Q: What do you recommend that patients ask of their caregivers? In what areas can they help out?

A: The most important thing as patients is to have a frank and open communication with our families about our needs to give them the opportunity to become involved in our care. Many of us have relatives or friends who would like to become involved, but they truly don't know how. Sometimes they might spend a lot of time with us when it might be more useful for them to drive us to the doctor, do grocery shopping, distract us, or listen to us. For most patients, when we are sick, our relatives do not know how to be useful. We need to articulate to them what helps us the most. We are all different, so we need to be up front about what we need from our friends and families