Fundamentals For Bringing A Spouse Home From Rehab: What You Need to Know
Dementia caregiving can feel like juggling too many priorities at once, often leaving caregivers overwhelmed and unsure of the next steps.
In this episode, we get a front-row seat to a live coaching session, offering practical strategies to help caregivers manage day-to-day challenges while staying focused on what matters most.
Breaking Down Tasks Into “Bite Sizes”
One of the key takeaways from this episode is the importance of breaking tasks into smaller, more manageable steps. When faced with an overwhelming to-do list, caregivers often feel paralyzed, unsure of where to begin.
During the coaching session, the caregiver was encouraged to focus on one step at a time, such as:
- Coordinating a schedule for a paid caregiver to assist a few times a week.
- Exploring adult day programs as a longer-term option.
- Using available home health services to stabilize the situation when their loved one returns home from rehab.
The advice? Tackle the next thing, not everything.
Understanding Caregiver Expectations
Frustration often stems from a mismatch between what caregivers expect and what their loved ones with dementia are capable of doing. This episode outlines two common scenarios:
- Overestimating Abilities: Expecting your loved one to complete tasks they can no longer manage, like dressing or hygiene, without assistance.
- Underestimating Abilities: Taking over tasks too quickly, leading to frustration and a sense of helplessness for your loved one.
By understanding where your loved one’s abilities truly lie, you can offer the right level of support without overwhelming or disempowering them.
The Importance of Longitudinal Support
One of the most powerful points in this episode is the value of early and ongoing support. Caregivers who join a community before they’re in crisis gain a head start, learning what questions to ask and how to navigate challenges as they arise.
The research shows that caregivers who engage with longitudinal support—through coaching, workshops, or faith-based communities—feel less isolated and better equipped to handle the twists and turns of dementia care.
Faith and Caregiving: Leaning on God’s Strength
Throughout the episode, the conversation returned to the importance of leaning on faith during overwhelming times. As caregivers face physical, emotional, and spiritual challenges, trusting in God’s wisdom and guidance provides a foundation of peace.
Praying for clarity, patience, and strength in the caregiving journey helps caregivers reframe difficulties as opportunities to serve with love and grace.
Read more:
How to Have a Good 2025 Even When Dementia Caregiving
Know When Isolation In A Person With Dementia Is Detrimental
Ever Wonder How To Know What Is Causing Your Caregiver Stress?
Take Our FREE Caregiver Stress Assessment Today!
https://www.dementiacaregivingmadeeasy.com/dca
Join the FREE Dementia Caregiver Support Facebook Group today for more support:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dementiacaregiversupportforchristians
Are You A Christian Dementia Caregiver Struggling To Cope With Caregiving?
Join the FREE “Ask the Dementia Coach” Monthly Meet Up! And be on the podcast, get support and your questions answered.
https://www.dementiacaregivingmadeeasy.com/ask
Enjoy our podcast? Please take a moment to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify —it really supports our show!
Upstate Nonprofits Receive Funding Boost to Expand Dementia Services.
[0:00] Hey Christian Care Companion, welcome to Dementia Caregiver Support for Christians, where we equip Bible-believing Christians to overcome the challenges of dementia today and tomorrow. If you are a Christian Care Companion who is a spouse or a child or a family member of a person living with dementia and want practical caregiving solutions and Christian support, this podcast is for you. Here, we make caregiving easier by cutting out the stress and the overwhelm so common to caregiving. Today, you get a special glimpse into a live coaching session with a client of mine. Every now and then I offer these one-on-one sessions to my community members in order for me to catch up and have my finger on the pulse of how they are coping with their dementia caregiving journey. So let’s listen to a live coaching episode on this coaching clinic Friday.
Understanding Caregiver Challenges
[1:16] When he’s doing things by himself, he’s probably skipping steps. He’s probably not doing things all the way through or when he’s brushing his teeth, he may just brush, brush, and then he’s done.
[1:30] It’s not able to really complete the whole process. Task, right? So the statement you made about not knowing that he will be able to physically do things by himself, I kind of wanted to touch on that just a little bit because there are in essence three buckets of levels or stages, right? I hate the word stage, but it helps people to understand kind of what we’re looking at. So bucket number one is I can do everything by myself. I still have pretty good quality when I’m doing it, but I’m starting to have difficulty with the higher level things like maybe bill paying or cooking by myself or driving or reconciling accounts.
[2:20] Medication management, those things, right? So I can do everything by myself. I just need somebody touching base every now and then and maybe overseeing a little bit for safety. The middle bucket is kind of where Joe is right now, where he looks like he physically can do things because he’s a strong guy. There’s nothing all that much physically wrong with him, although those skills are changing, but he cannot process the information the way he always used to. And how that looks is that, like I said, people are starting to skip steps. They don’t follow through on all the things. But the other part of it is they also lose the ability to initiate doing stuff by themselves, which makes them look like they don’t want to do stuff. They look apathetic, right? They look like they’re just not engaged in their environment. Where a family caregiver like yourself often feels the stress is frustration typically comes in one of two ways. And I’m not saying this is you. I’m just saying frustration for a caregiver comes in one of two ways.
