Tag: caregiver

Caregivers may not say it out loud, but they are communicating their need for help in their absence from the activities they used to be involved with or by the lack of phone calls, text messages, and tweets you no longer receive from them. Perhaps the last time you saw your friend in the grocery store there was a brief moment when she was fighting back tears.

You’ve been successful managing most aspects of your complicated life and are proud of the relationships you’ve nurtured and maintained through it all. Whether you’re a baby boomer, a millennial or somewhere in between, research tells us that your odds of becoming a caregiver to a loved one through illness or age are quite high.

Much has been written about whether taking on a caregiving role strengthens or shatters the relationship you share with your significant other. I think the unfulfilling answer is, it depends.

Alzheimer’s disease is now the sixth leading cause of death in the United States. Behind this statistic are 16 million Americans providing unpaid care to a loved one with Alzheimer’s or related dementias. The face of caregiving today is a family member or friend doing their best to survive the role of care partner.

Are you one of them?

Thinking about the dementia journey my mother and I shared over 18 years; waves of powerlessness, loneliness and guilt always come first. They are the emotions I often felt as an uneducated caregiver. Trying to remember the good, my mind usually finds its way to the pain of my shortcomings.

Before my husband was stricken with neurological issues at 59, I never imagined how being a caregiver would transform my life in every possible way. Navigating a new landscape of living related to his neurological issues tested my fortitude to remain steadfast while meeting life’s challenges with courage, strength, and wisdom.

The media has called the aging of America the "Silver Tsunami." Our families, health system, and economy can either surf, or drown. Where’s your parents surfboard?

The first Baby boomers reached age 65 in 2012, ushering in the largest group of seniors in American history, but these silver foxes don’t intend to rock on anybody’s porch. We (yes, I'm a Boomer) plan to stay physically and mentally active as we handle challenges that confronted no generation before us. Here's a message I'd like passed along to the other Boomers out there.

If you’re like many couples that argue about the same things over and over—and this is a cycle you’d like to interrupt—take into consideration that these issues may not really be the problem. It’s more likely the issues will be about long held belief systems from your family of origin that shaped your views of self and others. The more secure you felt during that time, the less likely you would get emotionally reactive and have it triggered in your marriage.

We live in a time when so many of our kids are in childcare, and while there is a modicum of research that tells us that childcare is not detrimental, it is a well-known fact that the people who care for our children can have a profound influence on them for the rest of their lives.

I qualify caregivers as childcare workers from infancy through toddlerhood: in-home nannies, family members and even educators. There are many qualified, well-meaning people who help care for children every day at many ages of development.