Take for example Mrs. Chapman; she is an eighty year-old woman who lives across the street from my family. She is a very strong woman, in all senses of the word. Emotionally, she has been through, and still goes through a lot. Her late husband suffered from bowel cancer and passed away in 1974; leaving her to parent two children on her own. Ten years later she meet her current husband, and is now at the age of eighty, his sole caregiver. He is a difficult and miserable man whose outlook on life is, “ I’ll be glad when it’s over”. Mr. Chapman is her primary source of stress and he is probably the reason she has angina. He is 86 years old and has prostrate cancer, heart problems, a pace maker, a hearing aid, emphysema, and is on oxygen twenty-four hours a day. He is a stubborn

There are many resources in the community for people like Mrs. Chapman. Some that would benefit Mrs. Chapman directly are, S.A.I.L. (Seniors Assisted Independent Living), Meals on Wheels, Bayshore, Wheels of Care, the Community Care Clinic, and the hearing aid service clinic. All of these are extremely useful services for seniors such as Mr. and Mrs. Chapman. SAIL offers a variety of different services, such as helping with outdoor / yard work, house cleaning, and providing transportation for those who need it. It is a service that is run completely by volunteers. Meals on Wheels provides a hot meal to those who are unable to cook for themselves and cant get anyone else to do it for them. The Community Clinic offers a variety of services, among these are financial counseling, job retraining, tax counseling, family counseling, investment counseling, real estate counseling, and budget and credit counseling.

The general findings of the study indicated a moderate level of perception of preparedness; a fairly high level of knowledge and skills concerning some of the fundamental aspects of care foe the caregivers’ spouses. The coping skills included “help-seeking”, “existential growth” and “problem seeking” (Rusinak and Murphy, 1995, p.37). Different coping strategies might be associated with the varying work and interpersonal arrangements needed to manage a chronic disease at various stages.

The article Elderly Spousal Caregivers: Knowledge of Cancer Care, Perceptions of Preparedness, and Coping Strategies, talks about the care of chronically ill, disabled and frail elderly individuals. These authors say, “ Families continue to function as the most important support system for the ill and the elderly. Care provided by family to disabled elderly or ill family members has been view as a “non cost” system that is preferred by the family and care recipient”. The article goes on to say, “If this is indeed to be a normative family function, then nurses must assess and plan interventions that meet the needs and match the coping strategies of family caregivers, as well as care recipients” (Rusinak and Murphy, 1995, p.34).

When asked Mrs. Chapman says that she considers herself to be in “exceptionally good health” emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually. She tries to attend as many social gatherings as possible. She says that it brings her great joy to be, at eighty, able to do as much as she does. I believe that if Mrs. Chapman takes advantage of some of the above services that her life will be less stressful and she will be able to enjoy her relationship with her husband to the fullest, with what little time he has left. Chances are that the longer that Mr. Chapman hangs onto his life, the more likely it is that Mrs. Chapman will become more disengaged from her social life. This is because Mr. Chapman’s conditio

Some topics in this essay:
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