Care Smarter, Not Harder: 3 Game-Changing Caregiving Hacks

Summary

In this Care Lab solo episode, Brandy and Emilia share practical, hands-on caregiving hacks designed to make daily care easier and safer. They focus on three major areas: helping a person with dementia eat more successfully, improving bed mobility, and making transfers safer and less physically demanding.

Key themes include simplifying tasks to reduce cognitive overload, encouraging participation to preserve dignity and independence, and using smart positioning and simple tools (like draw sheets and sliding boards) to protect both the caregiver and care recipient. The episode emphasizes that small adjustments can dramatically improve safety, comfort, and confidence in everyday caregiving.

 

Key Questions Answered

 

Transcript

Brandy Archie 
Hi everybody, welcome to Care Lab. Today, we don't have a guest, so it's a solo episode. But what we thought would be really helpful to bring to you are some hacks for caregiving. Because who doesn't need something that's gonna make it a little bit easier to do the things you need to do every day? And I don't know about you, but I'm often surprised when I have a simple solution people have never thought about it before. So why not just surface that and bring that out to you so you can have a little bit easier time?

Shall we do it? Let's do it. Yeah. Okay. So we're going to go through your top three caregiver hacks. That could be about anything. That's a very broad. It is. What are you going to start with? Well, okay. So I'm going to focus in here on hacks that are specifically for RoutRoute. I don't know why I switched over to there. What's happening over here? It's still recording. So I think we don't have no problems. Okay. But I'll mark it. Okay.

So I'm going to focus in on caregiving hacks that are really for people who are providing some level of hands-on care or at least a high level of supervision and assistance for folks here. Obviously you said, I mean, caregiving is a huge area. You can be a caregiver who lives 500 miles away from the person that you are helping out, right? But for these hacks, I think we're going to focus in on people who are kind of with their care partners. OK, so hands-on caregiving, top three hacks.

are we going to put them in order of importance? I think that's impossible because it entirely depends on what the needs of your care partner are and where you are in your care journey. And I will say like actually going down to only three is really hard because there's so many, mean, you know, there's so many great little tips and tricks that we use as occupational therapists to make things easier and teach, you know, care partners how to make things easier.

So it's hard to get down to three, but I think we're gonna focus in on some of the top things that I encounter a lot or that I'm asked about a lot. So one is making it easier to feed someone who has dementia. Because so often folks who have dementia, we think that they lose their appetite. It gets to be like a failure to thrive situation, which is where someone just isn't consuming enough calories basically. And a lot of times it's not.

Brandy Archie 
doesn't necessarily have to do with appetite, but it has to do with food, presentation, and the experience of eating. So we'll talk a little bit about that. And then- don't give them all the things away yet. They listen to the whole episode. Well, I didn't give the hack away. I was just saying what we're gonna talk about. I mean, I guess that's true, but I like the people to be on the edge of their seat. Okay, all right. Remain on the edge. First one, okay. So you kind of start to surface like what the challenge can be. Also, feeding somebody else can take a lot of time.

So any kind hacks we can have around that can make sense. But you're specifically talking about when somebody has dementia and we need to make sure that they eat well. What's your hack? Yeah. So let me preface this with a couple of things. We want to try to keep people feeding themselves for as long as possible. 100%. One, just because it's clearly better for their body. It's better for them to be as independent as possible. It's also safer for their swallow.

If whenever for most people feeding themselves is going to lead to a safer swallow than someone else feeding them because they can control the pacing, right? They can control how much is going in. So we just want to try to allow that as much as possible, especially when people have dementia. So this is a really simple hack. If you're caring for someone with dementia and you put a plate of food in front of them and they just start kind of like they pick at it.

They're moving things around. Maybe they're kind of, you know, chit chatting, but nothing is going into the mouth or they're just sitting there and they're kind of acting like they don't know what to do. A lot of times that can be an indication that there's too much going on on that plate for the person to be themselves. Maybe, maybe they can't figure out how to use the utensils anymore. Okay. Maybe they, maybe I turn that off.

Put it in the other room, just mark that. Maybe we'll mark it. Got it.

