PART 1: REHABILITATION OUTSIDE THE PATIENT

That is the primary post in our mini-blog series specializing in the challenges of caring for somebody with aphasia.

As a speech therapist, I devote most of my attention to mine PATIENTS with aphasia… are developing and always adapting their treatment programs, trying to seek out latest approaches that may help them regain communication skills. But I also attempt to spend time educating and supporting CARERS my patients… husbands and wives, daughters and sons, and even moms and dads who’ve taken on this extra “caring” role. Nevertheless, by the tip of this text it would change into obvious that the role “protective” accepts plenty of work and responsibilitieslots of that are unexpected and unplanned. I feel it is crucial to acknowledge this, especially as a clinician working with individuals with aphasia, which further supports our commitments to be there for our caregivers as we’re for our patients.

What can we as speech therapists do to support our caregivers?

Once we first meet an individual affected by aphasia, we ask him (the patient) and the caregiver what the person with aphasia desires to work on – what his goals are by way of improving communication related to speaking, understanding, reading and writing. Why don’t we ask our caregivers what their goals are? Not their goals for improving their loved one’s communication, but what they’re your goals as a caregiver? What do they need or need and the way can we, as SLPs, help them get there? support them on this difficult journey?

Tami Howe and colleagues (2012) took a better take a look at this. They interviewed 48 relations to discover the goals they wanted to realize through aphasia rehabilitation. Once they gathered this information, 7 different categories revealedand I feel we should always take the time to further explore and consider them when meeting the needs of our aphasia patients. The patient shouldn’t be the one one that needs it support, treatment, strategies…our caregivers need it tools to allow them to move forward, to care for them yourself and the one you love.

These 7 categories might be further explored and discussed in a future blog on this series. In the following section, we are going to discuss the emotional turmoil of being a caregiver and the perspectives of wives caring for family members with aphasia.