Brett Frankenberg 2nd Founder at The Institute for Quality in SeniorLiving, Greater San Diego Area participated in an interesting discussion on
Home Care and Healthcare Advocacy concerning "Why are caregiver spouses so
reluctant to hire help?
" I am paraphrasing from his discussion:”
One cannot stress enough the need for caregiver education. The problem
is many family members think they learn by watching caregivers in the
hospital.
Brett: Have you ever worked an overnight shift in a hospital with a
Senior who has dementia?
Brett If you have, I doubt you would assert that observing highly
trained professionals who care for patients in the hospital would
suffice as sufficient training.
Brett has managed home health and clinically based staff for years and
the amount of times needed to train caregivers on the most simple
activities - transfers, bathing, safety risks -blood glucose testing,
sliding scale insulin, specific diet instructions such as chopped or
puree and you get an overwhelmed caregiver pretty darn quickly.
Brett believes the biggest mistake is assuming that a caregiver is
absorbing the necessary information simply by observing the clinical
activities that take place when the patient is an inpatient. Further,
we have no idea what the baseline of the caregiver is most of the
time.
Brett: Do they have some aspect of dementia themselves to the point
they can't learn?
Do they have physical limitations that would prevent them from
performing all the activities that daily caregiving demands?
Brett
