In 2007, I was suddenly plunged into the role of caregiver for my then 75-year-old father, who had vascular dementia. His short-term memory was severely impaired, as were his judgment and reasoning skills. At the outset, I knew very little about dementia and next to...

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Oral Health And Memory Disorders: A Guide For Caregivers
Taking care of someone with a memory disorder is challenging. There is a lot to keep track of — from doctor visits to medications — and a lot to help out with day by day. With all of this in mind, dental care may fall by the wayside in comparison to other health...
Moving Is a Monumental Task for Many Older Americans. These Organizers Can Help.
“It’s not just packing and unpacking,” Ms. Buysse said. “It’s working with the clients and the family for weeks or months, going through a lifetime of possessions. You need to be a good listener.” ... My sister and I hired a senior move manager for our father, who was...
Scientists Warn of A “Friendship Recession” — I’m Part of It
I’m thirsty for friends. It’s embarrassing. I’m far too old to be courting acquaintances like some middle school girl at Claire’s, harassing strangers for their opinion on $5 earrings. But here we are. ... Personally, I didn’t have a lot of friends to start with,...
The question of a funeral
Our social worker and child life specialists speak to the patients and parents, informing them of Kristen’s death and offering support. No one thinks to ask the nurses what we might need. They invent an exercise for us a few days later. Using the bulletin board at the...
With Flowers
I’ve tried to tell this story before. Let me try again. This time with flowers. My mother died on Mother’s Day. It’s nearly impossible for me to comprehend, because she was my mother. Every store window was crowded with flowers and mother-daughter bullshit, and my...
Your Suffering (Probably) Comes From This False Belief
I was trying to influence a situation outside my control by staying awake. I could not prevent my wife’s heart from suddenly stopping in the night. That was outside my control, and laying awake trying to regulate something I couldn’t wasn’t doing my wife or myself any...
A Field Guide to the Abeyance of Loss
Claudia cannot choose the path her life is taking. Neuromyelitis optica directs her, making life smaller, confined to her hospital bed until someone pumps the hydraulic ram of a Hoyer Lift to raise her up and into a wheelchair. Still, every morning I wake up expecting...
Reshaping Canada’s caregiving system
If every caregiver took one week off, our care systems would collapse before noon on the very first day. Maybe even earlier. The sustainability of our health care and social systems relies on caregivers and care providers, but they have reached a breaking point. Make...
I can quit you, baby
I am trying to disabuse myself of the false notion that I can anticipate everyone’s needs and, thereby, prevent suffering. I don’t know when and where along the winding way of my life I decided that I, Courtney Martin, had the all-knowing power to detect other...
5 Women On the Realities of Caregiving for a Sick Partner
When someone else gets sick like that—someone you love—it can mean a complete overhaul of what once was an equal dynamic between two partners as you transition into a caregiver role. ... Even when money isn’t an issue, the emotional impact can be devastating. ... We...
Seven reasons we should care about caregivers
Having a full-time job is challenging enough for most people — but add in a friend or relative who depends on you for their care, and the workload becomes much heavier and more complex. That’s the daily reality for 5.2 million Canadians who find themselves juggling...
Just journal your pain away
To be sure, at worst, self-reflection and quiet time never hurt anybody, so on its surface, these types of suggestions aren’t harmful. Minor bullshittery at worst. But come across enough instances of mindless, repetitive wellness-related platitudes about journaling,...
The Agony of Putting Your Life on Hold to Care for Your Parents
Randi Schofield tried her best to not dwell on all the ways her life changed, on the pieces of herself that got lost in the shuffle. She was a 34-year-old single mother who, not long ago, was in the throes of a big life transition. She had left her full-time job of...
I Took Over My Father’s Finances at 25. The Lessons Were Hard-Won.
Six years ago, I took over my father’s finances. ... I was 25 and had just moved in with my boyfriend, who is now my husband, and was working in New York as a health reporter making what felt like barely enough to cover my commute. I knew nothing about money — and now...
Being disabled is my future
People call me codependent. If you combined and then divided me and my partner in half, you might believe we are two normal bodies. But we’re not. When I can’t take my own insulin, his hand holding the needle to my thigh is my new limb and the pen is my pancreas. When...
How to Embalm Yourself Before You’re Dead
Since Mother’s death, I’ve been mothering Dad the way I’ve always wanted to be mothered. I learned to be a mother by caring for my younger siblings and newborn cousins in the cult into which I was born, until I partly grew-up and had four children of my own. I was...
Older spouses struggle to care for loved ones with dementia
It's been nearly four years since Russ Kellogg's wife, Frances, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Since then he's been caring for her on a full-time basis at their home in Estey's Bridge, a rural community 18 kilometres north of Fredericton. The retired couple,...
Provincial funding programs should allow immediate family to be paid caregivers
Vancouver resident Evan Brunelle was approved for WorkSafeBC's Self Managed Personal Care (SMPC) program in 2019, which provides funding to people who have been injured at work so they can hire their own caregiver. However, it stipulates he cannot hire someone within...
Why Siblings Are The Forgotten Caregivers
When Katie MacDonald bought a new home in Brantford, Ont., this past spring, one of her main concerns was finding a house that was suitable for her older brother, Neil. ... In 2018, Katie started having intentional conversations with her parents about what Neil’s life...
How to Deal with Irrational Elderly Parents
Some of the approaches for responding to regular aging parents apply to irrational ones too, while other approaches are completely different. ... Understanding yourself and your parent doesn’t solve anything on its own. But, doing so gives you insight into where the...
Frontotemporal dementia: ‘I don’t ever want to be looked at by John as a caregiver, I want him to see me as his partner’
Cindy McCaffery provides support to her husband John who was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia more than a decade ago, at age 48. Over the years, she has come to understand the importance of active living, and its apparent role in slowing down brain disease...
Saving Friends: What I’ve Learned from Insufferable Patients
How we conceive of autonomy, goodness, and justice (or their absence) serves as a fulcrum to reimagine the care clinicians offer for patients like Amy. The philosopher Andreas Esheté argues that in the revolutionary triad of liberty, equality, and fraternity, it is...
The Alzheimer’s Crisis in Indian Country
Alzheimer’s is on the rise across all Americans over 65, with one in nine people in that age cohort now living with the disease, a total of over six million people. But for American Indian and Alaska Native populations—who are more predisposed to Alzheimer’s and...