Agency helps caregivers cope

As the disease progresses, loving relationships between husband and wife, and parent and child are forever altered. Family members are helpless to stop the spread of this eventual killer that strikes approximately one in ten persons over the age of 65.

For four years since his diagnosis, Marie Haas, a member of St. Catherine of Siena parish in Albany, experienced the exhausting struggle of being the primary caregiver for her husband. Then she found help.

Resource

BY providing some much-needed respite care, the agency allowed her to enjoy some free time to spend with her family and friends. Caregivers provided the services of home health aides, who went into the Haas home for about five hours a week to care for her husband.

"They would take him for walks and listen to his stories," she said. "He felt very comfortable with them."

How it works

"It costs approximately $15 an hour for home health aide work," said Marty Haase (no relation to Mrs. Haas), executive director of the agency. "The client pays $5 an hour to the aide, and we pay the rest. This provides the caregiver the rest they need to be healthy enough to continue caring for their loved one."

Additionally, the agency offers client education to help them learn how to take good care of themselves, and support groups where they can share their feelings and experiences with others who are living in the same situation.

Time off

"They will often find ways to continue that respite time on their own, even after we have reached our limit with them," she said.

Mrs. Haas consider respite time crucial.

"You don't realize how depressed you can be caring for a spouse day after day, month after month, without any break, until you get away from it," she said. "It really wears you down."

Hard choice

"It just didn't register with him," she said. "Even though he knows me as a 'nice lady' who goes to see him, he really doesn't know who I am. It is very difficult for me."

She keeps busy with their six adult children and 14 grandchildren, who have been very supportive and loving. She also attends a support group.

"The group helps me cope," she said. "It also helps me to help others who are going through the same thing. We share all that is happening to us. I'm so glad Caregivers came along when they did. They offered me the rest I needed at a difficult time in our lives. They are wonderful people."

(For information, call the Caregivers Program of Catholic Charities at 449-2001.)

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