ALZHEIMER'S: CAREGIVERS... BEWARE THE BURNOUT
Patience is a virtue some caregivers have trouble keeping
Do you ever lose patience with the person you're caring for? Does frustration ever lead you to a screaming fit? You're not alone. More than half (52%) of the family caregivers in a British survey acknowledged such incidents, and nearly 34% admitted "significant" abusive behavior. Almost all of the caregivers surveyed lived with a relative who suffered from dementia.
Screaming or yelling at the person was the most frequent form of abuse (reported by 26% of the caregivers). Another 18% admitted insulting or swearing at the person, and 4% threatened to send the person to a nursing home. Three of the 220 caregivers said they acted out physically.
The results indicate "the extreme difficulty of caring for persons with dementia," says study author Claudia Cooper, MD, a psychiatrist with the government's Medical Research Council. "Mostly, people said they wished it hadn't happened." She added, "People with dementia can act aggressively. They [the caregivers] were reacting to being the subject of aggression or being in a difficult situation." The study, published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), is available online.
In the U.S., the Alzheimer's Association is reaching out to stressed, out caregivers. "One of our messages is that people can't do this alone," said Beth A. Kallmyer, director of client services. "Alzheimer's is a progressive disease, so the ability of the person being cared for diminishes with time. That creates great stress."
The Alzheimer's Association has a 24-hour telephone caregiver helpline (800-272-3900) that will connect callers to a live counselor-not an automated menu or recording-who can give you on-the-spot advice about an immediate problem as well as suggest appropriate resources.
The association also offers a caregiver stress quiz on its website (www.alz.org/stresscheck).
Although it is geared specifically to Alzheimer's Disease, it should help any family caregiver identify pressure points, and it steers you to specific brochures and tools for coping. "We want [caregivers] to reach out," Kallmyer says, "because if they don't reach out, they get burned out."