{"id":495,"date":"2019-01-24T15:43:56","date_gmt":"2019-01-24T15:43:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/news\/promoting-a-think-carer-approach-in-health-and-social-care-services\/"},"modified":"2020-02-18T16:21:47","modified_gmt":"2020-02-18T16:21:47","slug":"think-carer-health-social-care-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/neurology\/think-carer-health-social-care-services\/","title":{"rendered":"Promoting a \u2018Think Carer\u2019 approach in health and social care services"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div style=\"background-color:#f2f2f2;color:#32373c\" class=\"wp-block-atomic-blocks-ab-profile-box round ab-has-avatar ab-font-size-14 ab-block-profile ab-profile-columns\"><div class=\"ab-profile-column ab-profile-avatar-wrap\"><div class=\"ab-profile-image-wrap\"><figure class=\"ab-profile-image-square\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"ab-profile-avatar wp-image-998\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com\/cdn-site.mediaplanet.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/94\/2019\/01\/07211742\/Psychology-Sin%C3%A9ad-McGillo.jpg\" \/><\/figure><\/div><\/div><div class=\"ab-profile-column ab-profile-content-wrap\"><h2 class=\"ab-profile-name\" style=\"color:#32373c\"><strong>Professor Sinead McGilloway<\/strong><br \/><\/h2><p class=\"ab-profile-title\" style=\"color:#32373c\">Centre for Mental Health and Community Research, Maynooth University Department of Psychology and Social Sciences Institute<\/p><div class=\"ab-profile-text\"><\/div><ul class=\"ab-social-links\"><\/ul><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"background-color:#f2f2f2;color:#32373c\" class=\"wp-block-atomic-blocks-ab-profile-box right round ab-has-avatar ab-font-size-14 ab-block-profile ab-profile-columns\"><div class=\"ab-profile-column ab-profile-avatar-wrap\"><div class=\"ab-profile-image-wrap\"><figure class=\"ab-profile-image-square\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" class=\"ab-profile-avatar wp-image-999\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com\/cdn-site.mediaplanet.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/94\/2019\/01\/07211741\/Mary-Cronin.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com\/cdn-site.mediaplanet.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/94\/2019\/01\/07211741\/Mary-Cronin.jpg 200w, https:\/\/s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com\/cdn-site.mediaplanet.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/94\/2019\/01\/07211741\/Mary-Cronin-125x125.jpg 125w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/figure><\/div><\/div><div class=\"ab-profile-column ab-profile-content-wrap\"><h2 class=\"ab-profile-name\" style=\"color:#32373c\"><strong>Mary Cronin PhD<\/strong><br \/><\/h2><p class=\"ab-profile-title\" style=\"color:#32373c\">Centre for Mental Health and Community Research, Maynooth University Department of Psychology and Social Sciences Institute<\/p><div class=\"ab-profile-text\"><\/div><ul class=\"ab-social-links\"><\/ul><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The well-being needs of carers health continue to go unrecognised. One in five people in Ireland will be providing care to a loved one by 2030.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n\n\n\n<p>Ireland\u2019s population is ageing, which means that a growing number of people are living with dementia and other chronic conditions. People with disabilities are also living longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thus, many of our most vulnerable citizens depend heavily on the unpaid work of family carers. Through their selfless and often unrecognised work, they save the state billions of euro annually. According to the CSO Irish Health Survey, 10% of the population over 16 are carers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The caring experience<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/neurology\/dementia-care-costs-halved-by-supporting-people-to-live-at-home\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"P (opens in a new tab)\">P<\/a><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"roviding care to a loved one can be rewarding for family members, (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/neurology\/dementia-care-costs-halved-by-supporting-people-to-live-at-home\/\" target=\"_blank\">roviding care to a loved one can be rewarding for family members,<\/a> but it is not without its challenges. However, family-member carers are often not equipped to meet all of their needs (see Figure 1). Furthermore, the demands of the caring role mean that carers often have little time to look after their own health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com\/cdn-site.mediaplanet.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/94\/2019\/01\/07211827\/graph.jpg\" alt=\"carer health,\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Carers experience poorer physical and mental health than the general population; the demands of the caring role can leave them physically exhausted and emotionally isolated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Carers\u2019 wellbeing is often misunderstood<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The public regard carers highly (as exemplified by the recent \u2018<a href=\"https:\/\/familycarers.ie\/carer-of-the-year-awards-2019-launched\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Carer of the Year (opens in a new tab)\">Carer of the Year<\/a>\u2019 awards). However, many report that their communities do not typically understand, the challenges of caring and its impact on the carer. Carers are asked frequently about their loved one, but are rarely asked about their own health and wellbeing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Feeling invisible as a carer<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>On a related point, despite the carer advocacy work of organisations such as Family Carers Ireland and Care Alliance Ireland, many carers report feeling undervalued, overworked and under-supported.  Indeed \u2018invisible\u2019 is often a word they use to describe themselves and the challenging work they do.&nbsp; This invisibility of carers is likely to continue if we do not initiate a conversation about caring with all relevant stakeholders. These include health and social care professionals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Changing our policy on carers<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Recent years have seen an increasing focus on community healthcare. These have been through the development of primary care centres in many areas around the country. Thus, health services may now be better placed to support vulnerable groups in the community such as carers. However, healthcare professionals must understand carers needs, and help them with support and consultation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Thinking of the patient and the carer<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>One possible solution to this challenge would be to provide awareness-raising events and training for health care professionals regarding the needs of carers. For example, in Australia, a programme called \u2018Think Patient, Think Carer\u2019 encourages primary care services to consider the needs of carers who may be supporting a person with a chronic condition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Likewise, in England, the Royal College of General Practitioners has developed a toolkit and&nbsp; &#8216;Action Guide&#8217; to help GPs better support carers. To date, no such community health initiatives exist in Ireland to support the health and wellbeing of carers at a national level, thereby indicating a yawning gap in current provision.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The team at the Centre for Mental Health and Community Research, Maynooth University Department of Psychology, aims to address this gap in an Irish context by identifying the facilitators and barriers to the implementation of a community healthcare approach, whilst also investigating perceived carer stigma and training of health care professionals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The development of, for example, practice guidelines and training will be informed by these findings. Carers will get support in appropriate, timely and effective ways by implementing this at a national level. The early findings of this research will be available in late 2019.&nbsp; &nbsp; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The health and well-being needs of carers continue to go unrecognised: it is predicted that by 2030, one in five people in Ireland will be providing care to a loved one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":1226,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[128],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-neurology"],"acf":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com\/cdn-site.mediaplanet.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/94\/2019\/02\/07211630\/getty-rehabilitation-community-600x400.jpg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com\/cdn-site.mediaplanet.com\/app\/uploads\/sites\/94\/2019\/02\/07211630\/getty-rehabilitation-community-600x600.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"Health Awareness","author_link":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/author\/jennyhyndman\/"},"vicky_index_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4129,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495\/revisions\/4129"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthnews.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}