Caring For Family Caregivers

Family caregiving affects millions of Americans every day, in all walks of life. At least 17.7 million individuals in the United States are caregivers of an older adult with a health or functional limitation. The nation's family caregivers provide the lion's share of long-term care for our older adult population. They are also central to older adults' access to and receipt of health care and community-based social services. Yet the need to recognize and support caregivers is among the least appreciated challenges facing the aging U.S. population. Families Caring for an Aging America examines the prevalence and nature of family caregiving of older adults and the available evidence on the effectiveness of programs, supports, and other interventions designed to support family caregivers. This report also assesses and recommends policies to address the needs of family caregivers and to minimize the barriers that they encounter in trying to meet the needs of older adults.

"Nurses play a vital role in improving the safety and quality of patient car -- not only in the hospital or ambulatory treatment facility, but also of community-based care and the care performed by family members. Nurses need know what proven techniques and interventions they can use to enhance patient outcomes. To address this need, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), with additional funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has prepared this comprehensive, 1,400-page, handbook for nurses on patient safety and quality -- Patient Safety and Quality: An Evidence-Based Handbook for Nurses. (AHRQ Publication No. 08-0043)." - online AHRQ blurb, http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/nurseshdbk/

"Caring for the Family Caregiver is an extensive practical tool kit for health care providers across the healthcare continuum. Regardless if it is a mother caring for a child with a developmental disability, a wife caring for a husband with a long term chronic illness, or a daughter sitting at the bedside of her father who is enrolled in hospice, family caregivers are the silent "other patient" in the health care drama. Healthcare providers who do not attend to the needs of the caregiver not only inflict interactional suffering, but dilute their treatment by not engaging the caregiver as a partner. In fact, they may unintentionally do harm as the caregiver flounders and thus patient treatment fails. As noted by one dying cancer patient in an educational YouTube video of his cancer journey, "there are two patients not one." If we are to eliminate the interactional suffering experienced by family caregivers, we must train both the caregiver and the health care team for the important interaction and roles that are required for the successful care of the patient. Caregivers lack information, skills, and emotional support for the tireless task they are volunteering for. They need to be taught how to advocate for themselves and their patients and how to best communicate with the health care team. Likewise, health care providers have the skills and knowledge to provide outstanding patient centered care; however, they are not taught the importance of the family caregiver, nor do they always understand that experience or how to help"--

The rapid growth of home health care has raised many unsolved issues and will have consequences that are far too broad for any one group to analyze in their entirety. Yet a major influence on the safety, quality, and effectiveness of home health care will be the set of issues encompassed by the field of human factors research-the discipline of applying what is known about human capabilities and limitations to the design of products, processes, systems, and work environments. To address these challenges, the National Research Council began a multidisciplinary study to examine a diverse range of behavioral and human factors issues resulting from the increasing migration of medical devices, technologies, and care practices into the home. Its goal is to lay the groundwork for a thorough integration of human factors research with the design and implementation of home health care devices, technologies, and practices. On October 1 and 2, 2009, a group of human factors and other experts met to consider a diverse range of behavioral and human factors issues associated with the increasing migration of medical devices, technologies, and care practices into the home. This book is a summary of that workshop, representing the culmination of the first phase of the study.

The management of chronic diseases is one of the tasks of all members of the health team, and different models need to be applied in the practice of chronic care management. One of these models is home care services. There are two main sections in this book. In the first part of the section, the concept of caregiving and care at home is explained. In the second part, the responsibilities of caregivers at home and the responsibilities of caregivers of people who have health problems that occur during different periods of life are discussed. In the second section, the problems of caregivers are also included. I would like to think that what is quoted in this book, which contains examples from different cultures of the world for home care approaches, will contribute to the development of home care services. This book is presented to all health professionals working in the field of health services as well as health politics professionals and students trained in these areas.

A complete, step-by-step guide offering problem-solving and coping skills applicable to every caregiver’s unique circumstances. Drawing from over twenty-five years of experience, Levy provides caregivers with a model for effective planning and problem-solving, focusing on the nonclinical aspects of caregiving, which are often neglected by medical professionals: Caring for young and old victims of disability, illness, and chronic disorders Finding ways to make our healthcare system work Assembling core information about a loved one's life Developing a realistic view of how much care a loved one needs today and may need tomorrow, and understanding that continuum of care Locating resources that can make a difference in making sure a loved one's care-needs are met Finding a good family caregiver support group Overcoming the roadblocks the caregiver's feelings of distress and failure can create Taking a practical approach to that overused phrase "Take care of yourself." David Levy, JD is a gerontologist and a recognized family caregiver expert. Levy holds a Doctor of Jurisprudence and is a Florida Supreme Court Certified Family Mediator in family caregiving and a certified Family Conflict Dynamics Profiler. He facilitates weekly family caregiver support groups and counsels family caregivers, both pro bono and privately.

Through personal experience as a caregiver to my parents, I gained first-hand knowledge of the responsibilities family caregivers carry on their shoulders. It became important for me to find out what other family caregivers say they need to help sustain their spirit during the journey of caring for someone they love. The outcome of this inquiry is a devotional developed in direct response to family caregiver interviews and their answers to survey questions. Woven between the pages of this devotional is a message for family caregivers, individuals concerned about family caregivers, faith communities, and for community groups that are not faith-based. The devotional is a companion for the caregiving journey that invites you to seek spiritual strength and wisdom from God and to replenish your spirit of compassion and love.

The story of one woman’s struggle to care for her seriously ill husband—and a revealing look at the role unpaid family caregivers play in a society that fails to provide them with structural support. Already Toast shows how all-consuming caregiving can be, how difficult it is to find support, and how the social and literary narratives that have long locked women into providing emotional labor also keep them in unpaid caregiving roles. When Kate Washington and her husband, Brad, learned that he had cancer, they were a young couple: professionals with ascending careers, parents to two small children. Brad’s diagnosis stripped those identities away: he became a patient and she his caregiver. Brad’s cancer quickly turned aggressive, necessitating a stem-cell transplant that triggered a massive infection, robbing him of his eyesight and nearly of his life. Kate acted as his full-time aide to keep him alive, coordinating his treatments, making doctors’ appointments, calling insurance companies, filling dozens of prescriptions, cleaning commodes, administering IV drugs. She became so burned out that, when she took an online quiz on caregiver self-care, her result cheerily declared: “You’re already toast!” Through it all, she felt profoundly alone, but, as she later learned, she was in fact one of millions: an invisible army of family caregivers working every day in America, their unpaid labor keeping our troubled healthcare system afloat. Because our culture both romanticizes and erases the realities of care work, few caregivers have shared their stories publicly. As the baby-boom generation ages, the number of family caregivers will continue to grow. Readable, relatable, timely, and often raw, Already Toast—with its clear call for paying and supporting family caregivers—is a crucial intervention in that conversation, bringing together personal experience with deep research to give voice to those tasked with the overlooked, vital work of caring for the seriously ill.