Mary Alexander: Hi! I am Mary Alexander from Home Instead Senior Care, and today I am going to provide some tips for how to help you avoid caregiver burnout and ease your stress.

When it comes to defining the extent of the volume of caregivers, former First Lady Rosalynn Carter said it best. There are only four kinds of people in the world; those who have been caregivers, those who are currently caregivers, those who will be caregivers, and those who will need caregivers.

In the United States alone, one quarter of adults are presently caring for an aging parent, relative, or spouse. In most cases, the caregiver is the spouse or the eldest daughter or grown child who lives the closest to the senior loved one needing care.

Caregiving can be a rewarding and bonding experience. However, it can also be very stressful and cause tension within families. According to a recent study conducted by Home Instead Senior Care, 31% of family caregivers admit they would like more help, and 25% actually resent other family members who don't help out more.

The stress gets worse if the caregiver has other important and pressing responsibilities, such as a job, children to care for, a busy social life, or some distance to travel to care for their elderly relative.

In fact, caregiving can be particular hard for a spouse, especially when the care recipient requires around the clock assistance. It can even become dangerous if the spouse or caregiver has his or her own health issues to deal with, because those problems can be made worse by the stress of caregiving and the lack of attention to the caregiver's own needs.

Obviously, you can't ignore the needs of the person you are caring for, but there are a number of ways to make sure you remain as stress free and healthy as possible during the process.

In this video series, we will discuss the extent of the caregiver stress problem and give you some signs to look for, that show you might be suffering from stress yourself. We will also spend some time talking specifically about the challenges of dealing with the dementia and Alzheimer's patients.

In the end, we will give you some tips and ideas about how you can ease your stress level and protect your health.

Home Instead Senior Care, the national leader in providing in-home care services for seniors, is bringing you this video series, to help you help your senior loved ones.

Helping seniors is something Home Instead has been doing passionately now for more than 15 years. I not only work for Home Instead, but I am a Certified Senior Advisor. More importantly, I am currently a long-distance caregiver for my dad, and I spent several months caring for my mom locally.

So let's begin to ease your stress.