Adult Protective Services agencies in every state receive reports of possible neglect, self-neglect, abuse or exploitation of older people and other vulnerable adults. But agency workers consistently face a bedeviling question: Does the adult in question have the...
How much of yourself do you have to give to your partner in support, and what is the true cost if you forget yourself in the process? The fact of the matter is this: Living with a spouse with depression isn’t impossible, but the question of how to support someone with...
While the book is replete with many humorous Conway family stories, such as her dad introducing his children to his favorite pastime — the art of horse betting at Santa Anita racetrack — or how she and her five brothers would run around the CBS sound stages to visit...
Just lately it is even harder to stay in my house, my geographical middle. This is because my siblings and I are sharing caregiving duties for our elderly mother, trying to help her stay in her own house, which is a twenty-minute drive northwest from my suburban...
Being away from Casey after growing up with him for almost 20 years is difficult. I worry about him, and sometimes, the worry clouds the way I see him. But when I left home, strangely, so did that confidence in his abilities. Over the years, in my mind he's become...
A few years into the illness, Janie could sense it worsening. Buzz, who had never yelled at her, now did so at the drop of a hat. Once, when she was heating up some water to make tea, Buzz towered over Janie screaming “No!” for no apparent reason. His ability to take...
Every society must choose which goods and services—from education to roads to health care—to provide publicly and which to relegate to the realm of individual responsibility. Over the past five decades, political actors have used the dominant ideological paradigm,...
Where do people most want to be when they die? At home, they tell researchers — in familiar surroundings, in comfort, with the people they love. an article this month in The New England Journal of Medicine that pointedly asks, “Is There Really ‘No Place Like Home’?”...
Marriage is hard for everyone, but it can be even harder when one person has a chronic condition. Disease, illness, and disability can make a partner seem like a different person. That’s no one's fault, says Laurel Wittman, board president of the Well Spouse...
The Covid-19 pandemic has especially disrupted the lives of people living with chronic illnesses and disabilities and those who care for them. Here, Laura Mauldin examines how the spouses of people living with chronic illnesses and disabilities navigated the care of...
Several years ago, I told my sister that I wouldn’t be upset if we never spoke again. Recently her husband, with whom I have a good relationship, asked me to reconsider. I’m torn. My sister is a few years younger. We were never close but we used to get together for...
Ms. McWhinney-Morse was in her mid-60s when she and a handful of others her age started laying the groundwork for Beacon Hill Village. But younger villagers are surfacing. Jenn Prunty founded My Glacier Village in the Flathead Valley of Montana four years ago, when...
Ms. Biteranta now receives all of her health care through PACE, which monitors her, along with 120 other seniors, meticulously. PACE supplies much of her social life, too. “Here, they schedule you for appointments,” said Ms. Biteranta, 74, a retired nurse. “They send...
On March 1 every year, disability communities gather to mourn disabled people murdered by their caregivers. The first vigil was held in 2012, outside Sunnyvale City Hall. “It was a small group. We had some local [advocates] there. And we had some people from the...
On top of her work in entertainment, she’s also held the role of caregiver. In 2018, Latifah lost her beloved mother, Rita Owens, to interstitial lung disease (ILD). Now, Latifah is set to appear in Beyond Breathless, a new documentary that explores the experiences...
The long-term care home is so small, it could be mistaken for a large suburban house. Ten beds, a kitchen and a shared living room — this is emerging as one key option for reforming Alberta's pandemic-battered elder-care system. Many families of dementia patients are...
When I hear the stories of Black and brown girls and gender expansive youth who provide care to sick or disabled family members, themes of love and devotion emerge. They love their mamas, uncles, sisters, and abuelas through hospital stays, late nights, and early...
"I wrote/drew this opinion piece for the LA Times two years ago, right before COVID drastically changed the landscape of… well, everything. Unfortunately, care for seriously ill loved ones has not gotten any easier during the pandemic, and patients and families still...
I pull up in front of the house, knowing Dad will not be waiting to greet me. Having trouble remembering when that stopped, but it has been over a year. A year like no other … what am I going to find today? How much food mouldering on the counters, sitting in pots on...
When it becomes clear that an aging parent needs caregiving, it’s uncharted territory for adult children. Ideally, brothers and sisters rally together to recognize a parent’s needs and challenges, make plans to address them and volunteer for essential caregiving...
For close to two hours, my mom had stubbornly resisted our cajoling, pleading and arguing as we tried to get her out of the vehicle and into Villa Caritas, a geriatric psychiatric hospital and the only place in Edmonton that could handle her. She has aggressive...
Since the beginning of the pandemic, one in five health care workers has left their job. They’ve been joined in leaving by a historic number of low-wage workers in other industries. Anthony Klotz, a professor at Texas A&M University, predicted this wave of quits,...
All of Marlene’s children live within an hour of her Michigan home, yet Sheila, who lives the closest and is the only daughter, ended up in charge of most of the work. When Sheila, who requested that her last name not be used, told her brothers that their mom wasn’t...
We are hardwired to say these things when someone dies because otherwise, it would be too much. Human nature is to put boundaries around the loss, so we know it’s something that happens to other people. We say that they’re in a better place or to just remember the...