AARP Oregon

Family caregivers are giving one of the most important gifts of all this holiday season – their love and care even while they hold down paid employment. New AARP Oregon research shows that many family caregivers are still in the workforce and doing double duty for their employer and their family members.

Dick Weinman is an AARP volunteer and an assisted living guru

If one happens to walk past James Hipsher’s house, one might notice a wooden box supported on a post. It is behind the hedge row, but close enough to inspect. Its glass front is hinged, and inside the box is a piece of paper with poetry on it. The box is shared with the next door neighbor, and the two neighbors alternate months for posting. The poems are changed each Friday. When it is Jim’s month, he posts his own poetry.

We’re almost there!

By Mac McLean

In five years as an Oregon Long Term Care Ombudsman volunteer, I’ve seen a lot, sometimes inspiring, occasionally appalling. We are free, confidential advocates for the rights, dignity, and quality of life of adults in licensed nursing, residential care, assisted living, and adult foster care homes, where we visit, get to know residents, investigate complaints, watch and listen for problems and, with the resident’s approval, work to resolve them.

In our culture, the ALF – and the other acronymed places for the elderly, fragile, and disabled – constitutes both the family, those at-hand, and village, out-there in the social order. The caregiver is the person at-hand in assisted living. For me, she – and it’s almost always she - cleans my glasses, opens my mail, dresses and undresses me, showers me, puts me on and takes me off the toilet, wipes me. What kind of person does it take to do all that – with heartfelt feeling?

Sometimes when we’re in the community, we’ll hear from someone who says, “I’ve never met a real person from AARP!” Yes, there is an AARP Oregon State Office with a staff of 7 plus a great team of volunteer partners. We’re active on issues that matter to you and your family. In this season of gratitude and reflection, we want to share with you some of the highlights from our work this year.

A group of women friends, from generations ahead of me, all nodded in agreement when one said, “In high school I didn’t want to learn to type.” It took me a moment to understand the implication of the comment and how learning to type often meant being channeled into secretarial work, which they didn’t want to do. By the time I was in high school, typing class was an introductory course to computer science, and the book and movie “Free to Be You and Me” had ushered many of my generation through childhood to believe we had more career choices. In a similar way, I am now grateful to see new perspectives on aging catching on. It makes me hopeful more doors will open to opportunities as I grow older, including in the workplace.

AARP Oregon salutes Oregon's nearly 470,000 family caregivers during November's National Family Caregiver Month. We also recognize it's a tough job. A bit of rest now and then, or "respite care," helps prevent significant stress and burnout that can lead to worse health for the caregiver, and diminish the caregiver's ability to provide good care to their loved one. Caregivers need short breaks!