When a Loved One with Alzheimer’s Doesn’t Recognize You
Watching a loved one move through the stages of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) can be one of life’s toughest and most heart-breaking challenges. If we...
Death and dying
How Caregiving Can Change Your Personality
There’s no getting around it: being a family caregiver is bound to impact how you think and who you are as a person. Taking...
Family Caregivers Still Undervalued by Many
We live in a society that tends to value what we do over who we are. If what we do isn’t highly paid or...
Why So Many Long-Married Couples Die Close Together
While death rarely brings pleasant feelings, from time to time we’ll see a story about death go viral on the Internet because it touches...
When One Parent Dies the Other Often Needs a Long-Term Care Plan
Long-term marriages generally evolve into a support system so efficient that even adult children hardly notice changes in their parents. If Dad’s hearing is...
Hospital Delirium: Cognitive Decline After Hospitalization
In the expected course of treatment, people are hospitalized because they are ill. Then, barring a terminal condition, they are released because they are...
Former Caregiver Wants to Ease Future Caregiving Stress for Her Kids
Dear Carol: For years, I read your column as a caregiver for my mom who was in her nineties. Since her death, I’ve continued to...
Father’s Day As a Caregiver: Remembering Dad Before Dementia
This Father’s Day I’ll have fond memories of my dad, as will many caregivers and adult children. The juxtaposition of the past and present...
A Common Caregiver Confession: “I Secretly Wish My Ill Loved One Would Die”
…Most caregivers would have been devastated by the death of their loved ones before they took on this role. But when a care recipient...
Hindsight Can Be a Blessing or a Curse for Caregivers
They say hindsight is 20/20. But things from the past that may seem “clear” to you now can still be distorted by difficult emotions—especially...
