Do you work in homecare, private nursing, in the social workers sector or even in mental health? If so, then you may be entitled to a pay rise. If you know anything about the bespoke care packages that are currently being advertised by the government then you will know that a lot of them centre around the promise of an increased rate of pay. Now it would seem that this is finally coming to fruition. Care workers who work in Devon are going to see their pay rise by 17%. It’s going to support those who work in the Bluebird Care sector, and it may also apply to those who are in Exeter and Exmouth as well. The idea is to try and offer an inflation-beating wage in an attempt to attract way more assistants in the industry. They are currently dealing with a number of workforce shortages. They have since been rated as being outstanding by the CQC and they have hopes to try and deliver home care visits. They also want to try and deliver more live-in care as well.
Some say that being a care assistant is quite possibly the most rewarding part of their job as it gives them the chance to help people every single day. The pay increase is to try and motivate people to stay in the industry while also trying to encourage new people to join it. A lot of people are incredibly fortunate to have this kind of opportunity and they believe that it will work wonders for staff morale. It will also help to sustain the industry for the future as well which is very interesting to say the least. This should also help to combat the workforce shortage that is happening right now.
Studies have shown that those who live with chronic pain may be able to reduce the symptoms that they experience by simply adopting mindfulness therapy. If you work in homecare or if you work in private nursing, then you will know how important it is to take care of your mental health as well as just your physical health. That is why there are new bespoke care packages being created all the time, to support both mental health in patients as well as the mental health of social workers. The people who participated in the study were asked to try and break down the pain that they felt into various sensory components. They were also asked to try and break down what they felt so that they could describe it through varying sensations. This could include tingling, heat or even tightness.
They were then trained so that they could notice the changes over time and so that they could then adopt the perspective of someone who was observing. The people who took part in the study were also told to try and savour any pleasant experiences, and to also try and take onboard any life-affirming experiences. This would give them a better sense of joy and it would also help them to overcome everyday events. They were taught how to reframe some of the more stressful events, and they were also taught to have a much bigger and better sense of meaning. This would help them to deal with the events that they had to face, and it would also help them to be aware of how they feel and how this can change through simple thought processes.
The result found that those who were able to tune-in more, experienced less chronic pain.
Studies have shown that mild Covid has the ability to shrink the brain. If you work in homecare, private nursing, in the social workers sector or even in the mental health department at a hospital then you will know what a huge impact this has had on people. Bespoke care packages have been brought to a standstill as a result of the pandemic and care in general has said to have decreased. New research has come out to show that those who end up contracting Covid-19 end up experiencing cognitive decline. Academic scientists have done scans on those who were aged between 51 and 81. They have found that out of the 785 people who were tested, that there was an overall decline in their cognitive ability and that they could not perform complex tasks as well. Researchers looked at the various changes that had happened around 5 months after a Covid-19 infection and they then published their findings. They have also come out to say that they do not know if the impact on the brain can be reversed or if anything can be done to try and give people the support that they need.
Those who did contract Covid-19 also found that they had a greater decline in their overall mental ability, and they were also not able to perform mental tasks as well. This included complex tasks. The main reason for this is because they had less brain matter, and they also had a higher level of brain abnormality. Things like this happened to be more marked when the person got to an older age but either way it just goes to show that it is still very prominent and that more needs to be done to try and understand the impact of Covid-19 on the brain.