A talk by A/Prof Tan Tin Wee on Zoom on 30 Sep 23,
organised by Renhai
Scribe: Dr Ling Sing Lin
There are only four kinds of people in the world — those that
have been caregivers, those that are caregivers, those who
will be caregivers, and those who need caregivers.
——-Rosalynn Carter
Caregivers
Many of us have been in all four of the above roles,
sometimes two or more at the same time. For the speaker, he
was the primary caregiver to his wife for one and a half years
as she had cancer. For the past half a decade, he has been a
secondary caregiver to his father, who has Alzheimer’s
Disease who is now in a nursing home. He is also a secondary
caregiver at the same time to his mother, who also has
Alzheimer’s Disease but is living at home with a maid (and his
sister gave up her job to look after mother). His 20 year old
son who had a skull fracture after a fall and was in hospital
for three weeks. He himself was in a hospital recently for
acute bronchitis, needing care himself.
How to Survive as a Caregiver
1)Self care
Since care for a dementia sufferer is long term, the carer
must ensure self care like healthy lifestyle, healthy nutrition,
social activities for mental health. In fact, the caregiver
provides more personal care than any of the professional
carers including the doctor, nurse and paramedicals all put
together, with the four categories together forming the
pyramid of care for the patient.. To care for others, carers
have to live well themselves.
2)Network of Caregiving Support
Prof Tan analysed that for looking after a family member with
dementia, which is a long term commitment, a minimum of 3
carers, are required to prevent burnout, or even better, up to
6 carers taking turns for sustainable caregiving. Otherwise,
institionalised care may be the only option.
3)Network of Social Support
Prof Tan informed that he had a group of caring friends who
involved him in various social activities to revitalize him to
keep his sanity. As much as it takes a village to raise a child, it
also takes a village to care for a person with dementia (quote
from Lim Hwee Ting, Caregiver)
4)Training in Caregiving for Caregivers
Caregivers need to be properly trained or face frustrations or
worse. Various organisations provide help and training for
dementia caregivers, such as St Luke’s, AIC, Alzheimer’s
Singapore and so on. Notably for caregivers of patients with
dementia or mental health issues. For example, the
Caregivers Alliance Ltd (CAL) provides free training on how to
provide caregiving. This is a C2C or Caregiver to Caregiver
Dementia Training course for 8 weeks, conducted by trainers
who are or had been caregivers for those who are or will be
caregivers. Dementia caregiving is long term, so the
caregivers have to be prepared for an arduous journey,
compared to family members with cancer. CAL also runs a
C2C for caregivers of persons with mental health issues (12
week free of charge).
Vision for the Future
Institute for Caregivers
Prof Tan felt that caregivers need to be recognized and
included in the healthcare equation. Traditional care staff like
doctor , nurse and paraprofessional are very busy. They
should regard caregivers as equal partners. An Institute of
Caregivers should be set up, especially as Singapore has been
recognized by Dan Buettner as the 6th Blue Zone. Caregivers
should be equipped with knowledge and skills, and have
more support, as many have to juggle multiple roles including
full-time jobs. This will prevent burnout.
A/Prof Tan Tin Wee is currently the Chief Executive of the
National Supercomputing Centre where he has built and
operated Singapore’s first petascale supercomputer since
2015 for advancing research. He is now driving the frontiers
of high performance computing, AI and quantum computing
by building advanced research infrastructure. As a pioneer of
bioinformatics and the Internet since more than thirty years
ago as a professor at the Biochemistry Department NUS, he
continues to contribute to the fields of computational biology
and advanced research networking.
