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What is the role of the caregiver?

What does a caregiver do typically?

What am I expected to do as a caregiver?

A caregiver is expected to:

1. Gather information regarding your care recipient’s current condition

2. Help your care recipient with his/her physical needs

3. Monitor your care recipient’s health

4. Support decisions regarding your care recipient’s medical needs

5. Understand your care recipient’s emotional needs

6. Acknowledge your care recipient’s spiritual needs

7. Manage your care recipient’s financial needs

8. Look ahead and plan for your care recipient’s care needs

Caregiving is never easy. Most of the time, a caregiver has to juggle caregiving with other duties.

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These duties may include full/part-time work, caring for children, and their own social and leisure lifestyles. In addition, a caregiver may need to care for someone who has difficulty coping with daily life. This might involve helping, assisting, or just supervising their care recipient. The time and energy involved usually drains a caregiver.

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Essentially, there are a few scenarios in which a family member requires care giving, whether it is congenital (or born with, like cerebral palsy, genetic diseases etc) or acquired (severe stroke, traffic accident paralyzed from neck down etc).

  • Physical Disabilities
  • Mental Disabilities
  • Sensory Disabilities
  • Frail with multiple chronic medical conditions
  • Palliative (End of Life Care)

Taken from "Caring For The Elderly 101 by Singapore Silver Pages