Caring for loved ones with chronic illnesses can produce various exhausting psychological effects for family members and patients. In addition to providing comfort care for the patient, hospice can also provide services to ease the psychological effects of chronic illness for caregivers and patients.
Let’s discuss a few common psychological effects of chronic illnesses on patients and caregivers, along with ways that hospice can help.
What is a Chronic Illness?
A chronic illness is a disease with long-lasting or lifelong symptoms that can be managed for comfort but not cured. Chronic illnesses occur for more than one year, and ongoing treatments and medications significantly impact patients’ daily lives.
Examples of chronic illnesses include COPD, diabetes, asthma, and cancer. Each chronic illness presents its own symptoms and challenges for patients, caregivers, and families.
Psychological Effects of Chronic Illness on Patients
In addition to the physical effects of chronic illness that take a toll on patients, there are also a variety of psychological effects that can significantly impact patients and their quality of life. For example, depression and anxiety can make caring for yourself and others even more difficult. The fatigue, lack of enjoyment in social activities, and low self-esteem can make exercising, eating healthy, and taking medications feel like even bigger tasks.
Let’s take a closer look at the psychological effects of chronic illness on patients.
Depression
With illnesses like the flu or common cold, patients have the comfort of knowing their symptoms are temporary and they will start to feel better in the short term. With chronic illnesses, patients are grappling with the knowledge that these symptoms are here for the long term. This knowledge contributes to hopelessness. Combined with the added stress of managing symptoms through lifestyle changes, treatments, and medications, these feelings of hopelessness and extended periods of stress can lead to depression.
Depression is a common occurrence in patients with chronic illnesses. Patients with chronic illnesses are more likely to become depressed, and in turn, that depression can exacerbate feelings of pain and hopelessness.
Anxiety
A variety of factors of having a chronic illness contribute to patients’ anxiety. These factors can include the following:
- Worrying about the long-term effects of their condition, including a fear of dying
- Fear of expensive and painful treatments and medical procedures
- Frustration with the side effects of their medication
- Managing the additional responsibilities of a medical treatment and care routine
- Having low self-esteem due to physical and mental changes which contributes to a decline in social activities
These added stressors, worries, and fears can contribute to overall anxiety among patients with chronic illnesses. This anxiety can have other side effects like poor sleep, irritability in close relationships, and reduced socialization with friends and loved ones.
Low Self-Esteem
With chronic diseases, there is a significant impact on patients’ lifestyles, including their social activities, exercise habits, and self-esteem. The changes patients undergo while treating their chronic illnesses contribute to this overall reduction in self-esteem.
Feeling self-conscious about the physical and emotional changes patients are experiencing can cause them to withdraw from their usual social activities. Interacting with friends the way they did previously with these new changes can cause anxiety. The subsequent withdrawal from social activities can lead to depression.
Psychological Effects of Chronic Illness on Caregivers and Families
Watching a loved one manage their chronic illness’s physical and psychological effects also takes a toll on the loved ones and caregivers who support them. Let’s consider some psychological effects chronic illnesses can have on caregivers and families.
Feeling a Loss of Control
A common psychological effect of chronic illness among families and caregivers is feeling a loss of control or a sense of helplessness over watching your loved one struggle. In difficult situations like these, all we want to do is take away their pain and make them more comfortable. When dealing with chronic illnesses, caregivers and families have to watch the person manage their symptoms on a daily basis. Feeling helpless over these symptoms is common for caregivers and family members of these patients.
In addition to a feeling of helplessness, family members can also feel complicated feelings of guilt, fear, anger, and embarrassment.
Burnout
The responsibility of driving your loved one to appointments, ensuring they take their medication on time, and assisting them with daily tasks can cause caregivers to experience burnout. When unmanaged, burnout can also cause caregivers to have trouble sleeping, develop body aches, and even miss their own care appointments. In addition to taking care of the patient, caring for yourself as a caregiver is just as important.
A Strain on Relationships
The added stress of caring for a loved one, combined with differing opinions, feelings of helplessness, and pre-existing family dynamics, can create tension between family members. This added stress during an already stressful time can strain family relationships, making communicating and caregiving responsibilities even more difficult.
How Hospice Helps Patients, Caregivers, and Families Cope with Chronic Illness
Hospice provides services to not only the patient, but the family, too. Social Work and Chaplain services provide families a space to mourn, grieve and acknowledge that chronic illness is hard on everyone. Our social workers and chaplains regularly meet with family and provide counseling.
We address the patient’s and family members emotional, and spiritual needs while medical care is provided only to the patient. Each patient’s treatment is individualized to address their unique needs to improve their quality of life. These services can include spiritual care, volunteer services that assist with household chores, physician services, bereavement counseling, and more.
To help patients and their families cope with the psychological effects of chronic illness, hospice care can help ease the burden of household chores and grocery shopping with its volunteer services, provide durable medical equipment like wheelchairs to make socializing more accessible, offer physician services to manage symptoms of depression and anxiety, and more.
Regular care visits from hospice nurses can also help facilitate difficult conversations between family members, prioritize the patient’s desires for their end-of-life care, and help patients manage the depression and anxiety resulting from their chronic illness.
Thinking About Hospice Care? West Michigan Hospice Can Help.
West Michigan Hospice is a licensed care provider specializing in individualized care based on each patient’s needs. Our experienced hospice care nurses are here to make sure you don’t have to navigate this difficult time alone. To discover the ways hospice care can help you and your family, give us a call or contact us online.