Brandy Archie 
and almost

Brandy Archie 
Use utensils. Yeah, right

So maybe they can't use utensils anymore. Maybe they can't figure out how to eat that specific kind of food. They don't remember how to eat it or they can't like motor plan it is what we might often say in therapy. Maybe there's just so much on there that they literally don't know where to start. Like they can't, in therapy we call that, they don't know how to sequence that meal. They're not even sure where to start too much. So one of the simplest things we can do,

is simplify the plate. If there are things that need to be cut up, we want to have those things cut up in the little bite-sized pieces already. If someone needs finger foods, we can absolutely provide them with finger foods. But really, really thinking about the ways that we can simplify it, let's say there are five items on that plate or three items on that plate, but that's a full plate because you want this person, they need to eat. You want some calories in that body.

putting less on the plate so that each item is distinct. So there's space. there's food and there's plate and there's food. There's food, there's plate, there's food, making sure that they can actually see that food. like white mashed potatoes on a white plate, maybe they're not necessarily seeing that anymore, allowing some contrast in there, but really making it so that they can individually identify each thing that they need to eat. Even to the point of sometimes we have to simplify it to the point where

We're just giving one food item at a time to allow that person to eat that food item. And then we provide them with the next food item until the food is gone or until they're full basically. just, if you take away nothing else from this, simplify that plate, make it easy for them to see everything, make it so that they have to plan as little as possible in order to get that food from the plate into their mouth.

Brandy Archie 
And if necessary just giving one food item at a time and if it needs to be a finger food, that's okay The most important thing is calories in the body in a safe way. Yep, that is enjoyable for everyone because eating should be a pleasurable experience. Yeah, if it's not Guess what then we don't want to eat that either. So Simplifying that's a really simple easy thing to do. It doesn't cost you any money and

It feels like magic. It often feels like magic to get people to eat. I think when we had the episode where we talked about your book, you used a really good example with the highway and about how information is being processed. Because you're saying simplifying is simple, but I don't think most people think about all the cognitive work that it takes to visually distinguish between the different pieces of food and decide, like, I'm going use a fork for this or a spoon for this or I need to cut this or not. We do all that so automatically that I think sometimes

It's a little bit abstract to think about how that might appear. I think your example of like a highway was really helpful. So I wonder if you will tell the audience again. Yeah. So basically when folks have dementia, can be very difficult to process all of the information that's coming at them at once. And it's kind of like having a highway that's full of cars. And so you get a traffic jam. There's so many cars on that highway.

that there's not enough space to move and everyone kind of comes to a standstill and there's just like this trickle of cars that is slowly, slowly getting through. The way that we process information can be very much the same way. If we're bombarded, any of us, if any of us are bombarded with too much information, everything slows down. We can only process so much information at once. When people have dementia, the amount of information that they can process decreases. And so we have to

in turn decrease the amount of information that we are asking them to process. Yep. And so that's how you can think about simplification. Yep. Let me add one extra thing in there. Okay. You talked about contrast. One really good way to get contrast is to get dishes that are red. And the research has shown that people eat like 30 % more when they have dementia and they eat from a red plate. And it's because of all the reasons you just said. Like it has high contrast, so it's clear, like hardly any of the foods we eat are like red, red.

Brandy Archie 
So it's really clear that like this is the plate and this is the food. And it also draws your attention to it. Because oftentimes we can just get distracted with the conversation or other things going on and just not eat. And so that's one way to like make a little change that creates an easier way to eat. I love that one. So simple. There are a ton of these kinds of tips actually in the What Do I When? What do, sorry, What Do I Do When?

book that is now available that I wrote for folks with dementia on Amazon. And really it's designed to make sure that whatever level the person that you're caring for is at, you have some tools and strategies in your pocket. So that's in there along with a bunch of other tips too. So definitely check that out if it's something that you're looking at, you can get that for free on unlimited Kindle right now too. So there you go. Okay, you ready for the next one? I am ready for the next one.

