BRI Care Consultation

Supporting Family Caregivers

Many programs focus on the person who is ill, but BRI Care Consultation is unique because it supports the family or friend caregiver of the patient.

BRI Care Consultation helps caregivers of older loved ones in four ways:

1. Identifies family priorities during the loved one’s disease process
2. Expands the network, connecting caregivers to needed resources in the community and creating appropriate action plans to meet specific needs
3. Helps coordinate health care, community services, and family or friend support
4. Reduces stress and strain with tools and emotional support

Who Is a Caregiver?

A caregiver might not identify her- or himself as a “caregiver.” A caregiver could be a spouse, adult child, friend or family member of someone needing help through chronic disease or through an immediate medical crisis.

How Can a Caregiver Be Negatively Affected?

• Being a caregiver can take its toll on retirement plans with resources redirected or drained.
• The caregiver’s career can become difficult or even impossible to maintain as the needs at home continue to progress.
• The home budget can no longer provide for the “luxury” of personal care.
• Children attending college may lose the financial help of their parents.
• Dental or medical care for the caregiver often gets delayed while busy with the loved one’s care instead.

How Can a Caregiver Be Supported?

BRI Care Consultation simply starts with a phone call. From that moment, the person on the phone will be able to work alongside the caregiver for the next three months… or more.

Caregivers start getting solutions from Day 1 of the program. Conversations focus on the priorities of the caregiver. Do they need help talking with the physicians? Or, do they need to have a difficult conversation with the loved one they care for? What do they need to feel empowered or to gain control back in their lives again? The emotional support is priceless.

Caregivers can become emotionally drained and overcome by guilt as they secretly wish they could be set free from the exhaustive burden they find themselves dealing with. If you don’t understand this, please be sure to watch the video of a woman whose father lived with her during the last three years of his life.

The beauty of this one program is that it can connect a caregiver to many programs, depending on each individual’s needs. This is invaluable to someone who would normally have to do his or her own research and is navigating alone.

If you are giving care for someone you love, call (216) 373-1797 to see how BRI Care Consultation might be able to help you.

Please share your thoughts in the comment box below…

Have you been a caregiver before? Do you remember how stressful it was?

Do you wish you could have had a supportive program like this when you were a caregiver?

If you call BRI Care Consultation, please make a comment below about how it went!