Why do caregivers of someone with a spinal cord injury need to be trained before leaving the hospital? - Marguerite David, MSW

Caregivers should be trained before leaving the hospital and receive all of the wonderful education manuals that are out there by the way, with pictures, explanations. Once again, you shouldn’t just say, “Here’s your training course, that was five minutes and we’re done.” It should be over time with an individual, at the bedside if it needs to be, asking all the questions that you have and then sending them home with their resources. Because first of all, it’s very frightening to do bodily invasion, everybody can figure out how to bathe somebody, but the fear of hurting your loved one is enormous. So people tend to not push a catheter far enough because that might hurt someone, that kind of thing. So it’s very important to be trained in very specific things. Better to try it under adult supervision and medical supervision than totally stressed out when you go home.