Can caring make you sick?
- Caregiving can lead to psychological and physical health problems
- Researchers believe depression and high levels of the stress hormone cortisol take toll
- Author and mother gives five tips on stress and caregiving
(CNN) -- Soon after Paul Coskie's bicycle collided with a car, it became clear to his mother that her son would be sick for a very long time, and indeed he was. The 13-year-old boy went into a coma for a month and spent six months total in the hospital.
What his mother didn't know at the time was that Paul's collision would eventually claim another victim -- one who was nowhere near the accident scene.
After taking care of her son for a year, Dixie Fremont-Smith Coskie started to lose her balance, stumbling at times when she walked. Then she became so weak she couldn't get out of bed.
"I had tingling down my arm and terrible pain in my neck," remembers Coskie, 50, who lives in Upton, Massachusetts. "I thought I had Lou Gehrig's disease, but was so frightened I couldn't even tell my husband."
After performing a battery of tests, her doctor concluded she didn't have Lou Gehrig's. What she had was a reaction to stress.
"The tingling in my arm and the pain in my neck -- the doctor explained it was because I had the weight of the world on my shoulders," says Coskie, who was also tending to the needs of her six other children while caring for Paul.
More than 65 million people -- nearly a third of the U.S. population, provide care for a friend or family member during any given year, according to the National Family Caregivers Association.
No comments:
Post a Comment