Coping Strategies for Caregivers

1. Reinforce your identity separate from the patient's identity.
   
2. Always move from your center, not the patient's center.
   
3. Tap into your unused, unlimited inner strengths and resources.
   
4. Continually acknowledge all feelings - both positive and negative. Reinforce positive feelings.
   
5. Be responsible and take control.
   
6. Get information and get help.
   
7. Work out your own plan for surviving whole.
   
8. Accept what cannot be changed.
   
9. Eliminate the words "blame" and "excuse" from your vocabulary.
   
10. Make not promises about the future.
    
11. Explore and face the worse possible events in your future.
    
12. Use respite care regularly for extended blocks of time.
    
13. Develop an emotional detachment from your caregiving tasks.
    
14. Train yourself to be pro-active rather than reactive.
    
15. Enjoy humor regularly. Humor assists the immune system.
    
16. Get a support system that works for you.
    
17. Be flexible, willing to learn, to adapt, to change and grow at any age.
    
18. "Regroove" your brain with positive reinforcement.
    
19. Develop an exercise regimen for both the body and soul.
    
20. Look for the small joys.

Source: Lela Knox Shanks, 1994

Compiled by the Lincoln/Greater Nebraska Chapter of the Alzheimer's Association, 1999.