Tip number two for physical caregiving hacks. Go. Okay. So let's talk about bed mobility. yes, that's a good one. First, let me define what is bed mobility. Bed mobility is our fancy schmancy way. We like to say things in a fancy way in healthcare because it makes us feel smart. 100%. That's all it is about. But what it means is how you or someone else is moving around in bed and how you're able to move.

in the bed and in and out of bed basically. and so when you are caring for someone who is at bed level or who just has a very difficult time getting in and out of bed, or spends a lot of time in bed, can be really challenging to move that person if they are not able to move themselves. I actually have

I know I'm supposed to do one, but I have two really important hacks. Not following the rules, but it's okay. Give the people what they need. Okay. So first, if you are trying to get someone to roll in a certain direction, in order to move in that direction, we need to look in that direction and we need to reach in that direction. So if someone is looking behind them, if they are reaching behind them, they are not going to go and roll the

Brandy Archie 
they're not going to roll forwards if they're reaching behind, right? So, simply making sure that someone is looking in the direction you want them to look in and reaching in the direction you want them to look in will make it much, much easier for you, but also for them to assist in that rolling process. And that's key. We, we want the people there, we are helping to participate as much as possible in that simple look and reach.

can really help to facilitate that participation. So even if they're not strong enough to actually grab the rail or the edge of the bed to pull themselves over, just the act of saying, hey, can you reach over there, automatically takes your head and eyes that way, takes your arm that way, likely they'll hold on to the bed rail or something like that. And then it makes all the rest of the rolling.

ton easier. A ton easier because the body is already moving in that direction. You've already got like kind of that momentum going where you need it to go. Yep. And again even if they're barely helping, it counts. It counts. All the little things count. They're all repetition. They all build up to being able to do it for yourself at some point maybe even if it's just a matter of like this is how it makes the process simpler.

I mean, I compare stuff to kids a lot, but I think we understand it more because we're around kids. It's true. And it's like, if you're dressing a two-year-old, it's helpful if they put their arms up so you can put your shirt on. They didn't put the shirt on. You still did it for them. But just being engaged in the activity helps make it easier for you to do the activity too. And allows that person to have a sense of contribution. 100%. And maintain dignity.

And because when we just have stuff done to us all day, like that doesn't feel very good. But when we can assist in that process and work with and not just, you know, have things be done too, it makes a difference in how we feel about ourselves and our motivation and all those things. so that's one. Okay. One there's one. Okay. One plus the other thing, if you have someone who is really pretty dependent in bed, they need a lot of assistance to scoot up.

Brandy Archie 
to scoot down, to roll, to do all of the things. Maybe they're totally bed bound. One of the most important things that you need to be aware of is something that we call a draw sheet. Yes, or a chuck. Or a chuck, yes. I love if someone, particularly if someone is not in a hospital bed, because not everyone has a hospital bed even if they need it, right? Totally. I love a sheet.

So a draw sheet doesn't have to be a special sheet. It's just a sheet. You're going to fold it in half. You can fold it like a taco or you can fold it like a hamburger, right? So you can make it fatter or can make it long skinny. I had to think very hard about like, what does that mean? Okay, but fold it. You fold it. You roll the person to get it underneath them. And then you can use that draw sheet to...

move them up in bed, to move them side to side in bed, you can actually use it to roll them in order to provide care like for hygiene after toileting, for bed baths, for all kinds of things. It makes it so much easier for you as the care partner providing the care. And it actually makes it a lot safer for the person who is receiving the care as well because it reduces friction on them.

It can make it more comfortable to be rolled because they're not having hands pressed so hard into them. So if pain is an issue, it can be really, really helpful. I know it's probably, that's probably really hard to visualize. Yeah. There. So there is at, if you go to higher standards, caregiver training.com, there is a course all about draw sheets there. if you put in the code care lab, you can take that course for free.

Just if you're if you're a listener and we're talking about this stuff, we want to take good care of you So if you use the code care lab, you can take that course for free I will link that course along with you the the the coupon code care lab to take it for free down in the show notes so you can go and check that out and you can see really a full demonstration of What is the draw sheet? How can I use it? How does it work? Because words aren't usually enough for something like that. I agree and my bonus to your bonus. Oh that

Brandy Archie 
While you don't have to buy anything and you can just use a an extra sheet that you have, if you do get a chuck or an incontinence pad, essentially, this is like a fabric. It's a piece of fabric that's long enough to do exactly what you're saying. And you can use it to help move them up and down a bit, but it also absorbs liquid. So it's going to go under your hips and your bottom anyway. So it's great to be able to use that as both the jar sheet and in case there's an accident, because then you can just pull that out.

