“How do I separate my loved one’s old abusive behaviors from those caused by his illness?” It’s a question I often hear from caregivers and one that’s difficult to answer definitively. Yet it routinely impacts relationships between caregivers and their loved ones.
Making Dementia Caregiving Support More Available To Those Who Need It
Dementia is devastating. Most of us have seen or experienced the toll on families that comes with caring for someone with Alzheimer’s disease or similar conditions. There are an estimated 8.5 million family members providing dementia care at home and, with no cure on the horizon, this number is expected to rise sharply.
Dear President Trump: Focus on Our Caregiving Workforce
Across the country, the stories are the same. A family can’t find a home care worker to assist an aging parent. A local home care provider struggles to recruit workers—these workers in turn flee the sector, fed up with the quality of these jobs. This cycle repeats, the problems multiply by the year, and the workforce shortage explodes into a national crisis affecting millions of long-term care consumers.
Pressed Into Caregiving Sooner Than Expected
It was August, and Gina Rinehart was preparing for another school year as a special-education teacher in Hemet, Calif., when she got the call: Her father, Floyd Hall, was facing surgery to remove a tumor in his lung.
She flew to rural Lake Cushman, Wash., to be with her parents, expecting to spend two weeks helping her dad recover. Her father, known as Bub and an active retiree at 68, spent his days woodworking, volunteering at the local food bank and helping his own 95-year-old mother.
The Three R’s of Caregiving
You’ve heard of the three R’s of education: reading, writing and ‘rithmetic. You probably know about the three R’s of recycling: reduce, reuse and recycle. Having a list of three R’s can help us recall and prioritize what is most important.
Scam Phone Calls Continue; IRS Identifies Five Easy Ways to Spot Suspicious Calls
The Internal Revenue Service issued a consumer alert today providing taxpayers with additional tips to protect themselves from telephone scam artists calling and pretending to be with the IRS.
These callers may demand money or may say you have a refund due and try to trick you into sharing private information. These con artists can sound convincing when they call. They may know a lot about you, and they usually alter the caller ID to make it look like the IRS is calling. They use fake names and bogus IRS identification badge numbers. If you don’t answer, they often leave an “urgent” callback request.
The blessing inside my sister’s Alzheimer’s disease
Last month my sister passed away from early-onset Alzheimer’s. She was 58 and probably had the disease for well over a decade.
Awful. Anyone I share this news with has a visible physical reaction to it. They shudder. Take a deep breath. It’s the disease everyone fears. Alzheimer’s doesn’t just kill you, they are thinking, it robs you of the person you are long before it has the mercy to kill you.
How You Can Protect Your Parent From Delirium
Paula Duncan looks for delirium, a serious problem that often goes undetected in older hospital patients. So Duncan, a registered nurse at Park Nicollet Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park, Minn., has learned to look beneath the surface, including in patients’ dreams.
People who’ve experienced delirium often have horrific and haunting dreams, she says. It’s not always something they’ll readily talk about. She asks them how they’re sleeping and if they’re dreaming, and watches their faces for clues. “Sometimes you can see by the look on their face that they’re having this experience, but they don’t want to tell you because it’s so awful,” Duncan said.
The proof enduring love DOES exist
Photograph of 96-year-old man feeding his Alzheimer's stricken wife on a date night after 75 years of marriage goes viral
They say true love never dies and this heartwarming photo is certainly proof of that.
The snap, which is sweeping the internet, shows a 96-year-old man from the US tenderly feeding his wife during their date night.
9 Simple Tips for Coping with Caregiver Anxiety
Everybody experiences a little anxiety from time to time. But caregiving can create a whole lot of anxiety.
Anxiety affects people in different ways. Some people have trouble breathing. For others, their heart races and their muscles tense.
Prolonged Sleep May Be Early Warning Sign of Dementia
Older adults who started sleeping more than nine hours a night — but had not previously slept so much — were at more than double the risk of developing dementia a decade later than those who slept nine hours or less, researchers report.
The increased risk was not seen in people who had always slept more than nine hours.
“We’re not suggesting you go wake up Grandpa. We think this might be a marker for the risk of dementia, not a cause” of the illness, said Dr. Sudha Seshadri, a professor of neurology at Boston University School of Medicine and the senior author of the study, in Neurology.
Caring for caregivers all year
Those caring for loved ones who have Alzheimer's disease can attest that the disease costs caregivers more than just their time. Caregiving can be stressful, and this stress can have a negative effect on a caregiver's health, as well as their personal relationships, work and other family members. In 2015, more than 15 million caregivers provided an estimated 18.1 billion hours of unpaid care for someone with Alzheimer's.
This incredibly tough work should not go unnoticed. November has been designated National Family Caregivers Month by the Caregiver Action Network, and it offers a special opportunity to recognize the contributions of those who provide care for their loved ones. Our appreciation, however, doesn't need to be limited to one month of the year.