[3:26] The person’s abilities, they have some remaining abilities are here, but we feel as the caregiver that they should be here. They should be able to do these things. What do you mean they cannot get dressed or they’re wearing the dirty clothes over and over again, right? the care person’s expectation is they should be here. And then there’s frustration because the person living with dementia really isn’t able to do that stuff by themselves without somebody helping them and coming alongside, not taking it away, but just coming alongside them. Or the flip side of that is the person with dementia is actually functioning here and the people around them think that they’re not able to do things and they take everything away and the person living with dementia gets frustrated. That’s what he’s saying on his end. Okay. Whereas on our end, we’re seeing that he thinks he’s following through with all the steps.
[4:22] He states that he’s done it, that he can do it, and that we’re not letting him do it. But at the same time, we have walked in and he is having to, if we’re not stepping in and doing it for him, someone is because he’s not able to do all of it. And, you know, he’s just, he’s connecting, what I call connecting all the dots. He just cannot connect them. Now, when you’re with him and you just kind of cue him and keep him on track, can he do things then? It depends upon what it is. If it’s something that he has done repeatedly all his life. Yeah. But if you put him in a new environment like he is at the rehab center, then it throws it off to the point that he can’t. For sure. I totally, totally, that is 100% accurate, 100% accurate. So what I’d like you to, and you and I will still talk on Saturday,
Preparing for Homecoming
[5:19] we’ll unpack this a little bit more on Saturday. I think the three to four days a week or three times a week, four to five hours of paid caregiver in the house is a good, definitely a good place to start. Have you considered an adult day program? I don’t really.
[5:36] I’ve been in meetings where they talked about it. Okay. I haven’t actually picked up on the name or the contact person. Okay. I can help you with that since you live close by. I can definitely help you with that. To manage your expectations for when Joe comes home in a couple of weeks, you’re about halfway through the crisis. Okay? When he comes home, you’re going to have about…
[6:00] Two or four months of home health, just depending how it goes, right? The longer we can stretch out the home health, the better. It gives you help in the house, right? So he’ll come home from rehab with PT, probably OT for a bit and nursing.
[6:18] And then that’s going to be the time for you to kind of get stabilized and we can start to work on the next step, identifying a non-medical home health company to help you come in and start working on setting those things up for when he is at home. And then when rehab transitions out, depending on how he is physically, we’ll use the two to four months to research whether or not an adult day program in your specific situation is a good idea. Okay. How’s that sound? That sounds doable. Yes. Okay. So bite sizes, right? Right. Definitely. And I knew that’s what I had to bring it down to. But being the last time I brought him home from rehab, he was only home 12 hours and he was back in the hospital again. I’m so sorry. Well, but it was, it had to do with the urinary tract and he’s going to have a procedure done on January the 7th that they’re going to have to go in and stretch that urethra too. Because he was holding so much liquid that was wearing him out and wearing me out up and down during the middle of the night when I don’t function well at all. I don’t function at night either, child. Not at all.
[7:37] But while he’s got the catheter in, things, you know, I mean, that’s easier. It’ll be a little easier. Other than the fact that he hates having it. And I I understand. I would hate having it too. But right now it’s such a godsend that we know that that’s what the problem is. Right. For sure. So what you and I are going to continue to work on is taking all of the overwhelm because it’s like, I know this and this and this and this, and I’ll help you prioritize the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. Right. Okay.
Prioritizing Caregiver Tasks
[8:12] So look for my phone call about two o’clock on Saturday. Okay. Okay. It’ll probably just be a phone conversation and I will go find the caregiver stress assessment and see which buckets yours are landing in so that I can help you with that. Okay. All right. All right. If you need me to go ahead, I mean, I have access to that. If you want me to take the test again, just let me know. Oh, we don’t need to necessarily do it again. Okay. Good. If I need to, then we’ll do it. Everything is the same. I mean, it’s not going to change. Okay. If I need to, I can have you just, if I can’t find it, I will have you do it with me.
[8:47] So I can write it down so I can see. Okay. Okay. All right, sweet lady. You’re welcome to hang out and listen to everybody else. I’m going to hang out. Okay, awesome. People who are really benefiting from the community are the people who joined earlier on before they need it. And that have been active and are participating in the community because then they already know what questions to ask.
Community Engagement and Support
[9:10] And they have a place to come and they’re not constantly wondering, what do I need to do? How do I need to do it? So people listening are interested in tapping into or learning about the community. I’d invite you to just go to the website, thinkdifferentdementia.com. There’s a link for you to schedule a 20-minute call. There’s no pressure. I’ll serve you regardless of whether you join the community or not. But it is a way for you to take this relationship a little deeper, a little bit more hands-on support because really the research also shows its longitudinal support over time. Absolutely. Yeah, for sure. I would highly recommend Lizette. She’s awesome. Tracy, I appreciate that endorsement. You are well. Thank you,
Closing Thoughts and Blessings
[9:53] everybody, for listening today. And as I try to remember, I try to remember, I don’t always remember. May the Lord bless you and keep you. And come back and listen some more. I’m hoping to do more of these coaching-style episodes on a Friday. So come back and check us out. And thank you for being here today.
