our priority too Absolutely, they took care of us. Now it's our time to be of assistance to them. How are you going to leave your mother, 80 plus, live in a small house alone, not knowing that, whether she has food, whether she has proper heat, whether the water is warning nothing.
Speaker 1:I'm like. You know some kids can do better and you know what? I will not care whether you got upset, but I'll write the report that I need to write. No, no, I'll write the report that I need to write. And I've seen oftentimes that person gave those kids the best of her and now you cannot even be there for her, not even one day.
Speaker 2:Make sure she has food.
Speaker 1:Make sure she has food, the basics, morning water, proper heat. Come on, no children. Some children, you know, should do better.
Speaker 2:Right. And then you have the ones that burden their one child and don't help, you know should do better Right. And then you have the ones that burden their the one child and don't help, you know.
Speaker 1:Don't get me wrong. There are some parents who are privileged to have wonderful children, but there are some parents, yeah.
Speaker 2:I've seen it myself.
Speaker 1:Oh Lord, have mercy. You just say sometimes, say you know what, I think you probably will be better off without those gates.
Speaker 2:And the other thing is, sometimes I find, um, the adult children are a bit too, you know, they want to get, they're over involved and they're controlling. They're not allowing them to do this. They're not allowing to that they're not giving them any. Say they're making all the decisions. To that they're not giving them any. Say they're making all the decisions and they're over the top with and that's not being a good caregiver either, because, especially if the person is capable, cognitively intact, let them make some decisions, let them do some of the things they want to do.
Speaker 2:You can't control them yeah so they almost are going into like full-scale, like I'm parenting a young child, you're not by the time you ask the patient a question, they will give you the answer right so those ones all try to ask them to go do something else or whatever, and let the yeah, you also want to.
Speaker 2:you know, watch out for those caregivers who are and honestly, they will burn out eventually because they can't you can't keep control over another human being for too long. You're eventually going to burn out when you realize your goals are not appropriate, and then you know you're going to get very stressed, but sometimes I've seen some parents or patients will just surrender.
Speaker 1:They got to a point you know they're not going to fight because they don't want to make that child upset yeah, oh yeah, absolutely, and they become kind of um passive, which is not good.
Speaker 2:No, because you don't want your client to be passive, because then they're not taking a role in there in recovery. They're sort of just like whatever she says, whatever they say, you know, whatever they want, and, um, we have to do our. We have to do our work with those difficult caregivers too that are too controlling.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a real challenge, it's a real challenge.
Speaker 2:But you cannot, as I said, you know, to my students, you can't work with clients in a vacuum. Those parents of the child you're working with, or the spouse of the person you're working with, or the adult children of the person you're they're part of your care plan. They have to be a part of it, so you're going to have to deal with them. You're going to have to learn how to deal with them.
Speaker 2:Even if they are difficult or Not doing what they should, or do it overdoing it like you're gonna have to work to build that relationship with them.
Speaker 1:Exactly exactly.
Speaker 2:I think you also mentioned this me earlier to looking at the high Volume caregiver. So this is somebody who's doing that 40, 50 hours a week yes, those are the.
Speaker 2:Those are the caregivers that we really need to be concerned about. So there is actually a term for that and that is the, you know, the high burden caregiver. So those are. Again, you're going to definitely need to to do your assessment, make sure that they're healthy or keeping up their own health and, if they're not, you know, trying to put some interventions into place. There are caregivers that are, you know, coming once a week or twice a week, but the high-intensity caregiver are the ones, and typically it's a middle-aged woman taking care of a parent. Those are typically your high-intensity caregivers, and some cultures are very at risk for this type of caregiving. Because of financial reasons, they become this full-time caregiver. So the Latino or African-American are more often the high-intensity caregiver. What about the Caribbean? I think they probably would fit in there too. So they're because of the way it could be cultural too that they're there, the way their culture is you must always take care of your aging parent.
Speaker 1:You know, they're programmed to do this too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so they are going to be engaging in this high intensity caregiver. So it's typically it's a woman. It could be male, but typically it's a woman taking care of her parent. This could go on for years. This could be something where they're going to. You know, they say average is about five years.
Speaker 2:So this is these are caregivers that are doing it for a long time and they're helping them for 40 to 50 hours a week with things like bathing and getting dressed and also like taking care of their finances, cooking, you know medical household tasks and then, of course, the medical and nursing tasks on top of it. So this high intensity caregiver is kind of a newer term that we should be zeroing in on. Those caregivers, you know adult children that are sort of sharing the load and somebody's coming twice a week. Or you know you have a parent of a child, but they have support, they have babysitting, they have a child goes to school maybe not as much risk. But the high-intensity caregivers that are doing these long hours for many years, those are the ones we need to really zero in on and those are the ones that would be good to do the assessment caregiver assessment and because of the way the economy is going and the fact that we may be seeing a lot of programs being cut right now, a lot of funding.
Speaker 2:We might see more of these high intensity caregivers right, because there's not going to be as many state programs maybe, or there's going to be some cuts to federal programs. We've seen that already we're going to be as many state programs maybe, or there's going to be some cuts to federal programs. We've seen that already. We're going to see more of this, more people, you know, because, of course, the united states is built up of all of us. Most of us came from another country. I came from ireland, you came from haiti. You know we're going to see a lot of these people that are working, working, working to achieve, you know, the american dream, but they also have the pressure of taking care of their parents or their elderly relatives and they're trying to do it all. They're trying to work one or two jobs, or their spouse is working one or two jobs and they're working one job to try to make it stay on top of financial actually, with food prices going up and housing prices going up, everything you know.
Speaker 2:Everything's going up now, you know, cost of transportation and all of that and then what they're trying to do is do it all and we need to just be really aware of that. And it does seem to affect some cultures more than others and it's typically your immigrant families that are just trying to get started. Get it it going, get you know, make it that are going to be also taking care of their elderly relatives and they may bring them, you know, from other countries to you know, have their good medical care here, but now they become the caregiver. So we really need to pay attention to that high-intensity caregiver and be aware, oh, this person's giving, like, wow, so many hours a week, or they're living with the person. They've had the parent come and live with them. Those are the caregivers we really need to be paying attention to, because they're oftentimes neglecting themselves and they're not getting services.
Speaker 1:It can go both ways. They may be neglecting themselves, but they may neglect the patient as well too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, especially if they're trying to work.
Speaker 1:You're doing way too much. It's a lot for one person. You work one or two jobs, you have a family on your own and you have a patient that needs a 24-hour gear. So it's like if you were to give that person a shower twice a day. That person may end up getting only one shower a day. Or one a week, that's even worse.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's just, it's really important to pay attention to those. You know, caregivers that are doing too much.
Speaker 1:They will be at more higher risk For burnout, for mental health issues, for physical health issues.
Speaker 2:Keep an eye on your caregivers, be observant. Look when you go into somebody's home, or even if it's their hospital room or their room in the skilled nursing facility facility. Pay attention to what's going on with the caregiver, okay, and and be there for them okay?
Speaker 1:is that your final message for everyone? That is okay. So, my darling, was that not enough to thank you for driving all the way from Connecticut to New York? I know traffic was not easy, yeah, but it was kind of nice because I was alone and I had my music and no kids.
Speaker 2:So you know that was the caregiver taking care of herself. No teenagers yelling at me from the backseat.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you know what? So I took some time. You know what? So we're going to have our time, you know, after the show. Yes, okay, thank you.
Speaker 2:My love. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:You have to come up again.
Speaker 2:I will.
Speaker 1:I will. All right, it was with you, dr Ipulet, with your walk.