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Abstract
Despite modern society's advancement in health care, family members remain the primary long term caregivers of individuals with chronic disease and disability. Recently, there has been growing interest in difficulties families experience providing care for a person with a brain injury. Because family members play a critical role in the long-term neurorehabilitation, reducing family members' careburden is very important for a patient as well as their family members. Therefore, understanding about family issues in neurorehabilitaiotn is necessary for health professionals who meet and treat them. This study investigated what is the most common issue which family members of neurorehabilitation patients, using the checklist about difficulties of family experience after a brain injury. The family members of 111 neurorehabilitation inpatients reported their experience about difficulties of caring patients. Five major family issues in neurorehabilitation are needs of clear explanation of the patient's condition and prognosis, financial problem, fear of recurrence, needs of information about social services and needs of information about community resource. Social isolation, frustration due to decreased personal time, increased stress and decreased quality of life, patient's poor motivation of treatment, patient's changed personality, adjustment problem after discharged from hospital are also family concerned about. Interventions designed to meet family caregivers' needs in these issues should be implemented. Recommendations for family support services are offered.
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References
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