Spirited, Safe and Strong Superheroes

Caregiver safety is too often overlooked; we should pay more attention to it. The physical, emotional, mental and spiritual demands of caring for a loved one with a complex illness are immeasurable. Yet 43 million adults in the U.S. rise each morning and gracefully take on the role of family caregiver. They prepare meals, manage medication and finances, do laundry and housekeeping, orchestrate a schedule of medical appointments and advocate for their loved one. To continue to do this important work, caregivers must care for themselves and even allow others to care for them once in a while.

Christina Bach, MSW, LCSW, OSW-C offers tips and strategies to maintain caregiver safety and resiliency in this article. For a reminder of why rest and respite for caregivers is so important, consider these ‘thoughts for the road-weary cancer caregiver.’ Finally caregivers, in the words of a boy named Christopher Robin to his dear friend Winnie the Pooh, “You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”

Caregivers need and deserve support. What they don’t need is added anxiety and uncertainty from untested Medicare payment models that could jeopardize patient access to care close to home, increase patients’ out of pocket costs, undermine personalized patient treatment plans and burden family caregivers. Join with Patients and Providers United in telling policymakers to keep patients, providers and caregivers at the center of medical decision making.