Caregiver Questions & Answers: Practical Advice

Jenna was happy to have moved in with her mother, Donna, to care for her as Donna slowly recovered from a stroke and hip replacement surgery. She enjoyed sleeping in her old bedroom in her childhood home. She and her mother got along well, most of the time. They’d made the place safer for Donna. She’d been able to switch to flexible, remote work at her accounting job. She was even saving a little money by not paying rent for an apartment. Overall, Jenna felt fortunate.

But sometimes she thought about all that she was giving up to be her mother’s caregiver. She wasn’t sure anyone else noticed or cared that she no longer had a social life. Because she did not feel comfortable bringing a date into her mother’s home, dating was out of the question. Her friends, many of whom had known and loved Donna for years, stopped by frequently to visit initially. But gradually, when Jenna couldn’t go out with them, they’d begun to stay away. Jenna sensed that they weren’t eager to be around Donna now as her thinking skills seemed to be getting worse, not better, during her stroke recovery. Maybe it was depressing to them to hear Donna stumbling over her words and becoming confused at times. It was depressing for Jenna, too.

She didn’t want to burden her friends with her worries about Donna and the grief that would sometimes come up. There were times when she wanted to cry but held back her tears so that Donna wouldn’t see them. She worried about how bad Donna would get if she continued to decline. Would she one day forget who Jenna was?

Her two brothers were much more supportive of Jenna than they’d been at first after their mother’s stroke, but neither one offered to stay with Donna so that Jenna could have time away. If she asked them for something specific, like picking up Donna’s meds at the pharmacy, they’d be happy to do it, but she felt she couldn’t ask them to give her the weekend off, or even a night off. And Donna was clear – she wanted Jenna and only Jenna to care for her. Not her sons or anyone else. And Jenna felt guilty complaining to her brothers. She’d chosen to be Donna’s caregiver. She knew what she was signing up for. Or so she thought.

Fortunately, Jenna did continue to attend her psychotherapy sessions to help manage her stress and make meaning of her caregiving. We began to address her need to care for herself, not just her mother, to keep herself going for as long as caregiving lasted. It became clear after a while that that was likely to be a period of years, not months. She would need a plan to make sure her own needs were met so that she could do the best job caring for Donna. You can’t run a marathon without stopping for water periodically.

A Caregiver’s Self-Care Plan

1. Find a Supportive Community

Caregiving can be lonely and stressful. Caregivers need to have people to turn to who will support them and who understand what they’re going through. There are many caregiver support groups online in which people give one another care and advice. It is also important to reach out to a good friend or family member and share your feelings with them. Often, friends want to be supportive, but have no idea that their caregiving friend is suffering. A conversation with a friend who will listen and understand can make a big difference in how much stress you feel.

2. Make Time for Yourself

Caregivers need breaks. A walk around the block, a trip to the gym, or a dinner out all provide caregivers with some necessary respite and refueling. Caregivers who feel guilty taking time for themselves need to be reminded that they will provide better, more patient, and loving care if they are getting some care themselves.

3. Accept and Even Ask for Help

Asking for help can be difficult. Many caregivers feel that they should be able to handle it all by themselves. But as the caregiving becomes more challenging and intensive, going it alone gets much more difficult. Caregivers need to learn to accept help when it’s offered and to ask for help. Usually, they find that most people are glad to help. Family members, neighbors, friends or anyone who cares about the caregiver or the care receiver are often willing to help out. Specific requests work best. Many religious institutions have support groups or a team of people who offer community support to their members.

Jenna didn’t need a lot of support at first, but she knew that as time went by, she would likely need more. She recognized that if she set up a self-care routine for herself now, she’d be more likely to continue it even as the demands of caring for Donna increased. She also agreed that she should work on asking for what she really needed from her brothers and other people who might be willing to help. She needed some time away, even if Donna wasn’t always happy about it.

For more tips on caregiver self-care, see Chapter 3 (“Taking Care of Yourself, Too”) in our new book, The AARP Caregiver Answer Book (Guilford, 2025).