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
How to Prepare for Taking Care of Chronically Ill Children
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