Recovery from an operation doesn’t happen in a vacuum: the best way to help loved ones get back on their feet is to support them physically and emotionally. Not only can families and friends play a crucial role in supporting post-surgery recovery, but they can also help patients on their road to recovery. This article addresses the topic through a practical lens, offering readers ideas for what they can do to help their loved ones during the recovery process.
The Importance of a Support System
Emotional Support
Reducing Stress: Surgery can be a scary procedure, and having a support system can reduce stress by providing reassurance and comfort.
Companionship: Patients should be helped by family and friends to fight feelings of loneliness and isolation during the recovery process.
Practical Assistance
Chores: After surgery, patients may not be able to complete regular household chores such as cooking, cleaning, and shopping. These tasks will help patients focus on recovering.
Transport: Friends and family can help with getting to medical appointments, follow-up appointments, or even grocery shopping.
Motivation and Encouragement
Support during rehabilitation: Encouragement from loved ones may motivate patients to follow rehabilitation exercises and respect recovery guidelines.
Positive Reinforcement: Celebrating milestones and progress helps maintain a positive outlook and boosts morale.
Building an Effective Support System
1. Communication and Planning
Open Dialogue
Ask Needs: Engage in conversation with the patient and talk about their needs and aspirations for support. Open communication about what the recipient expects will help in giving effective assistance.
Be clear about the boundaries: Inquire about what the patient is willing to accept in terms of support (eg, such as meals or other assistance) but set limits to ensure it isn’t intrusive.
Create a Care Plan
Do It Twice: Write down the steps involved in performing any task. Then have someone else read it back to ensure the instructions are clear and concise. Finally, orally share the instructions with a third party.
Develop an emergency preparedness plan in the event of a disaster, including a distribution of responsibilities/assignments and a contact list, and a plan should professional medical attention be required.
2. Daily Care and Assistance
Meal Preparation
Meals Nutritious: Set aside time to prepare three (3) healthy balanced meals with easily chewable food and beverages. Have patients allot dedicated hours each day to prepare meals and pack healthy foods to stay nourished and restored.
Meal Delivery Service: Arrange for meal-delivery services or assign friends or family to prepare and deliver meals.
Personal Care
Provide Assistance with Personal Hygiene: If the patient is unable to adequately perform basic hygiene tasks, such as bathing or dressing, assist with these tasks.
Wound Care: If indicated, help with wound care, e.g., changing dressings, and examining for signs of infection.
Mobility and Transportation
Provide Mobility Support: Assist with moving inside the home; use mobility aids if necessary. Make the environment safe and accessible.
Ferrying: Run errands and offer to give the patient a lift to medical appointments, physical therapy sessions, and other trips they may need to take to reduce their stress and fatigue.
3. Emotional and Social Support
Be Present
Provide companionship: spend time with the patient, talk to them, and join them in comforting activities to reduce feelings of isolation and loneliness If boredom is something to be feared, it’s understandable. Being bored is not pleasant; it can even be anxiety-provoking. When we are bored, we feel a tightness in our chest.
Listen Empathically: To support them, reflect on what you’ve heard and understand how their feelings are justified. These tactics, such as listening, empathy, and expressing unhappiness about bad things that happen, can be applied in various contexts of interpersonal relationships.
Encourage Social Interaction
Arrange Visits: Schedule visits from friends and family who can offer additional support and social interaction, but also respect the patient’s need for rest.
Facilitate communication helping the patient remain connected to their social network by phone or video chat, texting, or social media if they can and want to.
4. Rehabilitation and Recovery Support
Monitor Progress
Track Recovery: Keep track of how the patient is progressing in their recovery. Check-in with them regularly about how well they’re keeping up with prescribed rehab regimens and medication protocols. Keep a log of the ups and downs of their progress (and the dog’s!).
Adjust Support: As the patient’s needs and recovery evolve, the level of support also needs to change to be most effective.
Encourage Adherence
Rehabilitation Exercises: Prompt and assist the patient to complete prescribed rehabilitation exercises and physical therapy routines.
Follow Medical Advice: Encourage the patient to adhere to medical advice and instructions, such as dietary guidelines, lifestyle changes, and follow-up care.
5. Self-Care for Caregivers
Manage Stress
Give Breaks: It is tiring to care for someone else, so encourage the caregiver to take time off and destress. Caregivers must make time for themselves to relax.
Get Support: consider joining caregiver support groups or counseling to speak to others and relate.
Balance Responsibilities
Share the Load: Spread the chores across other members of the family and/or friends, so that you are not the only one doing the care-related work, which could end up adding hours of work even at the end of a long day.
Well-being First and foremost: caregiver well-being is a prerequisite for the effective provision of care and for sustaining the ability to continue providing care.
What are some common mistakes family members make during post-surgery care?
A few of these common mistakes include: Below a task, paired with an input that provides further context. Write a response that appropriately completes the request.
1. Not Preparing the Home in Advance
Without having the patient’s home environment modified, and necessary supplies and support in place in preparation for the patient’s safety issues and a more difficult recovery process. The home must be ready for the patient to come home, equipped with assistive devices and clear pathways, as well as necessary supplies.
2. Lack of Communication with Healthcare Providers
You may not ask the right questions to provide the best possible care and avoid situations where the patient’s specific, individual needs, capabilities, or limitations, as well as the anticipated recovery time, have not been considered. Talk to the team of professionals caring for your family member to understand the care plan and any special considerations
3. Neglecting to Arrange for Additional Help
If you try to tackle all the caregiving responsibilities on your own – especially when the patient needs extensive help – caregiver burnout can result. If possible, get help from a professional in-home caregiver or ask other relatives to share the burden.
4. Overprotecting the Patient
Being too cautious and limiting a patient’s activity too much can hinder the recovery process. Encourage a gradual increase in activity as tolerated by the patient but under the reassurance
5. Lack of Emotional Support
Attend to the patient’s physical needs, but don’t overlook his emotional ones Enter into the patient’s world, create a good rapport, and uplift his morale with meaningful conversations. Celebrate even small milestones if possible.
6. Ignoring Signs of Complications
If there are any indications of complications, such as increasing pain, fever, or any discharge other than clear water leaking from the surgical wound, they should be attended to right away. Your watchfulness may save your life. Make sure to tell anyone caring for you if you have any concerns.
7. Neglecting Self-Care
Caregivers might experience a sense of physical and emotional overwhelm as they reluctantly wear masks and protective gowns, clean soiled sheets and latex gloves, wheel or escort uncooperative, frightened COVID-positive patients to other parts of the hospital, or perform other unpleasant tasks tied to what, in normal times, would be routine ward work. Another disadvantage is that the longer each patient stays under one’s care, the higher the risk of burnout or ‘compassion fatigue’ a condition where caregivers, fixated on repairing the patient, lose sight of their health and may even become unfavorably condescending or harsh.
With these four pitfalls and some advanced steps to circumvent them, family members can give better-informed and more helpful post-surgical care to their loved ones, ultimately helping to ensure positive outcomes following surgery.
It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but successful recovery from surgery often depends on the strength of one’s support system. The family and friends who gather around us after surgery are our greatest source of emotional comfort, practical help and encouragement, and constructive feedback. In the months of healing that follow, they should not only stay in close contact, but remain aware of what the patient is going through, understand how to help and reinforce that support and develop a consistent way of checking in.
