Coping During Social Distancing

March 20, 2020

Since we’re all staying home—and it’s looking like we will be for at least a while— you might be starting to wonder how exactly you’re going to fill up your time. Pemi-Baker has some ideas with digital gatherings and events. But it’s also important to stay as connected as possible with family, friends, and neighbors, give back to your community, get the material supplies you need, and find new ways to keep yourself entertained.

Entertainment: Explore the World, Virtually

With a library card, you can continue to borrow digital resources like e-books, audiobooks, music, TV shows, movies, and more. Visit your local library’s website to find out which services they partner with. OverDrive/Libby, Hoopla and Kanopy are some popular ones. Now’s also the perfect time to check out video streaming services, download a few podcasts, or explore the depths of YouTube. Cultural institutions are moving museum and art gallery exhibits and performances online too, but if you just need a break for something mindless and happy, animal videos are the way to go. The Cincinnati Zoo is offering daily Facebook Live video streams of Fiona the hippo, and Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium filmed its pretty adorable penguins roaming and visiting other exhibits after closure.

Remember to Love Thy Neighbor Now

Now is the time to reach out to one another. Do you know the people who live on your block or in your apartment building? If you can’t call, put a note on their door with your name and phone number. Explain that you live next door or down the street. Tell them you want them to feel free to ask for help. Many people are uncomfortable asking for help. Instead of just saying, “Do you need help?” offer to do something specific for them.

There are many things you can do. Before you run to the grocery store, drug store or a restaurant to pick up take-out, call and ask your neighbors if they need you to pick up something for them. Volunteer to walk their dog or would it be helpful for them if you put their mail and newspaper beside their front door? Does their yard need maintenance? Ask if they would like you to start raking or maybe putting their trash out or bringing the empty cans back into the garage would be helpful. If you have extra soap, toilet paper or other staples, leave a care package at your neighbor’s door. If you’re looking for ways to engage your children, have them help with some of these ideas.

Don’t Forget Self-care to Manage Your Stress and Anxiety.

It can seem like you don’t have time for things like self-care. But this situation is a marathon — not a sprint – and it’s important to take care of yourself throughout. Take a 10-minute break to do some light breathing exercises or yoga. Purposeful, mindful breathing has been shown to be an effective tool against anxiety. Right now, the meditation app Headspace is offering some free tools picked just for this time, and it’s offering totally free subscriptions for healthcare workers. Www.Calm.com is another great site and Balance is a meditation app you can download on your phone.

Consider limiting your coronavirus news consumption. It’s important to stay informed, but refreshing your feeds constantly for tidbits of news on the coronavirus isn’t going to prove productive. Instead, check the CDC website for updates periodically and try to spend most of your day focused on other things.

Talk to your friends and family. It’s important that even though this situation leads to increased social isolation that you stay in touch with people. Don’t be afraid to reach out to a friend for a phone call — or better yet — a video chat.

Pemi-Baker Community Health is Continuing Their Important Services.

Here at Pemi Baker Community Health and Hospice we take our patient’s health seriously and also the health of ourselves and our community. We want to assure you that we are taking measures to prevent the spread of the virus into our community. We are following both the CDC and the NH Department of Health’s recommendations for healthcare workers. In order to meet the needs of our home care and hospice patients and to minimize vulnerable patients from going out into the community, our field staff will continue making home visits.

We have taken steps to prioritize our Rehab Therapy Patients at Boulder Point. To minimize exposure and help our patients continue their physical and occupational therapy we have: Limited entrance to our facility to patients only, suspended all memberships and swim lessons, implemented social distancing with staff by working from home and separating work stations and surfaces are wiped down after each patient with CDC recommended bleach solutions as well as always washing hands after contact with surfaces and patients.

Please reach out to us if you have any questions or concerns by calling our office: 603-536-2232

Be well and stay safe.

