Caregiver Toolbox: Becoming a ‘Detective’ for Your Loved One

11/17/22 • 14 min

Rayna Neises, ACC, host, reflects on her interview last week with Angie Rischpater (Episode 143). Angie is a physical therapist and she shared how, as a caregiver, you can be an observer or a detective to help your loved one. Instead of swooping in and taking, you can just support. Rayna continues with the topic offering the following suggestions:

[1:32] Deal with the problem and not the symptom by digging down and finding the root of the problem.
[3:29] Steps to becoming a good observer:
- [3:45] Understand the difference between observing and looking
- [4:15] Be mindful of your surroundings and practice
- [5:21] Pay attention to the details
- [6:29] Refrain from judgment
- [7:18] Slow down
[8:00] Let the person you are caring for do what they can do.
[8:52] The learner (growth) vs. the judger (fixed) mindset.
[11:45] Learning to stay in the learner mindset can change how we interact with our loved one and how we support them.
[13:45] Check out Marilee Adams’ book, “Change Your Questions. Change Your Life” and visit inquiryinstitute.com for a free download of the Choice Map.
[14:04] This episode has been brought to you by Content Magazine, a quarterly electronic magazine designed to help you find God in your caregiving season, coming in January 2023.

[1:32] Deal with the problem and not the symptom by digging down and finding the root of the problem.
[3:29] Steps to becoming a good observer:
- [3:45] Understand the difference between observing and looking
- [4:15] Be mindful of your surroundings and practice
- [5:21] Pay attention to the details
- [6:29] Refrain from judgment
- [7:18] Slow down
[8:00] Let the person you are caring for do what they can do.
[8:52] The learner (growth) vs. the judger (fixed) mindset.
[11:45] Learning to stay in the learner mindset can change how we interact with our loved one and how we support them.
[13:45] Check out Marilee Adams’ book, “Change Your Questions. Change Your Life” and visit inquiryinstitute.com for a free download of the Choice Map.
[14:04] This episode has been brought to you by Content Magazine, a quarterly electronic magazine designed to help you find God in your caregiving season, coming in January 2023.

Previous Episode

Shift Your Focus- Coach Rather Than Do

Rayna Neises, your host, speaks with Angie Rischpater. Angie is an occupational therapist with over 20 years of experience. She helps family caregivers by teaching both a preventative and restorative approach to care which allows the caregiver to live a life beyond caregiving. While still working part-time in acute care at a hospital, Angie also offers private and group caregiver coaching. In addition, she writes and is a webinar host for Caregiving.com. Angie shares her mission, to ensure that caregivers have the power to design their experience using a therapeutic perspective, and provides the following insights:

(6:53) Don’t do everything for them. Instead, coach the person toward greater mobility, cognition, and independence.
(10:00) Think about how you can work towards a common goal with the person you are caring for.
(13:08) Figure out which deficit area is impacting you most.
(16:00) Eliminate the barrier areas.
(17:06) Become more of a coach than a caregiver.
(21:00) Falls are almost always avoidable.
(25:00) Investing upfront to get your time back in the end.
(26:08) Make every activity that you can into a therapeutic event.
(27:47) Find Angie on Facebook at Caregiver By Design (https://www.facebook.com/caregiverbydesign/), on TikTok, and on her podcast (Caregiver by Design) where ever you get your podcasts.
Thank you for what you do!

Next Episode

Processing the Grief of Caregiving

Rayna Neises, your host, interviews Kari Bartkus. After seeing too many people go through hardship alone, Kari was determined to show up and be present with those around her who were hurting. She started the organization Love Does That where she serves as a spiritual director to hurting women. Kari uses a modern-day letter-writing approach for those drawn to quiet spaces and written words. She shares the following insights:

[3:00] Grief is any kind of loss that we are experiencing.
[5:00] The person receiving care is grieving too and they might not be aware of that.
[6:00] Processing is the act of slowing down and thinking about what is going on.
[10:26] A warning sign that you are not processing the grief is when you quickly turn your attention somewhere else.
[11:21] Grief will show up in your body.
[13:43] An outside perspective can help identify changes that have happened.
[17:23] Handling other people’s comments takes knowing where you are at and how you process.
[20:02] If you do not know, try different things, and just pay attention to what helps you and what does not.
[21:17] Grief changes over time.
[22:19] Download a free grief journal at www.LoveDoesThat.org/griefjournal.

A Season of Caring Podcast - Caregiver Toolbox: Becoming a ‘Detective’ for Your Loved One

Transcript

Rayna Neises00:00:00.098

Sometimes it's the quiet observer who sees the most.

Rayna Neises00:00:03.938

A quote by Catherine L. Nelson.

Rayna Neises00:00:07.208

Welcome to A Season of Caring Podcast where there's hope for living loving and caring with no regrets. This is Rayna Nieses, your host and today's episode is brought to you by Content Magazine. A quarterly electronic magazine designed to help you f