By Dan Trudeau
As a retiree grows older and the added years bring about challenges and changes, the effects often extend beyond just that retiree. For the spouse, relative or friend assisting an aging senior, the role of caregiver can be a stressful or overwhelming one, especially without help.
To alleviate that stress, the Queens Village organization Services Now for Adult Persons has created a program to help seniors by helping the people responsible for their care.
“What we are seeing is (families) are having to place people in retirement homes sooner than they'd like to,” said Marie-Ellen Galasso, head of SNAP's Caregiver Program. “They'd like to keep their family members in the home, but they need support to do that.”
Galasso said the program offers a variety of services to overtaxed caregivers, including support groups, respite sessions and help with paperwork as well as meeting with basic, concrete needs such as wheelchairs and household supplies.
She added that while the program has been operating since January, the organization sometimes has trouble getting caregivers to accept its services because either they or their care recipients are unwilling to acknowledge the extent of the complications that arise from growing old.
“We're trying to get the word out,” Galasso said. “There are a lot of people out there doing this themselves. The caregiver will maybe see a problem, but the care recipient doesn't see it. Sometimes there's a loyalty issue.”
SNAP Executive Director Linda Leest said the Caregiver Program can be beneficial to the community as a whole and helps SNAP dramatically in one of its main endeavors: keeping seniors in northeast Queens happy and healthy in their own homes.
Leest said remaining at home often translates into positive results in terms of a senior's medical health as well as allowing them to better serve as an asset to their family and community. For SNAP, which offers social service care as well as food, transportation and recreational opportunities to Queens seniors, the Caregiver Program is a way of recognizing and coming to the aid of the people who make healthy living possible for retirees.
Seniors “aren't just taking from us, they're contributing in a variety of ways,” Leest said of the importance of keeping seniors out of retirement homes.
“When you have a caregiver who is stressed beyond capacity, where is the elder going to be? In the retirement home,” she added. “There's finally recognition that every family somehow at some time has caregivers. Up until now this was known, but it was never recognized.”
Reach reporter Dan Trudeau by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com, or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 173.
