What family caregivers should know about options for pain relief
February 21, 2012
Hosted by Dr. Gordon Atherley
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Guest Information
Episode Description
Bill Archer develops pulsed electromagnetic wave field therapy as an alternative for pain management. He says what he learned about family caregivers’ needs from his own family caregiving experience, and what got him interested in the problem of pain. He describes the types of pain and the problems these cause. He explains the problems associated with pain relief. He describes the pain relief offered by the electromagnetic therapy, how it works, and the evidence that it works. He identifies the types of pain for which he does and does not recommend it. He talks about the things family caregivers should think about in helping family members who experience persistent pain, what they should think about if they are worried about the use of medications by family members in persistent pain, and when and why they should consider the electromagnetic therapy as an alternative to medications. He gives his message for family caregivers who are caring for a family member in persistent pain.
Family Caregivers Unite!
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Family caregivers are the people who provide care to partners, parents, children, brothers, sisters, cousins, friends, neighbors and even co-workers. They are the people who provide care when everyone else has gone home. They are the people who organize the functioning of the home for the person with special needs, and for the family as a whole. They are the coordinators of care, the managers of appointments, the preventers of loneliness, and the makers of decisions even to the point of Power of Attorney. And they are so often people who themselves are burdened with their own health challenges and who may be in only marginally better health than the persons to whom they are providing family caregiving.
Dr. Gordon Atherley
Dr Gordon Atherley holds the British equivalent of the Canadian PhD and MD degrees, and LLD, Honoris Causa, from Canada’s Simon Fraser University. His awards include Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, UK. His medical specialties are occupational medicine and public health.
As first President and Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, the Canadian equivalent of the US National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, he led the creation of Canada’s electronic information service in occupational health and safety, now used in more than 40 countries.
In academia, he held senior, tenured, full-time positions, including departmental chair, in university faculties of physics, engineering, and medicine. He is the author of a textbook and numerous articles and publications.
Since retiring from medical practice, he’s built up Greyhead Associates, which critically researches the safety, effectiveness and fairness of health services for persons with special needs.
Through Virtual Care International, a company of which he’s President, he’s involved in providing sensible technology to family caregivers to help them with their responsibilities, workloads, and concerns.
Now an activist, he urges family caregivers to unite because, more and more, it’s not just their families who depend on them, it’s also the healthcare system as a whole, as it struggles to meet more and more needs of more and more people.
