Identifying Care-Giver Fatigue Study

Illnesses like Alzheimer's disease make it difficult for those who want to provide supportive care at the end of life to know what is needed. Because people with advanced dementia can no longer communicate, they cannot share their concerns. Is Uncle Bert refusing food because he is not hungry or because he's confused? Why does Grandma Ruth seem agitated, is she in pain and needs medication to relieve it, but can't tell you. As these conditions progress, they also obstruct efforts to provide emotional or spiritual comfort. How can you let Grandpa know how much his life has meant to you? How do you make peace with your mother if she no longer knows who you are? Someone who

According to Kim, Chang, Rose, & Kim (2011), care-giver burden has been defined as a multidimensional response to the negative appraisal and perceived stress resulting from the taking care of an ill individual (p. 846). More easily stated a care-giver is a person who assists another individual with one or more of their daily activities of living. A person who finds it necessary to care for a loved one suffering from dementia often finds the task daunting if not polarizing. The role of caregiver often times has a negative effect on the caregiver. These can include feelings of depression, isolation, fear and anger as well as the feelings of constant responsibility and social isolation (Kim et al., 2011).

Health caregivers are the group of people mostly at risk of developing compassion fatigue. Most of the times, compassion fatigue may be as a result of the situations the care providers encountered and the pain they feel for their patients. One of the vital element of healthcare is providing a compassionate care. Compassion is defined as being aware of other people suffering, and desire to help to them reduce the suffering (Ruysschaert, 2009). Compassion fatigue is seen as a form of burnout that affect the health care provider which manifest itself as physical, emotional, and spiritual exhaustion (Lynch & Lobo, 2012). The four major factors that can lead to compassion fatigue are, giving others too much caring and not enough care to self, unresolved past trauma, inability to control stress at work, and lack of satisfaction in the work (Ruysschaert, 2009). Compassion fatigue occurs when the caregivers are milked of their sense of wellbeing, comfort, their purpose in life, strength and all the good qualities they have. It is important for those that caring for others to also pay attention to their own needs. Taking care of your own needs means that you will be healthy and therefore be more able to care for others. The caregiver needs to be able to recognize and discuss compassion in order to avoid it.

Caregiving is a responsibility best managed with plenty of help. Being a caregiver is very hard and tough work. It is very important that caregivers are taking care of just like their patients. Many caregivers give everything they have and do not rest when they really should take time to breathe and have time for themselves. That is why there are many organizations for caregivers and their patients. These organizations are made for the caregivers to teach them to be the best that they can be at their job and also making sure that their mental state is doing well.

Each of these senior care services requires its own special touch, and in the case of dementia care, there are a variety of tips that make a caregiver's visits more effective. In addition to helping the diagnosed and their families cope with symptoms, here are some ways caregivers can work toward preserving certain skills and functions:

Compassion fatigue like any condition comes with its own assortment of signs and symptoms, subsequently making it vital to identify these signs to properly address the condition in the health care personnel suffering it. According to the website “Tend”, co-developed by a clinical psychologist/trauma specialist and a psychotherapist/compassion fatigue specialist, Dr. Partricia Fisher and Francoise Mathieu, the symptoms of compassion fatigue come in three forms, physical behavioral, and psychological. The physical signs of compassion fatigue are exhaustion, feeling tired at the beginning of a shift or “coming back to work after a weekend off and still feeling physically drained.” (Fisher and Mathieu), insomnia, susceptibility to illness, and

I like how you added information about the Wisconsin Alzheimer's Institute in the beginning. The guest speaker did an excellent job with her presentation, and your summary was very clear and concise. I think that it is great that the WIA is not only helping the person with dementia but helping their caregiver too. Many people do not know about caregivers fatigue or view it as a fault of their own. Conducting these screenings is an excellent way to educate people about caregivers fatigue, and provide support. Ensuring that the caregiver is healthy means that they can care for their loved one longer.

Compassion fatigue is a problem in caregiving professions, including nursing, and even more specifically critical care nursing. The effects can be detrimental to the nurse and to the care provided to patients. While attempting to enhance a patient’s quality of life, nurses may not even realize that their own quality of life may be at stake. (pg 17).

The caregiver would start to get stress, this can lead to mental and health problems that eventually the caregiver will become burnout, the caregiver can get impatient and unable to keep from lashing out. When the caregiver start feeling this way he or she should ask for help from other family member, friends or find an adult day care program, caregiver need to try to stay healthy and get medical attention when needed, adopt stress reduction practices, seek counseling and find a support group

The National Family Caregiver Support Program (NFCSP) was established in 2000 and “provides grants to states and territories” “to fund a range of supports that assist family and informal caregivers to care for their loved ones at home for as long as possible” (AOA, 2012). Some statistics on caregivers are that twenty-two percent of caregivers care for two individuals, while eight percent of caregivers care for three or more individuals (AOA, 2012). Interestingly almost half of all caregivers are actually over the age of fifty years old, which makes them more vulnerable to their own decline in health (AOA, 2012).

When your senior loved one needs care, it is not uncommon for loved ones to rally around and provide support. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control estimate that there are nearly 35-40 million senior caregivers in the United States. Of these caregivers, 90 percent of them are family members and loved ones. Despite our very best intentions, however, not everybody can provide all of the assistance needed for their senior loved one. In these circumstances, in-home caregivers become essential.

having to go behind those who once helped to take care of you to make sure they have

Essay 1 One theory of elder abuse causation is that caregivers resent the care giving responsibility and externalize the resentment by abusing the elderly individual. Citing course materials, thoroughly discuss several explanations for this resentment. The theories as to why this abuse happens to our elders, one of the biggest theory is that when there is an increased dependency on the caregiver by the elder, which this cause acts of violence. Research on social exchange theory indicates that the abuser’s financial dependency on the victim has also been found to be a major factor.

Every day, those who care for their elderly loved ones have to face many difficulties and challenges. This is because caregiving is a demanding job, and no individual is prepared and strong enough to handle it alone. However, because your health is vital for your senior loved one's well-being, both of you should get the right help when needed. This is the true essence of respite care, to give you temporary breaks for you to help restore your energy, relieve stress, and enhance your sense of balance.

Caregivers are the modern day unsung heroes. Everybody knows how great their contribution is in healthcare and the number of lives they have saved. Caregivers have touched a million lives from a simple “how are you?” to becoming a listener and a friend to senior patients or even to become the strength for the weak. In their simple gestures, they managed to keep one to continue