If a member of your family is diagnosed with a chronic health condition, it’s inevitable that there will be impacts to your family unit. Having a loved one with a chronic disease means that many aspects of your daily life may become more complicated but, thankfully, there are ways that you can work to keep your family strong and resilient throughout the chronic disease journey.
Read on to learn more about the impacts and ways you can work to keep your family close. Some of these impacts may apply to virtually any chronic disease, while other impacts are more specific to certain types of chronic diseases.
Emotional impacts
When diagnosed and dealing with a chronic illness, it’s normal for family members to feel a wide range of emotions, including:
- Anger
- Frustration
- Guilt
- Helplessness
- Loneliness
- Stress
- Worry
These emotions may ebb and flow, and will change over time.
Day-to-day activities
Having a family member with a chronic illness can impact the daily activities of family members in the following ways:
- Feeling a burden from caring for the person
- Feeling like they don’t have time or freedom for themselves or their own interests
- Having to rearrange their schedules to accommodate doctor’s appointments
- Helping with aspects of care, such as dressing, bathing, assisting with mobility, and preparing food
- Increased amount of household chores due to a family member with the illness being unable to assist
- Needing to remind your family member to take medications or monitor aspects of their condition
- Not having time to pursue their own hobbies or interests
Work and school impacts
Loved ones can feel impacts to their work and school when needing to rearrange their schedules to accommodate taking the loved one to doctor’s appointments, treatments or surgical procedures. Some loved ones even need to reduce their work or school hours, or quit completely to care for the person full-time. These impacts can understandably have a major effect on everyone involved.
Social life
Social lives of all family members can be impacted due to no longer having the freedom to socialize when and where they want because they have to be home to care for the loved one with the chronic illness. Also, limited finances due to the chronic condition can directly impact when and how often family members can socialize with friends outside the home. Special occasions that are highly food-centric – such as holidays or weddings – can pose a special challenge for people who rely on tube feeding.
Family relationships
Family relationships are always affected when a person is diagnosed with a chronic illness. If a person is providing care for a loved one who doesn’t live in their immediate household – such as an elderly parent – this activity takes time away from the person’s own household and family. The following are ways that family relationships are commonly impacted when a person has a chronic condition:
- Decreased time spent with other family members
- Increased family arguments
- Increased stress and tension
- Strain on sex life
Support and involvement in medical care
Some people with chronic health conditions feel alienated from their loved ones, feeling like their family members simply don’t understand what they’re going through. They may feel like their family members are tired of hearing about and dealing with the chronic condition and, therefore, may try to avoid talking about it.
Financial changes
Dealing with a chronic health condition is often costly – and it changes the family’s financial picture in many ways. Areas of financial impact can include:
- Adaptive clothing
- Mobility aids, such as a motorized wheelchair or scooter
- Private, in-home health care
- Reduced income due to the person with the chronic illness no longer working
- Specialized transport, such as a wheelchair-lift vehicle
Sleep and health
The following are ways that sleep can be negatively impacted for family members dealing with a chronic condition:
- Being too worried to sleep
- Having to wake the person to give medications
- Needing to wake up to ensure the person was still alive
Not getting enough sleep can have many negative impacts, including depression, mood issues, weight gain and more.
Travel
When someone has a chronic health condition, it makes it much more difficult to plan travel. Many people may struggle with losing the freedom and spontaneity that they once enjoyed in their lives. Therefore, many families with a chronically ill member avoid traveling due to the stress and extra planning required.
Dealing with impacts on family quality of life
Despite all of this, most families are resilient and find creative ways to thrive while dealing with the challenges related to chronic disease. Here are some positive ways you can deal with the impacts on the quality of life that your family may be experiencing:
- Continue to enjoy the activities and traditions together that you still can.
- Find healthy coping mechanisms.
- Keep lines of communication open between all family members.
- Give yourself – and your family members – grace.
- Consider family or individual therapy for talking through issues.
- Joining a local or online support group for the health condition.
This educational resource provides general information and strategies intended to enhance coping and should not be interpreted as professional advice or a substitute for medical counseling.
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