Did you know that November is National Family Caregivers Month? Over 50 million Americans every year provide loving comfort and care for their loved ones with some sort of chronic illness - Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, arthritis, stroke etc.
Family caregivers provide all types of care and services for their loved ones, including nursing, financial help, social interaction, cooking and homemaking and more.
To help to celebrate this important month, try one of these 6 ways today:
- Offer to care for the loved one yourself for a few hours or a day, so that the regular caregiver can relax and enjoy some down time.
- Send a caregiver a card or a bouquet of flowers, or send them a gift certificate for the movies or another fun pastime.
- Encourage businesses near you to offer free services to family caregivers.
- Help the caregiver to decorate their house for the holidays. Or, offer to help them to address envelopes for their Christmas cards.
- Offer to help to prepare Thanksgiving dinner for the family of a caregiver. This will help them to just relax and enjoy this wonderful holiday.
- Help a caregiver to find new resources and educational materials and support through many family care giving organizations and websites. You also can call local social service agencies on their behalf.
Another way to help a caregiver is to buy them caregiving products that their loved one needs. Some excellent kitchen and eating-related products include these:
Be sure to do all you can to support the family caregivers you know, either with some of the ideas above, or by buying their loved one some health related-products they need.
