An Overview of the Caregivers’ Situation in Singapore
24 October 2019, Interview with Mdm Mohini from Active Global Home
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To understand more about the caregivers in Singapore, we interviewed Mdm Mohini, a senior caregiver and trainer from Active Global Home and Community care to find out more about the situation faced by caregivers in Singapore. Whilst taking care of persons with dementia, caregivers are often selfless, even as they receive countless verbal and even physical abuse by dementia patients and family members alike. Persons with dementia often show signs of aggression, depression ect., adding to the caregiver burden for dementia. Watch Mdm Mohini shares her personal experience of being a caregiver here:
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Q: How much experience do you have in taking care of dementia patients or just elderly in general?
A: I have been a caregiver in for more than 15 years. Ever since I worked in the Intensive Care Unit in India, I had taken care of many elderly patients, of which 20% were diagnosed with dementia. In 2013, I moved to Singapore and continued my career in the home care sector and community hospitals.
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Q: What are some struggles or difficulties you had faced as a caretaker? How did you cope with them?
A: Being a caretaker of dementia patients is quite challenging because we have to be very tolerant towards them. Sometimes, I have to withstand patients’ beatings and inevitably suffer multiple injuries from the patients’ aggressive behavior. Since dementia is a group of patient disorder, patients may exhibit differing symptoms in terms of moods and behaviors.
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One of my more memorable patients was 65 years old when he had dementia. After an unfortunate fall, he became bedridden. As he could only remember bits and pieces of his life’s events, he was upset and developed sleeping problems. I faced a considerable amount of challenge in terms of helping him go to sleep because he would wake up at night and wander about. In fear of him leaving the house, I stayed awake too and accompanied him.
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Q: Based on your experience, what are some reasons as to why families reach out to homes for assistance in providing professional care of their family member(s) suffering from dementia?
A: Families are unable to handle the stress aroused from the dementia patients’ mood fluctuations and refusal to fall asleep. Some dementia patients even become paranoid and start to hallucinate. This brings about inconvenience to the family members of dementia patients as they are constantly being disturbed or have to keep a lookout in case they go missing. As such, they send their dementia patients to homes as they believe the homes are more experienced in providing professional care for their needs around the clock.
Moreover, dementia patients get to interact with those who are similar in age and suffering from similar illnesses in nursing homes. As they engage in various activities together, they have fun and this makes them feel less alone.
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Q: How do you think caregiving for dementia patients in Singapore can be further improved?
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A: We should analyse why dementia patients are acting the way they are, and what we can do to engage them in normal day-to-day activities to help them stay active and independent. The number of dementia patients in Singapore is expected to rise to 820,000 and this is definitely not a small amount. As such, we should do what we can to understand and engage them to help integrate into our society.
Elderly persons actually enjoy holding conversations with others, but due to our hectic lifestyles, almost no one is available to accompany and talk to them for long. With nobody by their sides, they become lonely and depressed, which may even lead to them harbouring suicidal thoughts. If we have a dementia family member, we should make an effort to spend more time with them.
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Q: Do you think past or existing campaigns (nationwide / organised by your home) are sufficient to support this cause?
A: The biggest problem is that dementia patients staying in nursing homes are abandoned by their families, who perhaps only pay visits once in a while during festive seasons. This is clearly not enough, as the dementia patients require physical and emotional support from their loved ones. Very little is done to urge family members to understand what their dementia family members are going through, and to provide support for them more often.
I personally feel that existing campaigns are not elaborate enough and fail to entice the public, hence they are not keen on learning more about this cause. Generally, people know about dementia but are unaware of the challenges of dementia care. If our government can come up with more interesting activities that educate the public on understanding the struggles of the dementia patients and ways to cope with caregivers’ stress, I think it would be more beneficial and attractive.
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