Caregiver Challenges in Care for Patients with Cognitive Disorders
Caregiving is usually considered a universal occupation. Family and professional caregivers face great challenges in providing care to patients with cognitive disorders. To family members and caregivers, having to deal with the loss of memory and related consequences on their loved ones becomes a source of psychological stress. It becomes frustrating to have an ordinary conversation between the caregiver and the patient when the cognitive impairment is severe. Frustration can lead to anger, anxiety, and aggression from the patient. Constant supervision and assistance with activities of daily living may be required leading to caregiver burden (Jhang et al., 2021). Incontinence is a common complication in dementia patients. Therefore, caregivers must anticipate and prepare for bowel care.
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Patients with cognitive disorders also exhibit challenging behaviors as a result of memory problems. Repetitive ideas or activities, paranoia, wandering, amotivation, and poor judgment are some challenging behaviors in that caregivers must exert patience and compassion when caring for these patients. Because of poor judgment and wandering, caregivers may need to provide full-time supervision for their patients with cognitive disorders (Ashrafizadeh et al., 2021). Caregivers also have to learn special communication techniques or seek these services from experts in order to communicate and interact with their patients with cognitive disorders. Due to these reasons for independence, patient autonomy is limited for this patient and the care providers (Riffin et al., 2021). The quality of life of the patient and the caregiver can also be affected (Carlozzi et al., 2018). In summary, caregiver burden leading to caregiver stress is an essential consideration that nurses must be aware of when coordinating care for these patients and their caregivers.
References
Ashrafizadeh, H., Gheibizadeh, M., Rassouli, M., Hajibabaee, F., & Rostami, S. (2021). Explain the experience of family caregivers regarding the care of Alzheimer’s patients: A qualitative study. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 699959. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.699959
Carlozzi, N. E., Sherman, C. W., Angers, K., Belanger, M. P., Austin, A. M., & Ryan, K. A. (2018). Caring for an individual with mild cognitive impairment: a qualitative perspective of health-related quality of life from caregivers. Aging & Mental Health, 22(9), 1196–1204. https://doi.org/10.1080/13607863.2017.1341468
Jhang, K.-M., Wang, W.-F., Chang, H.-F., Chang, M.-C., & Wu, H.-H. (2021). Characteristics predicting a high caregiver burden in patients with vascular cognitive impairment: Using the Apriori algorithm to delineate the caring scenario. Risk Management and Healthcare Policy, 14, 1335–1351. https://doi.org/10.2147/RMHP.S297204
Riffin, C., Wolff, J. L., Butterworth, J., Adelman, R. D., & Pillemer, K. A. (2021). Challenges and approaches to involving family caregivers in primary care. Patient Education and Counseling, 104(7), 1644–1651. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2020.11.031
5. Identify the difficulties caregivers (both family and professional) may face when working
with clients who have cognitive disorders.
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