Carer Empathy

It’s important for our carers to have certain and specific personality traits or qualities. One of these traits is empathy for the elderly.

Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from their perspective – essentially the ability to relate to what another person feels. And going from understanding how they feel to acting up on it.

When caring for the elderly, it can be rather task oriented – feed, bath, change, wash – it almost reads like a checklist that a person simply cycles through.

But when empathy is brought into that, it helps our carers connect with our residents.

For an aged care resident, living in a facility is a huge change. It’s new, different and very much not like living in the familiarity of their own home.

Though they are surrounded by other residents, carers and other staff – it’s still very easy to feel alone especially in these times of Covid and the lockdowns and visiting restrictions

Social isolation is a real challenge for aged care residents, and is a big concern for us at Tenterfield Care Centre.

This is where empathy comes in – imagine you are the lonely resident. You may or may not get visitors every once in a while.

People you are not familiar with approach you to feed and bathe you.

They don’t really know you, and the only time they speak to you is to instruct you.

This is a reality for some residents, in fact, the Minister for Aged Care, Ken Wyatt, said that up to 40 per cent of aged care residents receive no visitors year round.

How would that make you feel? How would you treat someone who felt that way?

For those residents, the care and kindness of our staff is the most human interaction they may get. So it’s vital to show empathy and connect with them.

We are always sure to ask them a bit about themselves, or tell them a bit about you. Include them and share memories.

Empathy is not necessarily something people are born with, but we make sure that our staff are taught and trained. All it takes is a person to be open and willing to consider another person’s feelings.