wash it, put a new one in, and oftentimes the bed is not fully soiled. And they're really, if you get a reusable one, you see these in the hospital all time, they're plastic and they have a little padding on them, kind of like an open brief. But if you get the reusable ones, they're cloth and they're strong enough to use as a draw sheet too. Yep. And you can wash them so you're not constantly like throwing things away or spending money on stuff. And sometimes you can also use both of these things together. You can use a chuck and a draw sheet together.

especially depending on the size of your person, to make sure that you're getting all of those needs met. So yes, that's great. Yeah. Okay. Okay, good. Okay, we did two things-ish and... Sorry. I'm just playing. Okay, what is hack number three? Okay, hack number three, we're gonna talk about transfers. Okay. So let's say you've got someone, you can get them up to the edge of the bed, you can get them into the wheelchair, whatever it is.

but they need help getting from one surface to another. That's the definition of transfer. Another one of our fancy words. Yes. Another one of our fancy words. We're getting from one surface to another. A lot of different ways to do that. Sure. It can be really challenging to transfer someone or to assist with the transfer if that person can't come to a full stand, right? Then you're doing a lot more of the lifting. It's a lot more physically strenuous.

And then we're also contending a lot more with like, let's say the, the care partner who needs care is a larger person and the care partner who's providing care is a smaller person. Yeah. Right. Like I'm not that big, but I, I'm an OT and I've taken care of a lot of people, most of whom are bigger than me. Yes. I have many people that are twice as big as you. Yeah. And I'll come in the room and they'll say, honey, you can't move me. Just kidding. Yes, I can. Let's do this. Yeah, exactly.

Brandy Archie 
And so one of, okay, I'm gonna do two again on this. Oh my gosh. Okay, because they're both, they're both, they're both really. So one is like, this is, you don't have to spend any money on this. This is just a way of thinking about it. Okay. Reduce the distance that you have to move as much as possible. Which sounds like such a simple thing, but it's so often people do not do it. You're like sitting in the chair here and the wheelchair is over there like three steps away. I would say- could be zero steps away. It could be literally right here. Yeah. I would say-

like 99 % of the time people don't even in healthcare, people do not actually follow this rule. reduce the distance. mean, literally you can often set up a chair. there's basically no distance between the surface that that person is on and the chair itself, whether that's a wheelchair, whether that's a bedside commode, whatever it is, reduce that distance as much as you can to nothing. Cause guess what? If you,

have less distance to move, then you're doing less lifting, and where's that person gonna fall? They can't fall nowhere. They're on the seat you're at, or they're in the chair. Yeah. Yes. So this solves a lot of problems actually, just reducing that distance. Let me tell you what doesn't solve it. Huh? Well, that's what you do all the time. What? Put it in front of them. I'm sitting here, and the place I'm trying to go is here.

feels close because maybe your knees are hitting the wheelchair. Or you could grab it. And you can grab the armrest. However, you have to be a ballerina and spin all the way around. Yeah. Do a full 180. That's right. And that's a lot of steps in a small space. A lot of steps, especially if you have a mobility problem, which if you are using that chair, you have mobility have a mobility problem. yeah, reducing that distance. we're just going boop. Instead of going all the way around makes a huge difference.

for ease and safety for both care partners. The other thing that you can do too, let's say I'm here and my wheelchair is over here, why don't I just scoot there? Yeah, why do I need to stand up at all? Yeah, maybe I don't have to. So like here's my chair and here's me and that's maybe a 90 degree turn that I've got to make. But if I scooch my hips a little bit like this or if I use a draw sheet.

Brandy Archie 
to help scoot my care partners. Yes, you can do it while you're sitting up, not just when you're laying down. Exactly. Then I have reduced that distance that I have to travel even more. So now instead of going 90 degrees, maybe I'm only going 45. Maybe I'm only going 30, depending on the situation that you're in. So think about it, think about all the ways that you can reduce that distance. That's probably one of the most important principles of safe transfers, period, no matter who you are.

