Family Support Programs And Rehabilitation

The permanent effects of traumatic brain injury (TBI) are not limited to the person who suffers the injury. People who care for the individual, particularly family members, suffer in various ways. Family members are often confused as to the behavioral and neuropsychological changes that they see in a brain-injured rela tive. They can become frustrated and angry when the individual does not return to premorbid levels of functioning. They can become tired and worn down from repeated problems in trying to manage the individual's difficulties while having only fragmented information regarding them. Drs. Smith and Godfrey have provided a useful service for family members by summarizing important neuropsychological changes associated with TBI and providing practical guidelines for coping with these problems. While the neuropsychological problems they describe are not completely understood, the authors provide a useful description of many of the neuro behavioral problems seen following TBI in young adults. They attempt to provide guidelines for family members that have practical utility in understanding and managing these patients. Theirs is a cognitive-behavioral approach that can have utility for this group of individuals. I applaud their efforts to provide something systematic and practical for family members.

Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.

Family-Centred Assessment and Intervention in Pediatric Rehabilitation analyzes the effectiveness of Family-Centred Services (FCS) for children with disabilities or chronic illnesses. This text provides you with the exact definition of FCS and offers proof that parent involvement in children's treatment greatly enhances therapy. You can use the suggestions and methods to integrate parents into therapy, maximizing the family's intervention experiences and making your work more successful and effective. Many clinicians agree that families play a crucial part in deciding what intervention strategies are best for their children. From this text, you will learn that listening to parents and valuing parental input will give you insight into the goals, needs, and ambitions families have for their children. This enables you to choose, with the parent, the interventions that best suit your patients’needs and the needs of their families. In addition to information on how to integrate parents and families into intervention, Family-Centred Assessment and Intervention in Pediatric Rehabilitation offers suggestions that will improve your existing FCS or help you implement a family- centred approach, including: performing therapy in natural settings, such as school or home, to make changes in the children's social and physical environments acknowledging the grieving and adaptation process of families while being compassionate and understanding letting parents describe what they would like their child to be able to do and accomplish in the future putting the parents’concerns and requests first, enabling parents to deal with caring for their child supporting parents and reinforcing them when they have innovative and helpful ideas informing parents on the progress of their children and educating parents on methodologies and strategies used in FCS Many of the suggestions derived from the analysis of current data and original research in Family-Centred Assessment and Intervention in Pediatric Rehabilitation have immediate clinical applicability, allowing you to quickly adapt methods into your intervention processes. This text also provides you with information on types of evaluative methods, such as Measure of Processes of Care (MPOC) and Family-Centred Program Rating Scale (Fam PRS), that will help you determine if your FCS program is working efficiently. Emphasizing the goal of parent interaction in FCS services, Family-Centred Assessment and Intervention in Pediatric Rehabilitation offers methods that will improve your work with families and patients, making services more beneficial and relevant to the child and to their families.

Volume numbers determined from Scope of the guidelines, p. 12-13.

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/