What strategies can help prevent burnout for a caregiver of someone with a spinal cord injury? - Patti Rogers, SW

I think that there has to be a backup. We have a small caregiver program where we don’t hire the caregivers, we reimburse the clients and they’re responsible for training and everything. And we always tell them, “In order to be eligible for this program, you have to have two caregivers—you have to have a backup because one person can’t be there 24/7. And what happens if that caregiver gets sick? Then you don’t have anybody, especially if you’re living by yourself—who’s going to help you out?” We always make them have two people on their little list they give to us and we encourage family members to have a backup. If the wife is the caregiver, get Aunt Martha to be the caregiver so she can go shopping even if it’s four to five hours a day. Find someone else in the family who is willing to come spend the weekend, so they can get away for the weekend. It’s not just the person with the spinal cord injury that is dealing with the traumatic injury.