Giver of Care

Caregivers work in the home and help their clients with daily activities, such as bathing and bathroom functions, feeding, grooming, taking medication, and some housework.

Caregivers help clients make and keep appointments with doctors, provide or arrange transportation and serve as a companion for their clients.

A caregiver or informal caregiver is an unpaid and without formal training (in the related treatment) member of a person's social network who helps them with activities of daily living.

Care giving is most commonly used to address impairments related to old age, disability, a disease, or a mental disorder.

Typical duties of a caregiver might include taking care of someone who has a chronic illness or disease; managing medications or talking to doctors and nurses on someone’s behalf; helping to bathe or dress someone who is frail or disabled; or taking care of household chores, meals, or processes both formal and informal documentation related to health for someone who cannot do these things alone.

With an increasingly aging population in all developed societies, the role of caregiver has been increasingly recognized as an important one, both functionally and economically. Many organizations that provide support for persons with disabilities have developed various forms of support for caregivers as well.

Expand the definition a bit to include medical professionals, EMT personnel, fire fighters, police, National Guard, veterinarians, mental health professionals, lawyers, NPOs, religious congregations…. The list can go on and on. All these and more help care for others in their own unique way.

There are also the ‘volunteers’ who sign up to fold the blankets, set up the cots, serve coffee and doughnuts, play with the children, observe and listen to the pain without pay.

Then there are families. When all those who charge cannot be used or beyond reach, the family is held responsible to be the caregivers. Elderly members may not be of much help and younger members may not want to give the time or effort. Still society refers to the family as the caregivers.

The family plans the hospital or hospice stays. The family confers with the doctors. The family plans and executes the funerals.

It is a wonderful human condition to want to help others. Doctors without Boarders going into harms way to try and give medical care to those without health insurance. The White Helmets who dodge the bombs and bullets to pull people from under the rubble. We all should be thankful for these good souls who go above and beyond to help strangers in trouble.

It is good we have caregivers, whether they be giving basic first aid or researching chemical solutions to viruses and diseases. If we are on the list of the health plan or begging for relief, hopefully there is someone there to give assistance.