Mental health articles

Caregiver Stress Syndrome Symptoms This section is about the mental health needs of people who care for others with chronic or terminal illnesses. Most carers are women: wives, daughters, mothers, daughters-in-law. Caring is associated with stresses that can affect health. Yet carers’ health problems often go unnoticed because of the presence of a sick person in the home.The stresses of caring Caring for a sick person can have a variety of consequences for carers.
• Physical burden. When the sick person is unable to look after basic needs, such as toileting and feeding, caring requires much physical exertion.
• Emotional burden. Seeing a loved one suffer is not be easy for any carer, especially when the illness begins to get worse.
• The difficulty of dealing with symptoms of mental disorders. Caregiver Stress Syndrome Symptoms Caring for a mentally ill person poses special challenges. Three types of symptoms are especially distressing. Aggressive and agitated
behaviour can be seen in psychoses and dementias. The sick person may hit out or abuse the carer, who is only trying to help her with daily activities. Memory loss in dementia is another painful symptom for carers; it can be very distressing when the spouse you have lived with for 40 years no longer recognises you. The third symptom is suicide attempts or threats.
• Sickness in the carer. Carers can themselves suffer from health problems. In AIDS the spouse who is caring for the sick person may also be HIV positive. Many sick people are of older age and so are their carers.
• Expense. As a sickness gets chronic, expenses rise. Money for other household things, such as food, may become less.
• Loss of other activities. Carers may have to push aside their own interests and perhaps give up work.
• Loss of social contact. When someone is sick, the home environment changes so that visitors may stop coming for social visits.
• Grief. This will follow when the person who has been sick dies.

Tags: caregiver stress, stress, symptoms, syndrome