Debra Kleesattel, Ph.D., is the
Director of Operations for Humana Cares.
Humana Cares, a national division of
Humana, Inc., provides integrated
complex and chronic care management
programs for nearly 125,000 Humana
members across the country. Before
her present role, she was the Field Care
Manager Coach for Green Ribbon Health, a
Medicare Health Support pilot project.
Before joining Green Ribbon Health, she
was the Family Caregiver Resource
Specialist for the National Family
Caregiver Support Program at the Area
Agency on Aging in Rocky Mount, North
Carolina.
Editor-in-Chief Gary Barg spoke with Dr.
Kleesattel about the challenges of
self-identification for caregivers,
partnering with your loved one’s
healthcare team and the importance of
self-care for caregivers.
Gary Barg:
How would you suggest that a
caregiver could best partner with
their loved one’s care management
team?
Dr. Debra Kleesattel:
Caregiving happens on such a
continuum and what oftentimes
happens, because that caregiver does
not do what we call
self-identification, they do not see
themselves as caregivers. They
see themselves as doing what
everybody would do for their loved
one.
So recognizing early on in the
process of starting to provide care
for someone, I think having that
open and honest dialogue and
communication about boy, I am seeing
some changes happening here and
maybe some assistance I am
providing, so let us talk about
that. Doing that early in the
process is so important. Once that
caregiving role continues to grow,
when you are at the point where you
really want to be asking for some
help and some assistance through
informal or formal support, you
already have started that dialogue.
It does not feel as foreign and
is not so daunting to think about
finally needing some help. Beginning
that dialogue and being open and
honest in the communication, with
both informal and formal support,
early on in the caregiving process
is key.
Gary Barg:
Yes. I think you hit the nail
right on the head. According
to our friends at the National
Family Caregivers Association, the
greatest challenge of supporting
family caregivers is
self-identification. I
am not a caregiver. I am just
a loving daughter or I am just
working 40 hours a week and helping
Mom 60 hours a week and not caring
for myself and falling apart, but I
am not a caregiver. So that
key, that partnership that you are
talking about, makes so much sense
to us.
Dr. Debra Kleesattel:
Yes, but I think for us, the care
team that we put together to assist
our members, we make sure the nurses
and the social workers are on the
lookout for those key indicators
that a member is in a caregiving
situation. Then, we can start early
on in that process talking about
some opportunities, some challenges
they may be facing. Again it is
opening that dialogue as early as
possible.
Gary Barg: I
think that is extremely smart.
Over the last few years, as well as
hosting the Fearless Caregiver
Conferences in the urban, more
populous settings, we have been
going around the country hosting
them in more rural or frontier city
settings. That has just been
wonderful. I have so enjoyed
that. What kind of advice or
support do you have for rural
caregivers?
Dr. Debra Kleesattel:
Of course, it is easy
to say and often hard to do:
take care of yourself first.
If you are someone who is providing
care for a loved one, your spouse of
30 or 40 years who is living with
Alzheimer ’s disease, and you are
living with diabetes, the last thing
you care about is your own blood
sugar level. You want to be
providing the care that you can to
your loved one. We want to help
caregivers understand that they can
only be as good a caregiver for
their loved one as their own health
will allow.
So whether or not that means
making sure that they are keeping up
with their doctors’ appointments as
well as those of their loved ones,
exercising and eating healthy, it is
easy to say. But it is something
that really does need to be
addressed. Helping the caregiver
understand how important that is, I
think, is vital. Also, too, is
asking for help. It is so easy to
say you should know when to ask for
help or ask for help early, but we
really need to identify some key
points where caregivers can get some
help.
Maybe they need respite so they
are able to go get their diabetic
supplies to test their blood sugar,
or maybe they need somebody to come
to assist with some household
chores. We need to point out some
potential areas where both informal
and formal support can help them and
that they should not be afraid to
ask for that help. Educating
themselves is important as well if
they are able and willing to ask
health professionals or their doctor
about the disease or condition their
loved one is living with.
Sometimes that information can be
really powerful. National
organizations like the Alzheimer’s
Association or the American Diabetes
Association are also great places to
get information related to the
conditions their loved one is living
with.
