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LEVELS OF CARE

November 13, 2024

LEVELS OF CARE

As a Caregiver, you may be familiar with the term, “Levels of Care.” With regard to the elderly, “levels of care” refers to the different stages of care that an individual may encounter.

The typical levels of Care are:

Independent Living
In-Home care
(Respite Care)
Assisted Living
Memory Care
Skilled Nursing Home Care

With one exception, I will explore those levels of care at another time. But it is critical that the term “Respite Care” be explained. This is supposedly a short-term solution for a long-term problem. When the Caregiver is beyond the breaking point and finances and availability allow, the Caregiver is given time off while the person being cared for is “resting comfortably” in a facility. The key is “availability and finances,” not to mention getting the loved one to agree. Obtaining, “Respite Care” is as difficult as it sounds

What I am referring to when I mention levels of care is this. As the Caregiving Needs increase (aka Levels of Care), the job of Caregiving gets increasingly harder.

Just when you’ve got a system and have confidence in knowing how things work well, things change. And things don’t just change a little bit, they change a lot!

At the moment when you are accepting the fact that you as Caregiver do absolutely, “EVERYTHING” you realize that little did you know there is oh…so much more to do.

Let’s take the little things for example. The dishes that seem to magically appear in the sink each day—all throughout the day–now don’t simply appear. I must collect the multitude of coffee cups, glasses and silverware each day and bring them into the kitchen. It seems like just a little thing; however, it increases the number of Caregiving duties.

Nighttime duties have also increased. Not only are the evening meds a priority but now also pulling down the sheets, straightening out the clothes, books and papers of the day, loading up the Depends for the evening and basically tucking my Mom in for the night.

As my Mother can no longer do these things for herself, my Caregiving duties have increased. The “Level of Care” needed has indeed increased.

And the lack of sleep that I obtain each night has decreased as the level of care needed has increased.

Now instead of having one ear open when my Mother gets up many times each evening, I find myself being fully awake in anticipation of each bump and stumble in the night. Because she has fallen recently, I am now fully awake when she wakes up. Spill, drop and fall patrol has reached an all-time high. And my lack of sleep has increased right along with the level of care.

The self-imposed 2-hour curfew has gone from being a slight annoyance to being mandatory. Now when I am away from the house, I am more than aware that my Mother could fall while I’m away. Knowing that my Mother has fallen recently only increases my worry that it could happen again. And how will I feel if I’m away for 130 minutes instead of 2-hours and she falls and can’t get up? Guity!

The level of WORRY and GUILT increase right along with the Level of Care.

Caregiving was already hard. Now, with an uptick in the Level of Care needed, it seems impossible. There are levels of Caregiving.