Should a Depressed Caregiver Care for An Alzheimers Family Member

If you are  a care manager assessing  a caregiver you should also do a functional assessment of the care receiver. This will measure the caregiver’s burden. This should be done to find out whether the caregiver could carry out the tasks that must be done to functionally care for the care recipient.

These tasks are ADL’s IADL’s, medication management. By identifying the care receiver’s health status and problems and then, through functional assessment, finding the functional skills needed in the caregiver’s job, the care manager can see if the caregiver’s abilities match the tasks.

For example if a caregiver reports during a family caregiver assessment that she has a bad back and is seeing the physician for this and the care receiver now  needs to be lifted the tasks and the caregiver’s health abilities do not match. The solution for  the care manager may be suggesting  additional paid caregiver’s or placement.

The care manager should also assess the cognitive status of the care receiver to find out if the care recipient has memory loss, Alzheimers ,dementia, behavior problems or a  mental health diagnosis.

This will also tell the care manager what mental health needs the care receiver has compared to the ability of the caregiver to render that care. For example, if a caregiver is given a Geriatric Depression Scale score s as very depressed herself this may be a barrier to caring for a dementia patient. The care manager might consider the care receiver seeing her own physician to evaluate for medication and bringing in other family supports as in the case of Ms. Handy.