Caring for the Caregivers

A traumatic brain injury (TBI) not only affects the single patient, but has a rippling effect on their family as well.  Parents, spouses or other close family members take on a new role as caregivers. These quick life changes affect the TBI patient’s physically, socially and emotionally and also the caregivers social and emotional state as well. Many times caregivers jump into action acting promptly to give care to the patient without the time to process the event efficiently.  This can manifest as a loss of self-care, and emergence of depression, sleep disorders and anxiety.  50% of caregivers report medium or high caregiver burden (1).  As a result, not only TBI patients but also TBI caregivers can benefit from psychological counselling.

Caregivers experience burden as an increased emotional strain, isolation and disappointment.  Caregivers with less of a social support network have higher levels of isolation and disappointment. Spouse caregivers experience larger feelings of isolation compared to parental caregivers. Caregiver burden increases with lower level of TBI patient functioning. The TBI patient’s symptoms can have a dramatic effect on family members. There is an ambiguous loss where the patient is present of parts of the person are perceived as missing. It is complex since the TBI patient’s symptoms temporarily flux providing false hope and confusion in the caregivers. This is a special kind of mourning for the caregivers, a loss of previous life plans, hopes and desires (2).

To deal with caregiver burden and grief, psychological counselling has been shown to help caregiver’s manage. It can address changing familial roles, communication and with general relationship issues that often arise as a result of TBI. It can help validate the feelings of the caregiver. Counselling can also provide training in stress-management techniques, and the development of effective coping strategies.  It can also assist caregivers in maximizing their social support. Helping caregivers learn to manage their own emotions and to reduce stress in their daily life can be equally as important as training them to manage problems with the TBI patient (3).

By also caring for the caregivers, we extend further care to the TBI patients to ensure that caregivers are in the best position to provide support.  The social and emotional effects caused by traumatic brain injury can be mitigated through support and understanding.