Soon after my 50th birthday, 10 years ago, I started keeping a list of “Things I will do/things I...
Category: The Caregiver’s Toolbox
Caregivers share the essential knowledge, tips, and tricks that make their lives easier.
Sandwich Generation: How Do You Decide Whose Needs Come First?
Your parents need your help right now, and so do your adult kids. But what about saving for your...
Wash
She showers once a week, and for the next six weeks—approximately four months into our new...
Some young adults with disabilities are stuck in long-term care. They say that’s discrimination.
For the past decade, [Victoria] Levack has lived, reluctantly, at the Arborstone Enhanced Care...
Friend to healthcare worker
I am currently helping friends with their severely disabled child. The child needs round-the-clock...
The high cost of living in a disabling world
The turn of the millennium was marked by a litany of good intentions and disavowals of unequal...
What Is Compassion Fatigue?
“Since the pandemic, individuals are coping with so many different forms of stress that might be...
Should I Help My Aging, Ailing Dad Access His Toxic Web Feed?
My father and I have not been especially close for all of my adult life because of his inability...
The final five percent
For reasons I still can’t grasp, Conway — a brain-damaged burn victim with seven fingers — never...
Queer Millennials Are Becoming Family Caregivers. We Aren’t Ready
The ache of watching a loved one grow smaller was hard enough. But I also wasn’t prepared for the...
Beyond Britney: Abuse, Exploitation, And Death Inside America’s Guardianship Industry
BuzzFeed News has scoured hundreds of thousands of court documents, obtained confidential mental...
Caring and Grieving in the Shadow of COVID
When my mother had brain surgery to remove a tumor in May 2020, I thought that was the most...
Healthy Helping for Family Caregivers of Senior Parents
Gerontologists and psychology of aging experts say that “aging well” in your 60s and 70s is about...
The staggering, exhausting, invisible costs of caring for America’s elderly
Some older adults have diligently prepared for their future. They purchased long-term care...
Children With Disabilities Need Sex Ed Too
Currently, only three states in the country explicitly include special ed students in their sex-ed...
Costa Ricans Live Longer Than Us. What’s the Secret?
Even in countries with robust universal health care, public health is usually an add-on; the vast...
Hospitals and Insurers Didn’t Want You to See These Prices. Here’s Why.
This year, the federal government ordered hospitals to begin publishing a prized secret: a...
A Mother’s Steely Portraits of Her Daughter’s Life with Down Syndrome
For as long as Grevenitis can remember, being in public with Lulu has brought about a less welcome...
What I’ve Learned Over a Lifetime of Caring for the Dying
Some of the hardest conversations I have in my work involve telling families managing the...
A Marriage Stressed by Obsessions and Compulsions
As soon as we learned a new baby was on the way, Mike’s anxiety became more than an occasional...
We can’t drug our way out of despair over Alzheimer’s
For over a century, people living with Alzheimer’s disease and their caregivers have been caught...
America isn’t taking care of caregivers
Dementia had not robbed Lillian of her fiercely independent spirit, but it had made her verbally...
A moment that changed me: my mother died – and I became my brother’s legal guardian
It was in Stansted airport’s Pink Elephant car park that I realised all the adults were going...
‘You’d walk out if your husband hit you – you can’t when it’s your child’
Most parents never have to worry about being attacked by a violent child, but if it happens, they...