~Anna Swanson

Self Care for Caregivers

January 16, 2020

When Alison’s Dad fell, she moved in with her parents to help out around the house and make sure they were taking their medications and getting proper meals. With a full time job to manage, what started out as a good deed soon became overwhelming as her parents’ health declined.

The Cost of Compassion

It is our nature to care for loved ones and, for many of us, it brings great satisfaction. Empathy and compassion are desirable character qualities, present in people to varying degrees. These enable us to identify, and in some cases, actually experience the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of others we care about.

Compassion can come with an emotional cost when caring for someone with a long-term illness. The distress resulting from the constant demands of caring for another, consistently witnessing pain or cognitive decline, can have serious consequences.

In the book, “Overcoming Compassion Fatigue,” author Sharise M. Nance, LCW, CCTP, details how caregiver burnout can manifest itself in exhaustion, depression, apathy, and even physical or emotional disability. “People in ‘helping professions’ are regularly exposed to a range of emotions, from hope to dread, from gratitude to anger, from patience to frustration, and from grief to sorrow.”

One elderly woman had experienced several falls. She lives with her husband who is in advancing stage of dementia. He wakes up several times each night, turns the lights on and gets dressed. Each time, she has to wake up and guide him back to bed often unable to sleep herself. Before getting help, she found herself exhausted, discouraged, and at a greater risk for additional falls.

Some caregivers can internalize the issues of those under their watch, hoping by some herculean effort to fix everything. The sense of responsibility can become disproportionately burdensome and they may lose perspective about what they can and cannot do. This is particularly daunting when a patient has dementia and cannot communicate effectively, or acts out physically.

Making a Plan for Self Care

Prolonged stress is associated with distinct physiological responses that can have long term effects on both physical and emotional health. Often referred to as the fight, flight or freeze response, these chemical reactions are effective in urgent, life-threatening situations, but not sustainable over time.

Ms. Nance noted several emotional states that can accompany caregiver stress:

Guilt: A sense of being responsible for the illness
Anger: Frustration with family members or health care workers
Sadness: Loss of the person as they once were
Fatigue: Exhaustion from extra work and irregular sleep
Apathy: Lack of energy to keep up with needed tasks

When these emotions arise, it can be a signal that the caregiver needs to take better care of themselves in order to do what is needed to care for their loved one. If you are in this situation, here are a few suggestions that might help:

Pace yourself: Take advantage of family or friends who offer to help. Home Care agencies like Pemi-Baker Community Health can provide a volunteer companion or home health aide for a few hours a day to take on the more challenging tasks.
Set boundaries: Make it clear to the patient and family members what you can and cannot do.
Seek support: Pemi-Baker Community Health and many churches or senior centers offer support groups for caregivers. While it may not alleviate the challenges you are facing, it can be helpful to know how others are coping.
Create a self-care plan: As impossible as it might seem, you need a plan for exercise, sleep and proper nutrition. If you are a spiritual person, spending time in prayer or meditation can be helpful.

“Self-care is not a selfish act, but a necessity and priority,” writes Ms. Nance.

Even health care professionals can become overwhelmed at times. Pemi-Baker Community Health employs home health aides and homemaker companions serving clients in 18 central and northern NH towns. “As a licensed home care agency, we are vigilant about providing support to our caregivers,” said Chandra Engelbert, CEO. “We encourage them to practice their own self-care so they can provide the best possible care and attention to our clients.”

Caring for another person can be a gift but also a burden. Anyone in that role has to be mindful of the potential risks, and remember to monitor their own well-being at times, too. All are welcome to our Drop-in Caregiver Support Groups on every 3^rd Wednesday of the Month at the Plymouth Regional Senior Center.

