Leave no stone unturned. Finding solutions for the problems that will arise during the period you care for an elderly loved one can make you feel like Sherlock Holmes or maybe that woman in Edvard Munch's painting "The Scream." You'll find you're searching, questioning, wondering about, and replaying scenarios in your mind. You'll find you're trying to fit the puzzle pieces of caregiving and your career and your kids and your spouse and your needs together in a way that pleases everybody and doesn't break you.

First things first. It will never be a perfect fit and it's not possible to do all that by yourself. Right away, you need to give up the idea of carrying the flag alone. You need to ask for help from anybody you can think of who might be willing or able to make a contribution.

And in that search for help, don't forget to scrupulously check out your employee benefits. More and more companies are beginning to address the needs of their employees who care for elderly loved ones. Whether this comes out of a true commitment to their employees health and well-being or a concern for the bottom-line of lost productivity doesn't matter. If you're lucky enough to work at a company that has such a program, use that benefit to its fullest.

Such benefits may include:

• Workplace-based programs, including seminars, informal support groups, lunch discussions, on issues related to caring for the elderly.
• Job-sharing options.
• Flexible benefits that allow you to use your vacation time as half-days, for instance.
• Caregiver respite services.
• Financial planning help.
• Long-term care insurance.
• Information and resource services that do some of the research and legwork for you as you're exploring your options in caring for your elderly loved one.
• And in rare, but likely to be increasingly more available, circumstances, on-site adult day services similar to on-site daycare services for children.

Now you may be thinking, that's all well and good, but my employer doesn't offer any such assistance or services. And that is probably true, though as reported in the Pacific Business News (6/22/98), the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans estimates that 64 percent of employers will offer elder-care benefits by 2000. And remember, too, things change. All it takes is one fifty-year-old, baby-boomer CEO who is struggling to care for his or her elderly mom and bingo, your company may have such programs available soon.

But if, after you talk to somebody in your human resources department, you find that it doesn't yet offer such benefits, you can do your part to begin to change the conversation. Caring for our elderly loved ones is more and more likely to be a common experience and when we make it part of our daily consciousness and conversation, we automatically make it a subject for which others will begin to seek solutions. Remember, one reason businesses are sometimes slow to fix a problem, is that they aren't aware there is a problem. Start talking and maybe we'll all become part of a "wonderful solution."