Caregiver Community

  • Caregiver Community
    2310 member(s)

    A place where Caregivers come together to share common experiences, challenges,and resources. 

    Caregivers are truly experts in patient management and can help each other because of their intensive experience in patient care at home. Caregivers can ask questions to others on this forum going through a similar caregiving experiences. They can start topics and discuss things like ways to manage daily tasks, where to find doctors, nurses, and other health services, how they manage stress, and any other topics related to caring for their loved one and for themselves. It is a great place for Caregivers to come and chat about the issues that affect them on a day to day basis and take time to focus on their own needs and health.

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  • An elderly and spectacled couple Mr Pranab Basu in a blue striped shirt with his wife in an orange blouse and a cream sari
    Palliative Treatment Ensures Good Quality of Life
    Mr Pranab Kumar Basu shares his experience of being the sole caregiver of his wife, who had metastastic colon cancer, and how he succeeded in keeping her mentally strong and cheerful till the end. I have been the sole caregiver for my wife who was suffering from cancer. My wife was under the treatment at the Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, from July, 2015. She battled for nearly 2 years and 6 months. She finally succumbed to it in October 2017. She was a victim of metastatic colon cancer. The…
  • Stock pic of a young woman supporting a young man in distress
    An Unshakeable Pillar of Support For Person With Mental Illness
    Mala (not her real name) has been the primary caregiver for her brother Ram (not his real name) who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia for more than 15 years. Indra Venkatram writes about the challenges Mala faced as a sole caregiver in Singapore. About Ram Ram was a very bright and intelligent boy who did very well in school, studying in top secondary and junior college and also topping his cohort in his overseas university.  He was the pride of his family and had great plans for his…
  • Jyotsna in a blue dress against a bright background of yellow, gree and red
    Co-existence of Caregiving and Nourishing Oneself
    Jyotsna Kumar talks about her caregiving roles - as a mother of daughter with Cerebral Palsy and as a daughter. With a timely reminder on the importance to look after oneself to avoid burnout and also to increase the quality of caregiving. When I became a mother of a child with disabilities (spastic diplegia, commonly known as cerebral palsy), my life changed drastically. It was an upheaval of all kinds - emotional, physical, mental and financial. The life I knew prior to her birth…
  • Facing Mortality To Seize Control of Living
    Dr. Divya Parashar, head of the Department of Rehabilitation Psychology at the Indian Spinal Injuries Centre, New Delhi, weaves in her personal experience with that of a patient to emphasise the need to talk about quality of life choices and why story endings still matter.  "Hi Doctor, I wanted to speak to you about my father if you have a minute.”  And in walked Rohit (name changed), conversations with whom led me to assess my own beliefs and practices about medicine and what we as…
  • Tanmay is a young adult on the autism spectrum and is wearing a black tshirt and a hat and sunglasses and sitting outdoors on a green chair
    Managing the Double A - Autism and Adolescence
    An autism dad’s honest story of managing adoloescence and puberty with a positive attitude. Journalist Bhanu Pande shares his experience of pro-actively preparing himself and his son for growth spurts and physical urges to raise him into a responsible and independent person.  #FathersDay It’s hard to be an autism dad. And there’s no getting around it. I had turned reclusive during our early days as a newbie, in autism land. Let alone my interaction with my friends going through…
  • A couple, a woman on a wheel chair with a man standing attentively next to her, both looking into the woods with the sun streaming through
    We Lost the Soul of Our Family to Cancer
    It has been almost three years since his wife passed away, but the void is hard to reconcile. In an emotional piece, Mario recounts the day when his wife Cheryl was diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer, and how family and friends rallied together to make her comfortable and happy in her last days. I first met my wife around Oct 84 in a church in Lucknow and after wooing her to hell and back married her in Oct 85. As a family we had our ups and downs but I daresay we had a beautiful…
  • Dietician Navnidhi Vyas playing the game with waiting families of the patient
    A Game Which Engages and Educates
