Kair-Giver #1: Why I Kair?

Hi there, I’m Shomari! I’m a recent graduate of Yale Biomedical Engineering and a caregiver for a loved one experiencing psychosis. Three years ago—when I became a caregiver—I had zero understanding of the brain disorder and how it functioned. Eventually, when I started accepting that my loved one’s illness wasn’t going away any time soon, I dove into research papers and anything I could find to reconcile things in my head.

Eventually, I centered the remainder of my biomedical engineering research around understanding schizophrenia and related disorders. I graduated having completed a year long thesis trying to predict relapse by analyzing features of speech. I ran my own study and have read hundreds more. I certainly don’t have all the answers, but I have learned a few things that have relieved some of my family’s own stress and burden.

I want this blog to provide you all with digestible insights into the evolving research on schizophrenia and related brain disorders. As a researcher, I’ve had access to academic papers with an assortment of evidence-based guidance on effective care and treatment. The trouble is, most of it is completely inaccessible to everyone else. The insights in these papers often sit behind paywalls and dense scientific jargon.

Hopefully, this blog can be a resource to anyone else in a similar position, asking similar questions. Ultimately, I just want to make the lives of caregivers and those experiencing psychosis a bit better. I’m incredibly optimistic about technology and how it might help improve care quality for families like ours. We’re dually the most burdened and underserved in our health systems, and one day soon, this will change.

As I write these posts, I’d love to include you all in the conversation. What stuff did you find helpful? What should I go into more depth about? What topics should I discuss next? Your feedback directly informs what I create. Thanks for listening, and consider staying up to date by joining the newsletter!