Behind every patient
is a caregiver, and their health should be a priority, Beth Kassab writes.
Patients in Dr. Rosemary Laird’s Winter Park office rarely walk in alone.
A board-certified geriatrician with a focus on Alzheimer’s disease and memory loss, Laird is accustomed to finding two people in each exam room — the patient and a caregiver.
“We call it two patients,” she said. “For every one older adult we take care of, there’s usually somebody else in the picture.”
That’s healthy for the patient. A spouse, an adult child or someone else to help with appointments and home care is often essential.
But what about the health of the caregiver?
That’s a need Laird would like to see addressed more often.
“I’ve been practicing in Florida for about 25 years,” she said. “It’s a sad reality. In my observation, what caregivers struggle with now, it’s very similar to 25 years ago.”
There are more general resources for caregivers today. Especially online.
But when it comes to helping a caregiver navigate the complexities of an individual’s care, specific help is often lacking.
Take the husband who recently came into her office with his wife, who has Alzheimer’s. She recently began refusing to take a shower.
The husband wanted to know: What do I do?
“How can we help him give her a shower in this new normal they are living in?” Laird said.
She worked through that with the husband. And there isn’t necessarily a Medicare box to check to describe that’s what they did during the appointment.
“But it’s a necessary part of her care,” she said.
And it’s more important than outside observers might expect for the caregiver as well.
Laird, who co-wrote “Take Your Oxygen First: Protecting Your Health and Happiness While Caring for a Loved One with Memory Loss,” says chronic stress experienced by caregivers when problems such as the shower predicament — or even more serious concerns — pile up is detrimental.
“The hormones associated with chronic stress are very negative,” she said. “It’s almost like an acceleration of aging.”
Many caregivers know they need to watch their emotional stress by taking some time away or making a point to have other activities in their life that they enjoy.
But Laird often sees caregivers who haven’t been to their primary care doctor or even a dentist in years.
“The most important thing we try to convince our caregivers of is to kind of take stock of their physical and emotional health,” she said. “If they find things that aren’t as strong, try to use this moment of learning about how stress can impact them as a caregiver to plan for some changes.”
She advises that caregivers not to try to fix every problem at once. Pick one thing a month to tackle. Maybe schedule a primary care
appointment for yourself. Or begin taking walks around the neighborhood a few times a week. Or ask for more help.
Easier said than done, right? But, practically speaking, some caregivers might have no idea where to turn for that kind of help.
This is where caregivers can use good old-fashioned consumer power.
Laird’s practice, which is part of the Florida Hospital system, offers the services of a nurse practitioner and a social worker to work with patients and their families on everything from logistical problems such as transportation to mental health.
“Consumers have more power than I think they realize in the health care setting,” she said. “I think if more of them start asking for that kind of support, then it tells us as a health care system that’s the kind of program and services we need to be providing.”
That kind of comprehensive approach can lead to the caregiver having more confidence in the care team and, ultimately, in themselves when it comes to finding answers and helping to make decisions.
“Caregivers tell me their stress is lessened when they know they have a medical team they can access and rely on to help them figure out what to do next,” Laird said.
Caregivers who don’t feel that way can and should demand more from the providers they are seeing — and be willing to go elsewhere if their needs aren’t met.