    Have you wondered if the waiting time at a hospital can be used effectively? Navnidhi Vyas, Senior dietician at Sterling Hospital, Vadodara came up with an engaging twist to the Snakes and Ladders Game to explain a healthy diet structure. And three easy to follow healthy recipes. Diet Snakes and Ladders Game Purpose - To refresh and more importantly educate patient’s relatives about healthy dietary practices in their free time, specially when they are waiting in the hospital for their relatives…
  • Narrative Therapy and Its Benefits To Families
    Raviraj Shetty, a lead Therapist, Supervisor and Project Manager at Ummeed Child Development Center talks about his work using Narrative Psychology. He has published a paper in the Indian Journal of Occupational Therapy in the context of handwriting training using Narrative Therapy.  1. What is Narrative psychology? Narrative therapy is a respectful and a non-blaming approach of counselling used for children, individuals, families, couples and communities. Narrative therapy is based…
  • A caregiver in a white dress does an activity with an elderly person with dementia in red and grey
    Memory Stickers for Moderate Middle Stage Dementia
    People with moderate stage dementia can continue to perform their regular daily activities with a little bit of support. Social worker Mangala Joglekar, who runs several programs for the dementia community and has set-up the Memory Clinic in Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital, Pune, shares 5 examples of coping strategies for better living. And Advice for Caregivers. Moderate stage dementia could be said to start when cognitive inabilities can no longer be hidden. It is considered as the longest…
  • Image indicates a caregiver holding the hand of an older person
    Life Lesson I Learnt Watching my Papa Die
    We prepare ourselves for everything, but most of us are in denial about death. Aparna Das shares the one final lesson her father taught her during his last few days as he breathed his last. My father was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer in October 2017. Of course, he and all of us did everything in our capacity to save him. But he passed away on the 20th of April 2018. The three days leading to his death were probably the most painful that our family had faced collectively. But I have a…
Patient not discharged from ICU despite repeated requests
In the last couple of weeks, I have heard of two different cases in India where the hospital kept a patient in ICU on life support for weeks on end. In one case, even after the family asked for the patient to be transferred to a normal room, the…
Counsellor in Ahmedabad
Query from a caregiver Does anyone know a counsellor in Ahmedabad who can go to a patient's home. Patient has had a couple of strokes and even though there is no paralysis believes he is paralysed and does not use his limbs and keeps falling.…
Walking with quad cane assistance
Here is a question from one of our members: My father is 89. He used to walk regularly twice a day and used a simple walking cane. But now he has had a few falls. Doctor says he must use a cane with 4 legs(quad cane) but he refuses to do that. Now…
A family torn apart by illness
When treatment started failing 66 year old Siew Ching, the family became divided into different camps. Some wanted her to stay in hospital so that she could receive maximal supportive care. Others wanted her to be discharged so she could go…
My 95 year old father
My 95 year old father lives with my sister. She takes very good care of him. Normally he is fine. Can manage most daily activities with some help. But he is sometimes very paranoid about domestic helpers coming into his room and trying to harm him…
Tips for Caregivers
We found a great list of tips (in the link below) to help ease the challenges of being a caregiver and help caregivers with self-care - take a look at this list and share with us if you have ever used any of these and how! The tips include:…
Sleep - A big challenge for Caregivers
A lack of sleep or feeling tired is one of the biggest challenges that Caregivers face. Often times we have to wake up at night to check on our loved one, or we have trouble falling asleep because our mind is preoccupied. What are some of your…
How do you ask for help?
As Caregivers we often take on a lot and can get exhausted. It is important to learn how to ask for help - maybe other family members, friends, or neighbors can help take on some tasks and make life a little easier for the Caregiver. For many of us…
Restlessness in semi mobile senior
My MIL is a little bit over weight @ 94, and is able to walk only with a walker very slowly.She is addicted to watching TV whether she understands anything or not, but cannot sit for a long time. WE give her TV time, once a day for 2 hours. For…
Sharing Caregiving Duties Among Siblings or Family
I recently came across a great article that spoke about the importance of sharing caregiving duties among family or siblings. Often, the caregving duties falls upon one sibling or family member, and  this can cause resentment or…

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