Interactive Caregiving for Seniors: Our Elders Deserve to Be Treated with Respect and Dignity

Any individual who refers to him or herself as a caregiver is hopefully interacting with the senior they are looking after. From the greeting one should try to be upbeat and positive leaving our own burdens at home. Seniors who are greeted by caregivers might live alone, be very lonely, have no visitors and the last thing they need is for someone to enter the home and completely ignore them, be a grump or a dump - meaning the person there to give care wants to dump his or her problems all over the senior.

The care given should be interactive. Inter often refers to the experience between two people such as the word interpersonal. Active obviously refers to the motions or doings of the body. So when we put the word interactive together what we really mean is the experience between the caregiver and the senior occurs while they are doing an activity together. If we add caregiving or the assistance or support during an activity we have interactive caregiving or the experience that happens between two people while doing an activity whereby one is assisting the other.

In practical terms what does this mean? It means that individuals offering caregiving services should try at every turn to engage their senior in the activity he or she is doing at whatever level of functioning the senior can participate. This can be small things like when doing the laundry you let a senior fold a towel or towels and you fold along with the person. If the person becomes tired, you can offer to take over.

Many times our seniors have an activity they loved to do. For women it could have been cooking or laundry (like folding the towels) and they can no longer do the entire activity but they can do parts. For men it could have been fixing the small things around the house like a look doorknob or cabinet hinge. If caregivers slow down and learn these things about the senior they are going to help, the caregiving experience can be much more enjoyable to both the senior and the caregiver.

Interactive caregiving stimulates the mind and body and may be the best way to help the senior maintain their independence and dignity. Our seniors worked hard all their lives either in jobs or raising families, they deserve to be treated with dignity and respect that interactive caregiving brings.