This is a list of caregiving strategies developed by Lela Knox Shanks in 1994.
Mrs. Shanks cared for her spouse, Hughes who had Alzheimer's Disease.
- Reinforce your identity separate from the patient's identity.
- Always move from your center, not the patient's.
- Tap into your unused, unlimited inner strengths and creative resources.
- Continually acknowledge all feelings, positive and negative, reinforcing positive feelings.
- Be responsible and take control.
- Get information and get help.
- Work out your own plan for surviving whole.
- Accept what you cannot change.
- Eliminate the words "blame" and "excuse" from your vocabulary.
- Make no promises about the future.
- Explore and face the worse possible events in your future.
- Use respite care regularly for extended blocks of time.
- Develop an emotional detachment from your caregiving tasks.
- Train yourself to be pro-active rather than reactive.
- Enjoy humor regularly. Humor assists the immune system.
- Get a support system that works for you.
- Be flexible, willing to learn, to adapt, to change and to grow at any age.
- Regroove your brain with positive reinforcement.
- Develop an exercise regimen of both kinds, body and soul.
- Look for small joys.
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