CAREGIVER

Caregiver

Caregiver

Introduction

Aim of the assignment

The main aim of this research study is to determine the relation between care givers and patients suffering with Traumatic Brain Injury. This paper will take help and guidance from previous researches and will try to relate work with the topic. The topic i.e. traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a significant cause of lifelong disability. Each year in developed countries, 1-2 people out of 1,000 require hospitalization as a result of TBI. The care needs of adults with TBI differ from the needs of elderly nursing home residents, posing a challenge to caregivers. One of the most frequently reported difficulties is problem behaviour, including verbal or physical aggression, wandering, self-injury, sexually inappropriate behaviours, and resistance or non-compliance to care. These behaviours may relate to fatigue, impaired language skills, disinheriting, impulsivity, poor anger control, and cognitive deficits affecting attention, memory, information processing, reasoning, initiation, or self-awareness. Because home environments lack age-appropriate and personally meaningful activities, adults with TBI may experience loneliness, boredom, frustration, and social and family isolation, which exacerbate problem behaviours (Wells, 2005).

Why should research be scrutinised or evaluated?

This research presents an issue which exists from quite a time but has not been taken significantly into consideration. Care givers play a crucial role in helping a brain traumatic injured patient to recover quickly. This study tries to help relate the care giver support that is given to patients suffering injury. It is important to recognize that factors other than TBI may be responsible for alterations in mental state at the time of the injury (e.g., pain, posttraumatic shock, medication, alcohol intoxication/abuse, and/or recreational drug use). However, these confounders may be associated with well documented TBI and present particular diagnostic challenges with mild TBI (where the evidence of TBI may be subtle). Consequently, the presence of these confounding factors should not preclude the diagnosis of TBI; however, careful clinical review may need to be used before assigning a given set of clinical findings as being caused by TBI in such settings. Similarly, focal motor deficits caused by spinal, plexus, or other peripheral nerve injury may provide an alternative cause of focal neurological deficit. This may be a less common confound, unless the level of consciousness is decreased, but must still be considered before a robust diagnosis of TBI is possible.

Behavioural care giving refers to use of strategies or interventions, including medication, aimed at reducing or eliminating challenging behaviours and improving the safety and well-being of individuals and their caregivers (Livingston & Gary, 2010). Many behavioural interventions are effective for individuals with dementia, a large population in homes. However, these interventions may not be successful for individuals with TBI, despite symptoms such as memory impairment and agitation appearing similar between individuals with TBI and individuals with dementia. For example, reminiscence therapy and validation therapy are based on the understanding that the well-being of people with dementia, who have little capacity to learn, can be enhanced by focusing on their memories and not confronting their disorientation to the ...