What a companion is actually taught
Handling, the home programme under supervision, equipment and skin checks — and when not to help.
Companions arrive expecting to sit and worry. What is asked of them is more specific and more useful than that.
Handling
How to help someone stand, transfer between bed and chair, and move safely without injuring your own back. Back injury among family carers is common, which is why handling technique is taught early.
Where equipment is fitted, you learn how it goes on and what the skin underneath should look like — the check that prevents the most avoidable readmission after discharge.
The home programme, practised
You are shown the programme and asked to perform it under supervision while there is still someone to correct you. Being able to describe it is not the same as being able to do it.
Ask to be watched at least twice, on different days. Confidence on the first attempt is not the same as competence.
When not to help
This surprises most companions and matters as much as the rest. A person helped with everything they can nearly do stops being able to do it.
Knowing where that line sits for the person you came with, and how it moves as they improve, is the part that takes the whole stay to learn.
Topic
More in Companion and family support
- Why a companion is required rather than suggestedTherapy occupies a few hours of the day. Whoever is there carries the rest — and delivers the programme for the eleven months the patient is not with us.
- Looking after yourself is part of the jobThe companion is often the person under the most strain and the one nobody asks about. Exhaustion reaches the patient.
