Description

Caregiving brings all sorts of challenges that call forth growth, and communication can be one of them. In today's episode, we hear about why good communication with family members and healthcare providers is so important, and often difficult for caregivers. In your role as caregiver, you have to speak up for the needs of the care receiver as well as your own. You need to think about the future and what is in everyone's best interests. This can be especially tough within families.

Highlights

• How bringing the conversation to families prior to when the caregiving starts, can be a potential growth experience for the caregiver.
• 2:27 The impacts of being a surrogate parent to a younger sibling when a child becomes a caregiver.
• 4:24 Establishing a relationship with at least one health care provider who is able to see the evolution of stress and burnout in the caregiver.
• Why it's important for the health care provider to not only deal with the patient's medical issues, but also the caregiver's feelings. It's up to the caregiver to allow themselves to be seen in that vulnerability.
• 6:15 How caregivers frame the need for more home care support and what that really means.
• Early conversations with health care providers can build continuity and provide the support needed.
• How the model of care is changing in North America to provide support for caregivers.
• The important role that caregivers play in changing the healthcare system.
• 12:46 Strategies for caregivers to be more effective at communicating to health care providers.
• Navigating the health system tops the list neck and neck with family conflict.
• Advocacy for caregivers and health system collaboration to change how the health system is working to improve it.
• How impactful it can be if caregivers are able to voice their own feelings and needs as a caregiver.
• Celebrating caregivers with Caregiver Month.

Quotes

"You have to be able to expose your own vulnerability so at least the healthcare provider can pick up on it. But you also need to be able to connect that to the provision of health care that the patient is no longer being able to receive from this exhausted caregiver." - Dave

"The family friend caregivers, who the care recipient says it is, that experience is different and distinct from the patient voice. They're not one in the same. Our work is to bring forward that voice that is unique. A family caregiver role is unique. So if you're discussing anything about that role, it's got to be that voice." - Barb

"The steep learning curve that comes with being a caregiver can really take you by surprise. Trying to get the answers and care you are looking for and figuring out how to communicate with medical staff - it's like learning a foreign language." - Jodie 

Links Mentioned In the Episode

Caregiver Month

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BC Ministry of Health - Patients as Partners Initiative

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