Understanding your role
Being a caregiver may mean that you have to play many roles all at once, including being a friend, confidant, nurse and assistant. Your role as caregiver may happen gradually, over a period of time, or it can happen suddenly, if your partner or relative has a heart attack for example.
Your role will involve helping, supporting and coaching your partner or relative to help adjust their lifestyle to fit with their new life managing their heart failure. You are likely to have the largest impact on their success in working with their healthcare team and following their instructions. It’s essential that you are involved because for many people managing their heart failure, the caregiver is the most important person involved in their care. You should aim to help your partner or relative to learn and accept that the self-management side of living with heart failure is down to them whilst trying not to be over protective. Being a caregiver is about being the patient’s coach and not feeling obliged to do things. It’s about enabling the patient to self-manage.
Your role as carer may not be permanent and the help and support your partner or relative needs at the moment may get less with time.
Click on the links below to find out more about the help and support you can give your partner or relative.
