Being my dad's caregiver when he was dying of cancer was a blessing I cherish to this day.

But it was physically and emotionally exhausting.

That's what caregivers face -- erosion of their health, emotions and finances.

Caregivers "tend to neglect their own health," said Gail Hunt, chief executive of the National Alliance for Caregiving.

"If they have a chronic disease, they didn't go to regular doctor visits, they tended not to go to the dentist, they skipped flu shots," she said. "They can also not eat in a healthy way."

The statistics back that up. According to Caregiver SOS, a website operated by the WellMed Charitable Foundation in San Antonio:

• Caregivers report having health problems almost twice as often as non-caregivers.

• Half of those caregivers spend 10 percent of their income on caregiving expenses.

• Up to 70 percent suffer from depression or isolation.

It's critical that caregivers give themselves a break from the stress.

"If they don't want to get to the point where they can't do the caregiving anymore, they have to be able to take care of themselves," Hunt said. "They have to be able to be concerned about their physical health, as well as their mental health."

Annabel Glass of Coppell, Texas, learned the value of finding time for herself when she was caregiver for her parents. Her dad, who had dementia, died in 2011; her mother died in October.


"Four months after my dad passed, she had a massive stroke and she was in a hospital, long-term care, for 13 months," Glass said.

At the time, Glass lived in Irving, Texas, and her parents lived in Dallas.

"For three years I drove back and forth and then started working part time," Glass. "I was teaching full time, then started doing job-sharing for three years."

She eventually retired so she could care for her parents.

"It's the stresses of being physically tired, concerned about them, getting the right caregivers when they were in assisted living," Glass said. "Something would come up all the time."

Even in the best care facilities, things can go wrong, she said.

"My mother was always falling and getting skin tears," Glass said.

"Just keeping up with all the doctor visits, the dentist, the dermatologist, the heart specialist, their GP specialists -- it got to a point where it was almost easier when they got to where they just couldn't leave the home at all," Glass said. "When you're in assisted living, you have doctors who can come to you."

Here's what experts recommend you do to keep your sanity:

TAKE A BREAK: Don't feel guilty about taking a break -- it's critical.

"They need to hear that it's OK to go to the movies," said Kay Paggi, a Dallas geriatric care manager. "You don't need to take your mom; you don't have to go to the hospital and sit. You can just go to the movie. You have to do something for yourself because once you run out of energy, then you're useless as a caregiver."

Glass said she was fortunate to be able to hire other caregivers for her parents to provide her with a break.

"On those days, I would just be at home and doing my own laundry and doing their bills," Glass said. "Even in my house doing my laundry by myself was sometimes a treat."

Another indulgence was getting her nails done once a week.

"The thing I didn't do and should have done is once a year take a vacation and just leave," Glass said. "It's kind of like when you leave your children. All the planning going into being able to leave out of town and have them cared for sometimes seemed to be more trouble than it was worth."

GET HELP: "Caregivers need to able to ask their family members to help them get a break," Hunt said.

If you can't afford to hire other caregiving help, you can explore respite programs.

JOIN A SUPPORT GROUP: Glass found solace in attending a caregivers support group run by Paggi.

"They were a lifesaver sometimes," she said. "You don't want to bore your friends all the time, and you find yourself just talking about it. You go to the group and you know they all understand what you're going through and it's just easier to vent there."

Paggi said that despite their benefits, caregiver support groups draw sporadic attendance.

"People do much better if they will come to a support group consistently even when they're not having a problem, because that's when you're able to listen and hear what other people are doing," she said. "But what really happens is they wait until they have a crisis and then come in and want to talk, which is great, but they've missed all the stuff that would have helped them deal with the crisis."

KNOW YOUR LIMITS: You can't do it all, no matter how much you want to.

"Caregivers have more in common with each other whether or not they have the same disease that they're dealing with because they all feel guilty, they all feel conflicted, they all feel there isn't enough time or money or energy," Paggi said.

"They all have to make really hard choices, so that applies whether your mom has had a stroke or whether she has Alzheimer's disease or whether it's your husband or whether it's your nephew."

Also, you need to realize that burnout is very real.

"They'll say, 'I don't have time to do something for myself,' " Paggi said. "What we tell them at the support group is, 'You don't have time not to.' They are their parent's or their care receiver's best asset, and assets can be depleted."