Content area
Full Text
Felt responsibility and emotional doseness have been experienced by over 1 million caregivers as they tend to the nation's wounded military Veterans since September 11, 2001. Their role is proving difficult, especially when the Veteran's response includes invisible behavioral war wounds that impact the caregiver's biopsychosocial health.
Since September 11, 2001, more than 2.7 million American service members have been deployed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (Watson Institute, Brown University, 2016). During more than 15 years of war, the nation achieved exceptional, unmatched survival rates for military members using new protective equipment, inter-service collaboration, and technological advances as part of focused pre-hospital, hospital, and evacuation care (Baker, 2014; Mabry & DeLorenzo, 2014). However, more unseen costs of war are being realized (Tanielian et al., 2013). For large numbers of Veterans with complex injuries, their lives will continue to be disrupted; many will need to receive care for the rest of their lives, thrusting family and friends into unfamiliar support roles. Concerns of the Veteran caregiver, who differs markedly from traditional caregivers before September 11, are discussed in this article (Tanielian et al., 2013). Phrases throughout the article represent actual thoughts of a variety of caregivers with whom the authors have worked with in nursing practice.
Caregiving
Needed care is provided ideally as independently as possible, usually by family and friends, and within a home setting rather than an institution (Tanielian et al., 2013). A caregiver provides attentive time to others who are unable to care for themselves (Eifert, Adams, Dudley, & Perko, 2015). Routine activities of daily living provided by the caregiver most often include feeding, toileting, bathing, grooming, dressing, mobility, wound care, and medication management (Hunt & Reinhard, 2015). Instrumental activities of daily living are more complex skills, such as financial management, transportation, shopping, meal and medication preparation, housework, and basic home maintenance (Tanielian et al., 2013). Additional complex tasks among caregiving responsibilities now include ventilator care, suctioning, gastrostomy feedings, catheter and/or colostomy care, and sophisticated medication administration procedures to ease pain and/or prolong life (Van Houstven et al., 2012/2013). Caregiver effort often is related directly to the Veteran's dependence.
Distance Caregivers
Among traditional caregivers, long-distance caregivers (15%) live more than 1 hour away from aging parents who need help (Wynn,...