Caring for Relatives

1. Contact the Pflegestützpunkt Frankfurt am Main (Carers' Support Centre). You can obtain advice here (in German only) on all questions to do with caring for relatives.

2. If a care level has to be established, it is advisable to keep a care diary from the outset. You can document here the tasks you perform, the support you provide and how much time they take. Among others, this forms the basis for the Medical Service's decision on the care level.

3. If you wish to apply for benefits under a care insurance scheme, the Medical Service of the health insurers will be instructed to determine the care level of the person concerned. Please be at home when the Medical Service comes to do this.

4. If it emerges that care is required over the longer term, think about whether you can imagine taking on these tasks. Talk to your family. Talk to your relative about how you both envisage their further care.

5. If you cannot imagine caring for your relative yourself, obtain advice about suitable nursing homes. The Carers' Support Centre is a good place to contact for this too.

6. If you are willing to care for your relative, make sure that you find a balance in the shape of sport, hobbies or whatever else you enjoy.

8. After six months of caring for your relative, you are entitled to respite care. This is a benefit provided by the care insurance fund. It pays for any substitute care necessary if you are unable to care for your relative due to holidays or illness. This entitlement applies for a maximum of four weeks per year.

In many cases, a family member becomes in need of care without warning, and this frequently poses a major challenge. These demands place an enormous physical and psychological burden on carers and their time.

The Family Service at Goethe University Frankfurt can help you with advice, talks, further information and networking opportunities, and thus provides initial guidance for carers, specifically:

• Initial personal and individual advice on caring for relatives
• Information sessions and training courses
• Information material
• Further links and brochures on how to organise and arrange care tasks
• Advice and support for all faculties and organisational units to improve the compatibility of work/study and care responsibilities

• Pflegestützpunkt Frankfurt am Main (Carers' Support Centre): Here, carers, people in need of care and their relatives as well as people with special needs can obtain advice. People of all ages in need of care and those at risk of needing care can find information here that meets their personal requirements.
• Addresses of advice and referral centres (social welfare offices as well as advice and referral centres for outpatient and inpatient assistance can help you to find outpatient support services, daycare and short-term care facilities as well as nursing homes).
• The Leitstelle Älterwerden (Senior Citizens' Office) is dedicated to expanding and further developing of wide range of topics related to working with and for ageing and elderly people. It is the central contact point for support and advice on all aspects of life in old age for citizens, institutions and management agencies in Frankfurt.
• The Rathaus für Senioren, Jugend- und Sozialamt (Town Hall for Senior Citizens) is a central contact point for questions to do with family carers.
• The Seniorenagentur Frankfurt (Frankfurt Senior Citizens Agency) is an information portal for citizens, companies and organisations in Frankfurt that require information and advice.
• Advice on care rights by the Consumer Advice Centre (Verbraucherzentrale): Here you can find information about finance and coping with everyday life if you are a carer or in need of care yourself.
• Caritas: Discussion groups for family carers 
• Bürgerinstitut Frankfurt: Hilfe für Demenzkranke und ihre Angehörige HILDA (Citizens' Institute Frankfurt: Help for People with Dementia and their Families): HILDA has existed at the Citizens' Institute since 1998 and has set itself the objective of advising and supporting people with dementia and their families.
• "HILDA-Mobil": This is a mobile advice centre in the form of a van. The aim is to advise, inform and sensitise interested parties as well as affected persons and their relatives, especially in more remote suburbs of Frankfurt, on the topic of dementia.
• Alzheimer Gesellschaft (Alzheimer's Society): Relatives groups – exchange between people looking after a person with dementia.
• Frankfurt Dementia Self-Help Group (Frankfurter Selbsthilfegruppe Demenz): Help and support for relatives of persons diagnosed with dementia.

You can find various groups and fora especially for persons with Alzheimer's disease under the following link.