Name: Introduction to Family Caregiving
Uploaded: 2016-12-02T09:46:15.000Z
Duration: 12 min 24 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Caregiving is support of any patient through their cancer journey.

Modal verbs - A2

It can be a family member, it can be a friend, it can be someone that you live with, it can

But someone who acts as a support system for a patient with cancer.

And that support system can be anything from going to visits to the doctor, supporting

It can be someone who maybe lives far away and arranges for transport for patients.

It may be someone who's helping you with finances.

So it's a huge definition that really encompasses sort of all that you are as a patient, right,

it can be the most immediate needs to sort of the most existential ones, the things that

I can focus on what my experience is from my perch as the founder of Men Against Breast

When we have our workshops, I'm dealing primarily with a male caregiver, and, in most cases,

it's a husband, but it's also a significant other, a boyfriend.

In my case, my mom's a 23-year survivor, and my brother and I were there for her, as was

So I can come at it as a male caregiver who was there in the here and now.

And that primary role, again, is to figure out what I need to do so she knows that I'm

going to be there with her every step of the way, and that's what matters.

I believe that caregiving is working together to support not only the patient but

to support each other in this very stressful time.

My husband was 58 years old when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

He lived for 27 months, we had young adult children, three adult children, and during

that time the four of us worked together as I say to support each other, which was also

Ideally caregiving should be a team effort.

And there should be more than one caregiver.

So, that for instance even if there is a primary caregiver there are others, relatives, friends,

The best way to do that is offer some very concrete help or assistance.

For instance say I can come over from 5-8 on Thursday afternoons why don't you take

Or I can go and pick up the kids on Monday or Tuesday afternoons and give you a break

So, to be very specific in the offer of what it is that you can bring, and give that family

caregiver some physical time to be away, to take a break or perhaps to just think about

The relationship between a patient and caregiver is one that is based on love and caring, but

is one that's certainly dynamic over time, things change.

There may be days when you feel like talking a lot and other days that you don't.

And it's just nice to have someone there listening quietly.

Probably the best tip I can give to patients and their caregivers is to be honest, to be

respectful, to give each other a little bit of space.

It's important that you both have some privacy in what is a very close relationship.

So it may be that the patient has been the mother and has been someone who is taking

care of everyone around her and then suddenly she's ill and the caregiver stepped into that

So understanding what that means to the patient that you're helping, understanding what it

means to the caregiver to do that and to sort of change the relationship.

You have to determine what works best for your relationship.

You know that rhythm better than anybody else.

And that's where I get into people can't tell you what to do, because, again, what worked

for them is not necessarily going to work for you, and you've got to have a filter take

in those suggestions, but it has to be applied to your situation.

I think that caregiving can be practical, it can be emotional, it can be spiritual,

I had a group that I would send out bulletins about how Mike was doing, email bulletins.

And I would give them exactly what was happening to Mike.

And so then I could open up the computer and there would always be of course nice positive

well-wishing comments from friends and family.

And that was something that when Mike was in the mood I could read to him.

I usually tell patients to appoint a point person and that point person is usually the

caregiver or it might be someone that the caregiver appoints as the contact for friends

That person can often send emails, can give updates on conditions.

I think it's also important that they also organize all of the goodwill the most patients

feel so there are neighbors and friends that often want to do something to help patients

It usually just requires a little bit of organization.

And that person, that point person can communicate on web based applications

So,It's important that caregivers identify themselves early on to the health care team.

Certainly once that has been formally done in a HIPAA compliant way caregivers can be

the most proactive ones calling about appointments or side effects if patients don't feel well.

I'd encourage consistent early communication with health care teams so patients, caregivers

and health care providers understand each other's style.

I think that's important, and again develop that relationship over time.

Sometimes patients of mine will have their caregivers on the phone during our interviews,

so we'll do a speaker phone that they can call in, particularly if they're working or

And if part of your role as the caregiver is to go to the doctor with them, it's not

just getting in the car and driving them to the doctor, it's making sure you're able to

take notes and write down answers to the questions, making sure you take the appropriate reports,

so you have to put it in your notebook, so when you go to the next doctor.

I was one of these people that had a big notebook, when we'd go into see the doctor I had all

And one time I turned to Mike and I said does this embarrass you or does this fatigue you,

And he looked at me and he said no, it gives me courage.

And I thought he had so much courage, but if I could help that a little bit it was huge

The other thing I did is I brought a tape recorder and would tape the sessions.

And sometimes it wasn't necessary, it just wasn't necessary, but other times I actually