Policy Implementation
The Alzheimer’s Caregiver Support Act in the 117th Congress on March 1, 2021, by Ms. Waters. The bill aimed at authorizing grants for training and supportive services for the families and the unpaid caregivers of the people living with Alzheimer’s disease or dementia related to the health condition. The grants cover for the training of the untrained caregivers living with the patients in enhancing knowledge on how to care for the patients, cope with stress in handling the patients, planning for the care, solving the problems emanating from their duties, and managing the behavioral symptoms presented by the patients (ALZ, 2021). The Act initiated educational value to the caregivers of dementia patients in ensuring quality life by encouraging the patients to participate in daily activities and tasks and understanding their illnesses or injuries that need care.
Caregiving services for dementia patients require more time than the other forms of caregiving. The increased time needed to take care of the patients reduces the capacity of the caregivers to develop economically. According to ALZ (2021), caregivers of people with dementia in 2019 provided 18.6 billion hours of unpaid assistance cumulatively. This indicates that the caregivers use much of their time offering unpaid care for the specified population, thus limiting their social value with other people and personal economic developments. Handling dementia patients is distressing, and thus the caregivers need training and other financial assistance in coping with the distressing conditions and meeting the stressing economic needs. In a study, 49% of the caregivers for dementia patients acknowledged being distressed compared to 35% of caregivers of the patients or people without dementia (ALZ, 2021). This shows the economic and social burden of unpaid caregivers. It is ethical to appreciate the caregivers in motivating them to provide safe, ethical, and professional care to the patients. Seidel & Thyrian (2019) indicated that high levels of dependency among dementia patients and the distressing factor among the caregivers increase the prevalence of physical and sexual violence against dementia patients. This shows the importance of the bill in improving the professionalism and psychological wellbeing of the caregivers.
Policy Lenses
My personal beliefs and values guide me in supporting the bill for providing grants to unpaid caregivers. I am a committed and reliable advocate for patients within the nursing profession, and thus in valuing health, I support the motions focused on improving the quality of health and patient care. I believe that people should provide healthcare services with a higher capacity, specially trained on how to provide the services, to positively impact the patients. Provision of patient care with knowledge limitations increases the risks of making unprofessional mistakes that may lead to health risks, ethical malpractices, and poor patient interpersonal relationships. The caregivers should thus be trained to understand the basic and best ways to handle patients with dementia. Being a nurse professional and through experience, I have learned that a distressed caregiver is prone to punching the same to the healthcare recipient, and thus, limiting the distress encourages the professional to observe ethical principles and provide quality care. I believe in the socialistic political philosophies that are built not on individualism but societal gain. Socialism rejects the desire to count on the personal gain without focusing on other people’s needs, as it is in the liberal or conservative philosophies. Quality healthcare is a right to everyone and not a privilege to some members of society. A socialistic view thus encourages to devise a plan to equalize the quality of care for those underpaid professional caregiving services and those under unpaid caregiving. In this context, the unpaid caregivers may provide uninformed and unqualified care to the patients with dementia which causes disparity in care compared to those under professional nurse care. Provision of professional training and support to the caregivers thus balances the quality of care for the specified population.
Policy Framework/ Model
There are various policy models applicable to the policy implementation process. The most applicable policy framework for the described policy is the multiple streams policy model, popularly known as Kingdon’s model. According to the model, formulation and implementation of a policy happen when the three streams converge in accepting the terms of solving the issue (Judy Gregg et al., 2018). The first stream is the problem stream which involves the identification and definition of the problem. A problem, not a condition, is a consistent issue that needs to be resolved. It concerns a public matter
Order this paper