The other thing that I want to share though, this is a piece of equipment and I will say, so this is a sliding board, sometimes they're also called transfer boards. They are not for everyone. That's true. This is not a universal hack. The same way that, that just decreasing the distance is basically a universal hack. Yeah. For everybody's, there's no time. I would be like, actually let's make that further. Let's, let's, let's do that.

Yeah, unless it's like therapeutic and I'm like working on exercise. That's different exactly for the make a transfer. want it closer. Yes, exactly. So this is not for everybody, but it can be a very helpful tool to transfer people who maybe aren't fully weight-bearing for whatever reason, who are much heavier than their than their care partner, who's to help reduce any lifting that has to happen. And basically what this does is it creates a bridge between the surface that you are on

to the surface that you are going to or that the care partner is on and the care partner is going to. And if you're just listening, we're really literally just talking about a piece of wood. Yes. a polished piece of wood so you don't get splinters, but a place that you can put makeup ridge. Yes. That doesn't mean that I'm, we're not suggesting you go buy your own piece of wood and polish it. Please do not do that. Get a real slide board. They are not expensive. That's true. How expensive is a sliding board? Like 40 bucks? Yeah.

The cheapest one will be $40. And then has to be wood. They come in plastic, which is sometimes more helpful because it's lighter, especially if you're doing a slide board yourself. But yeah, there's lots of different kinds. Lots of different kinds. do, so two things. If you think you need a sliding board, the best thing to do is to get an evaluation with an occupational therapist or a physical therapist and make sure that's actually the correct piece of equipment for you. if you're using a sliding board, do get a real sliding board. Don't try to hack that.

Brandy Archie 
Again, if you want to see like a demonstration of how that's done, there is a course on higherstandardscaregivertraining.com. There is actually a course for pretty much everything on there. again, if you're a listener to the show, we want to take care of you. If you use the Code Care Lab, you can access that course for free right now. So you can actually see a full demonstration of how it's used. I talk a lot about when it is...

when it's a good idea, but also when it's not a good idea to use a sliding board because they're not universally something that you can use for everyone. But they are a great hack. And I tell you what, I have used sliding boards, I don't know, thousands of times to move people much bigger than me, all by myselfies. All by yourselfies. All by myselfies. Those are probably two of the most important hacks for moving people all by yourselfies. Yeah. Yeah. So the...

For the slide board, I think if you conceptualize, like if we need to go to a place that we actually can't get it very close to us, is a good time for a slide board. So like car transfer sometimes just based on where the door is opening on your chair, you can't get exactly right next to the car seat. toilet transfers sometimes depending, you know, like just if there's like space that's, we can't bridge by just putting the two things together and it's not safe for us to fully stand up.

a slide board can be really helpful. So my bonus to the bonus of the bonus is, there's also slide boards that have a sliding part on top of this. So in order to use a slide board, you also need to be able to push and scoot or somebody's to pull you. And if that's challenging, they make some, like Glideboard has one from Buckingham Health that you sit on it and that part moves on top of the board so that there's like no friction. Do you have sliding boards on, Samie? 100%. Okay. Yeah. So good to know too.

And of course, everything on Ask Samie, like, we've used it, we've tried it. It solves a real problem and it's easy to assemble if needs to. We ship it right to you. You know what we should, I should put in the course, I should put a link to that piece of equipment on Ask Samie so that people can find it more easily. Yeah. That would be helpful. Yeah. Okay. All right. Done. I mean, it's not done right now, but if I remember to do it later.

Brandy Archie 
I'll remember to it We're trying to put all the things that you need together in one spot really to make this a little bit easier. But the bottom line is there are tools available to help. There are tricks to help you, right? And if this feels overwhelming, one, watch it again. Two, get an occupational therapy evaluation for you too because this is the things that we do to make life easier. Okay. I think so we've given more than three. This is more like top eight hacks.

You you got more valuable thing for your buck. There you go. No, who's ever complained about getting free stuff, getting free stuff. I, you know, if you're complaining about getting more free stuff and more good information, I can't help you. You got more problems we can do. I can't help you. So, okay. Well, if you made it to the end of this episode, thanks so much for listening and or watching. Please take a second to like, subscribe, share.

please leave a comment and a review. Those are the really important ways to help us grow so that we can reach more people who need this information. Until next time, we'll see you right back here on CareLab. Bye everybody.

 

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