Are You a Caregiver? You May be the Quarterback of the Team in Cascade, MI
Caregivers in Cascade, MI
Being a caregiver is a great responsibility. It’s also a wonderful privilege. When you think about the job and responsibilities that are involved with being a home care provider, you might find a few similarities to a favorite American sport: football.
No, you don’t need to be a fan of the sport, but you should have some understanding of the main position on a football team for this analogy to have any bearing on your life as a home care provider. The quarterback is the person on offense who calls the plays, who organizes his teammates, and who generally takes the ball and either hands it off to a running back or throws it to receivers.
It’s the quarterback’s job to be the leader on the field. There are certainly going to be times when his teammates don’t do their job to protect him and he is going to be ‘flushed out of the pocket.’ The ‘pocket’ is an imaginary area in which the quarterback is protected, or should be protected by his offensive line. When the defense gets into that pocket, he could be sacked and the play would be over, and yards (or position on the field) would be lost.
Now, when a quarterback is flushed from the pocket, it’s called scrambling. The scripted play, or what they determined they were going to do isn’t working it and he now has to try and buy himself some time in order to get the ball downfield. When the quarterback is scrambling, when what they planned isn’t working, the odds of having a successful play goes down. Sometimes he’ll get luck, find an open receiver, and get yards. Most of the time, though, it will lead to a loss of yards, a loss of down, or both.
Being a caregiver is similar in that regard. When you don’t have a good plan, or play, in mind, when you are scrambling to try and do the best that you can do for the elderly patient, then you’re essentially letting chance have its say in what happens in the long run.
It’s important that you take on the role of quarterback for this team, even if that ‘team’ is just you and the elderly patient. By leading, and by helping to strategize the best care that the patient can receive, you’re going to increase the likelihood that they will not only be safe at home, but that the elderly individual will be able to live their life to the fullest.
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