~by Anna Swanson

Grieving In a Season of Celebration

November 6, 2019

Christmas decorations started being displayed in stores as early as August. It’s now autumn, so the awareness that “the holidays” will soon be upon us is unavoidable. Pumpkins sold in October became Halloween Jack-o-lanterns. Pumpkins sold in November will become the fixings for the pies for our Thanksgiving dinner dessert. Some years ago, a now-deceased friend of mine made the comment that “the holidays” were “The Bermuda Triangle of heightened family dysfunction.” Though we’ve usually thought of the holidays as Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s; traditions with the winter celebrations of the Solstice, Yule, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa probably have their own versions of holiday angst.
The Christmas movies that seem to run perpetually on the Hallmark Channel seem to poke at the discomfort of holiday stress with their standard and predictable happy endings. TV series will also portray something of holiday craziness. In 1995, the movie “Home For the Holidays’ unfolded the story of a museum restoration artist flying home for Thanksgiving with her affable parents, an eccentric maiden aunt, a black-sheep-of-the-family gay son, and an embittered sister. The star-studded cast included Holly Hunter, Anne Bancroft, Charles Durning, Geraldine Chaplain, and Robert Downey, Jr. Further back in 1968, there was a cinematic telling of a highly-conflicted medieval Christmas, “The Lion In Winter.” It won Katharine Hepburn her third Academy Award, and its own star-studded cast also featured Peter O’Toole, Anthony Hopkins, and Timothy Dalton. These powerful characters engage in some very brutal backbiting and hostile verbal exchange that is memorable in its cleverness. As entertaining as these portrayals might be, the element of recognition that strikes us is the familiar experience of holiday-related stress.

Lest you think I’m a “Bah! Humbug!” Scrooge-like person, I want to assure you that I normally enjoy the holidays, despite the pressures of preparation and the cranked-up party-going that is a challenge to my normally introverted personality. In my forty-plus years of work in various helping professions, I have noticed that the holidays are sometimes dreaded rather than welcomed by more people than we might imagine. In our own lived real experience, the holidays become even more difficult if we have endured a significant loss. These losses can include the death of someone we have loved, the breakup of a relationship, the loss of employment, relocation, witnessing the debilitating disability of someone we are caring for, or financial or material disaster. It’s not for nothing that Elvis sang of a “Blue Christmas” in his throaty and soulful baritone.

Because the holidays can be especially difficult for persons grieving losses such as those noted above, Pemi-Baker Community Health & Hospice will be offering TWO Monday times to meet with those in need of support throughout the holiday season. The groups will start before Thanksgiving and conclude after New Year’s: November 18 and 25; December 2, 9, 16, 23, and 30, 2019; and, January 6, 2020. The daytime afternoon group (12:30-2pm), will meet in the Grady Conference Room at Speare Memorial Hospital, 16 Hospital Road, Plymouth, NH. The early evening group (5:30-7pm), will gather in the Main Conference Room at Pemi-Baker Community Health, 101 Boulder Point Drive, Suite 3, Plymouth, NH. There is no cost for attendance.

Topics at the sessions will include: emotional self-care during the holiday season; choosing (or NOT choosing) to attend gatherings and celebrations; not feeling like “making merry”; recollections and reminiscences of previous holidays; suggestions for home rituals to remember loved ones; and, entering upon a new year without someone who is no longer present.

The groups will be facilitated by Guy Tillson, MDiv, MA, Bereavement Counselor for Pemi-Baker Community Health. If you have questions about the program or are interested in participating in one of the groups, please contact Guy by email at gtillson@pbhha.org or by phone at (603) 536-2232, Extension 206 so that adequate preparations for the groups can be made.

Please consider donating to Pemi-Baker Community Health as the holidays approach. If you order gifts on line, Amazon will give a percentage of your purchases directly to Pemi-Baker Community health by using Amazon Smile. Visit www.smile.amazon.com and choose Pemi-Baker Community Health. Giving Tuesday, December 3rd, is the Tuesday after Thanksgiving and is a movement to create an international day of charitable giving at the beginning of the Christmas and holiday season. Visit our website to give: www.pbhha.org. Thank you from the team at Pemi-Baker!

~By Guy Tillson, MDiv, MA