On Monday, the multidisciplinary day care team hosted a day dedicated to caregivers: the opportunity to explore the repercussions of the illness on those who support them.
The itinerant day center in Saint-Fargeau, Charny and Champcevrais dedicated a day to caregivers on Monday at the Saint-Fargeau nursing home. Led by its multidisciplinary team – Emmanuelle Voillequin, neuropsychologist, Karine Beauhaire, dietician, and Fanny Dourthe, occupational therapist – the day aimed to offer “better knowledge of neuro-progressive diseases and their repercussions on daily life”. Through two conferences during which we could exchange ideas, obtain concrete answers to specific questions as well as advice for ourselves as well as for the loved ones we support. “I hope, I think, that the caregivers will leave more serene,” said Charlotte Martaud, who supervises the ADJ.
The morning conference-exchange, which was entitled “Understanding Alzheimer’s disease”, proposed to address the symptoms and diagnosis of the disease, and to identify the role of the caregiver. The afternoon conference explored “The disease in everyday life”: its repercussions on the acts of life, solutions for the caregiver.
“The other before oneself”
Around the table, around ten participants, who accompany a husband or a mother, spoke confidently about their difficulties and shared their experiences. “We always put the other first. I don’t do anything anymore. We live in isolation, in a separate world, on another planet, explained one of them. The only time I unwind is in the evening, around 8 p.m. There, after going to bed, I blow…”
The speakers insisted on the need to know one’s own limits, to listen to oneself to detect signs of exhaustion, to seek external help (personal services, occasional on-call care), between others. Specifying in particular: “Somewhere, we are obliged to mourn the person, who is no longer the same, to build something new”.
A second caregiver day should be organized this fall.
