What are We Afraid of? Caregiver Fears…Rational or Otherwise When you become a caregiver, your life changes forever. You cannot recapture the past, and in facing an unknown future, you may be overcome by fear. My own experience proved I was so busy trying to be the best caregiver possible for my father, that I [...]
Surviving Eldercare: Where Their Needs End and Yours Begin Author: Ellen Besso When you are caring for anyone whose physical or mental condition is not going to improve it is wearisome and draining, despite the passion you bring to the task. The importance of care for you has to be taken seriously. In her book [...]
Battling the Caregiver Blues Caregiving can be a lonely task. Day after day spent caring for another person can lead to feelings of isolation and exclusion. With no one else to talk to, no one to appreciate the small sacrifices you make on a daily basis, it’s no wonder that depression is very common among [...]
NOT Alzheimer’s Dementia I read the Alzheimer’s sites a lot. And really, sometimes, you just want to sit down and beat yourself over the head with a large medical dictionary. I just live with and care for people with dementia. And I’m very happy to do that. As part of doing that, I read and [...]
Can We Fix Dementia Sundowning? There’s nothing like sundowning to make caregivers feel crazy. And, they aren’t any better in care facilities either. They deal just as badly or just as well with sundowning as you do at home. However, you can make a plan that works to reduce and even stop sundowning, or at [...]
Dementia Goes Home Again Dementia ravages short-term memory, dismantling it in pieces and thus making it completely unreliable. Long-term memory is a different issue. Although it also varies, it is much more likely to be somewhat or even very accurate. Long-term memories are stored in a different part of the brain which may remain undamaged [...]
“It Helps to Talk” There is so much to talk about when we consider the complexities of aging, and caring for ourselves and our parents around these matters. Sharing our own experiences is the most effective tool for coping. And hearing other people’s stories offers a direct route to what we need to know and [...]
