Caregiving

If you are caregiving a loved one or taking the steps involved in enriching another in order to make his or her life easier or more enjoyable, please consider our encouragement for you to ask for outside help. Since the Older American’s Act was passed, there are agencies, businesses, informational classes, and funding in place now that was not available a few years ago. 

Shauna Murdock unsuccessfully searched high and low for someone to consistently give her a helping hand when she was the family caregiver for her parents who lived in a remote mountain valley in Wyoming.

After many failed attempts, Shauna with the help of her brother, Scott Murdock was eventually able to permanently move their father, Robert 450 miles to Fort Collins, Colorado.  When Lynette McGowan, director of the Family Caregiver Support Program with the Larimer County Office on Aging visited Shauna and Robert, she reassured them that it was perfectly natural for a person to feel overwhelmed by carrying the burden of responsibility for another person’s physical, medical, and emotional well-being — day in and day out, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. 

Shauna was encouraged to continue in the caregiving role supported by the various programs Lynette suggested, such as those documented in the video:

• Scots Mile Productions contributed a 15 minute public service video “The Journey” to Larimer County Caregiver Coalition You can watch this in either a QuickTime (.mp4) or Windows Media Video (.wmv) version 10. (For other interesting videos: http://scotsmile.com/ )

• See Larimer County Health District’s Compass article about Shauna as a family caregiver in the home: Care & Support for Caregivers, fall 2007.

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