‘No Illusion of Forever’: A Mother and Nurse Makes Every Day Count

As a nurse in my early twenties, I worked with kids with cystic fibrosis (CF). At that time, we were just beginning to see some teens and young adults in our CF clinic. I was close to them in age, and friendships naturally developed. Some never even reached their twentieth year. I had never seen people my age die, and although as a nurse I knew this was possible and even likely because of their illness, every death was shocking to me.

It’s hard, then, for me to imagine how it must feel to have siblings with a terminal disease. It seems to me that losing just one brother or sister early in life would be devastating. What if you watched six die?

A childhood punctuated with loss.

In this month’s Reflections column, “No Illusion of Forever,” author and nurse Elizabeth Bruno shares her memories of her time with the brothers she lost to agammaglobulinemia. The earliest death was a brother who died at ten years of age; the longest living was her oldest brother, who lived to the age of thirty.

Part nurse, part mother—always remarkable.

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2018-12-06T14:38:20-05:00December 6th, 2018|family caregiving, Nursing|0 Comments
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40 Million and Counting: These Days, Every Month Is Family Caregiver Month

Family caregivers, unpaid and unsung.

Photo courtesy of AARP Public Policy Institute.

November is, among other things, the month designated as family caregiver month. These are the 40 million or so people who provide care to loved ones at home, often by themselves. This can range from the basic tasks of daily living that a loved one can no longer perform by themselves, like bathing, dressing, and eating, as well as complex nursing care involving injections, wound and ostomy care, and more.

Helping nurses help the helpers.

In this season of short days and family holidays, it seems like a good time to remind you of the free resources AJN has for nurses and for the caregivers whom you work with. We’ve developed these articles and teaching videos in a decade-long partnership with the AARP Public Policy Institute directed by Susan Reinhard, and with the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at the University of California-Davis.

Teaching videos and tip sheets to share with caregivers.

Each article covers the evidence behind what and how you should teach a caregiver on a particular topic and is associated with a video demonstrating techniques and procedures for the caregiver to follow. […]

2018-11-30T10:14:08-05:00November 30th, 2018|family caregiving, Nursing|1 Comment
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Nursing Homes: A ‘Place No One Wants to Be’

I’m on my way home from Atlanta, site of the 2018 NICHE (Nurses Improving Care for Healthsystem Elders) conference. This organization, housed at New York University-Rory Meyers College of Nursing for the last 26 years, provides education and consultation to organizations to improve the delivery of health care to older adults. It now counts over 700 member organizations in five countries and has been successful in helping facilities implement best practices for providing care to older adults.

Redesigning long-term care.

One of the speakers, Migette Kaup, PhD, from Kansas State University and an expert in designing care facilities, spoke about current efforts to redesign long-term care. She noted that traditional nursing homes, which were designed to mimic hospitals, are “a product no one wants” and a place many people would rather die than go to.

Kaup spoke about the success of the newer “household” model of long-term care, which mimics a home setting rather than a hospital. Key aspects of this model are that it centers around an open kitchen space and is made up of a dedicated staff and small group of residents who live together and implement best practices. Kaup cited successes in decreasing depression and pressure ulcers in low-risk patients, among other parameters. Of course the real goal, as we […]

2018-04-13T11:43:57-04:00April 13th, 2018|family caregiving, Nursing, nursing perspective|3 Comments
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Helping Family Caregivers with Fall Prevention in the Home

“Because mobility in later life results in positive health benefits but increases exposure to falls, many researchers and health care providers in geriatric nursing and medicine have called for ensuring safe mobility while protecting older adults from harm. It’s especially important to identify strategies that can potentially reduce the risk of fall-related injuries in older adults.This increasing focus on fall-injury prevention—in addition to fall prevention—represents a major shift in safety practice.”

(Click image to enlarge)

How can nurses best help family caregivers?

How can nurses help family caregivers identify fall risk in their family members, prevent falls, and respond to them if they occur?

According to the authors of “Preventing Falls and Fall-Related Injuries at Home“—the latest in our ongoing series of articles and videos, Supporting Family Caregivers: No Longer Home Alone—the need for better education and resources on such topics is widespread among family caregivers:

“In a national survey of caregivers who provide unpaid care to a relative or friend, 46% reported they assisted with medical and nursing tasks. Of these, 43% said such help involved the use of assistive mobility devices, such as walkers or canes. Almost half of family caregivers are also known […]

2018-01-25T10:24:11-05:00January 25th, 2018|family caregiving, family caregiving, Nursing, patient safety|0 Comments
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Family Caregivers: Nurses by Default

Caregiver guides family member using safe stair-climbing technique. Photo courtesy of AARP Public Policy Institute.

We all know how compressed hospital stays are. Patients are frequently admitted and discharged within a few days, even for what used to be “big” surgeries. We dutifully send them home with discharge instructions—sometimes, pages of them—and often have only a few minutes to go over them with whoever is taking the patient home. And in many cases, that person is not even the one who will be caring for the patient, so instructions for medications and treatments are given second-hand. And we wonder why there are so many readmissions within 30 days!

Forty million plus unpaid caregivers in the United States.

As I note in this month’s editorial, there are over 40 million unpaid caregivers in this country who are administering complex medical and nursing interventions such as ostomy and wound care,  tube feedings, injections, and tracheostomy care, in addition to taking on bathing, toileting, and other necessary care. Many of these caregivers do so without any real training. Aside from the real danger that […]

2017-12-04T12:34:59-05:00December 4th, 2017|family caregiving, Nursing|0 Comments
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Views expressed on the blog are solely those of the authors or persons quoted. They do not necessarily reflect AJN’s views or those of Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
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