Carers- Help for
I am reading “My Stroke Journey” by N.S.F. The story of my stroke is in “recovery from stroke” In short, I have a wobbly left leg and near to useless upper left limb, which makes me one handed.
From this base, I assert that stroke people in a similar position see stroke recovery in three phases.
1/ Stroke unit in critical care hospital. Role. Save lives, record defects and prepare patient for transfer. To rehab hospital within 30 days, they have help from their own physios and social workers.
2/ Rehab hospital. Role, prepare patients for release, to home. Physios and O.T. are the main drivers, there are also social workers. They will arrange for private physios and O.T’s to meet patients at home with family and take over recovery duties.
3/ Home. Every stroke is different so every family has to adapt differently. The private physio and O.T’s will make the house safe and direct what the family can do to help with exercises. It is expected that out S.A.P will need help for the rest of his life. I think experience is the best teacher for the family carer.
The wife carer has a restricted lifelong job looking after her S.A.P. All possible official help should have been organized by the social worker at the rehab hospital.
The main carer will need other family members to chip in for jobs sometimes. Also there is outside help available from visiting nurses, who take over showering the S.A.P. including carer to carer exchanges.
There are a host of help avenues available in N.S.F Publications.
Angus