Uma vida de cuidados : narrativas de cuidadores familiares de crianças com patologias neurológicas.

Abstract

This paper aimed to develop the theme of the family caregiver of children with neurological pathologies. Thinking that children with neurological pathologies are dependent on care due to their specificities, it is necessary that there is a caregiver and several factors influence what is usually a family member. There is a subject who needs a care to survive and another who dedicates his life to caring. Considering that today we lack a look before these caregivers in order to try to understand how they perceive themselves, the main objective of this research was to seek to know the perceptions of family caregivers about the care they give to children with neurological pathologies. In order to achieve the established objective, the methodology used was to search for family caregivers in a Physical Rehabilitation Service in the interior of Rio Grande do Sul, in view of the fact that there are several children with neurological pathologies attended at the place due to their physical characteristics. Thus, we started with the method of narrative interviews in order to verify the perception of these family caregivers about the care they give to children with neurological pathologies, to identify the feelings associated with the care experience and to explore how the caregiver lives, in the daily care. After the interviews, the analysis of the data was carried out from the Structural Analysis referred to by Bauer and Jovchelovitch (2004).