SAN ANTONIO – UT Health San Antonio School of Nursing is hosting a caregiver skills training workshop and virtual dementia tour.
The five-hour training is designed to be interactive, so that caregivers can get their questions addressed.
“Caregivers learn about home safety, how to transfer someone as they are less able to mobilize on their own,” Dr. Carole White, professor at the School of Nursing at UT Health San Antonio said.
The workshops started in January 2018. Caregivers receive hands-on training from health professionals. White said caregivers are doing more than in generations before.
“Giving managing complex medication regimes, giving injections, things they never did in the past and they take this on without any training,” White said.
White said the demographics of caregivers are also changing.
“So on average caregivers are around 60 years old, through about 65 to 70 percent female. Still, it used to be higher, but more men are taking on the role,” White said.
White began studying how to help caregivers after seeing the effects in her own life.
“Our neighbor was looking for help because his wife had early-onset Alzheimer’s disease which was hardly known then, but when I saw his distress and his stress in terms of how he was going to care for his wife, as a young nurse that really picked my interest in family caregiving,” White said.
White said through these workshops, caregivers gain confidence in their role and decrease the chance of their own diagnoses like depression and anxiety.
“Is to prepare caregivers to safely manage the caregiving role,” White said.
If you want to attend any of the workshops, you must register. To learn more about the workshops, click here. To learn more about their programs, click here.