How to Prepare for Taking Care of Chronically Ill Children A disease or an accident can happen out of the blue, catching the person off guard. During their studies, nurses are generally trained to cope up with a minor ailment, but taking care of a chronically ill child is deemed to be the most difficult task. Apart from handling the child’s physical and medical needs, the nurses need to deal with the patient’s emotional needs as well. Here are few tips that will help make the transition smooth for both of you while making the job a lot easier. Read on! Related: What to Expect when Working with a Surgical Team Start planning ahead It is important to plan well before helping small children deal with chronic diseases. Steps should be taken toward promoting the child’s physical, cognitive and psychological growth. As a nurse, you need to take small measures to encourage your patient, help them interact with other people and make them more responsible. Although children suffering from a chronic disease may have certain issues that limit their activities, it is important not to treat such patients as special cases. Tackling tough emotions As a caregiver, you need to handle tough emotions carefully and intelligently. The child you are taking care of may have mixed reactions towards the changes they are feeling at a given point in time. Therefore, you should encourage them to be vocal about their feelings. It is your responsibility to remind the child that it is not their fault and treatment is coming. Help make your patient feel comfortable, offer reassurance, and empathy. Related: How to Handle Patients Who Self-Diagnose Encourage the child The next and an important step towards taking care of chronically ill children is to encourage them to make the right decisions. Although this may feel difficult, it is important to help them make their own decisions. The patients should be made selfreliant and encouraged to make their own decisions. The nurses should work in collaboration with the parents to develop a plan for the child’s benefit. Reduce your load Taking care of a chronically ill child can turn out to be a hectic task, however by tackling the situation effectively, you can lighten your load. To start with, you need to break the problem in different, more manageable parts. If the child will be receiving treatment over
a period of time, you can plan ahead to make sure you are always around your patient to soothe them, and make administering medication easier. Talk with the child’s parents and develop a working partnership with them as their love and attention will help them recover faster. Most importantly, ask for help when you think the situation is getting out of control. Do not neglect your own health As a nurse, you have a lot of responsibilities and in the process, you often forget to take care of yourself. Caring for a person is important, but not at the cost of your own health. As a caregiver facing problems, it is important to talk them out with the patient’s family. You can only effectively offer your services if you are mentally and physically fit yourself. Therefore make sure you do not neglect your own physical and mental health, or else it will have a negative effect on you as well as the patient. Caring for yourself is an important part of being an effective nurse. Related: List of nursing organizations Please follow us on Facebook, Linkedin, Pinterest and Twitter