Elder Care ABC

Caring for parents requires organization and focus.  You’ve added parent care tasks to your already busy life.  How can you streamline your caregiving? Top parent care challenges are: Organizing important information Keeping family and friends informed Getting help with day-to-day caregiving tasks

It’s important to know the warning signs of depression, when caring for parents. Elder health care studies have shown that changes in health and loss of social connections put seniors at high risk for developing depression. The key to caring for parents at risk for depression is to look for changes in behavior and get [...]

If eldercare responsibilities are becoming more difficult, you might want to explore assistive technology as a way of easing the caregiving burden while enhancing quality of life for your parent. What is assistive technology? It’s any device that helps your parent live more independently. Assistive technology geared toward senior living can range from simple walking [...]

7 Special Tips to Help a Senior Live an Active Life If you’re reading this, it’s probably because you have an elderly parent or other loved one who you’re worried about. You want this person to be active and healthy, but he or she just does not seem motivated to do much anymore. WELL, YOU [...]

Statistics show that people are living longer and longer. The age that people live to has grown dramatically in the past 20 years. Because people are living longer there is usually greater need for assistance as we age. In the majority of households the assistance that seniors receive usually comes from their children. In many [...]

Caregiving for a family member with dementia can be a mind bending experience. Making a connection through the dementia means letting go of our “reality” and meeting your parent where she is.  Dementia can take you on amazing journeys into a person’s past. As a caregiver for a parent with dementia, you need new communication [...]

Caregiving and communicating when your parent has dementia can be challenging. I’ve spent time in the “fun house” world of mother’s dementia, where my name was Alice not Janice and the game of “where is my purse?” went on all morning.  Caregiving was exhausting. I wasted a lot of time and energy correcting my mom [...]

Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship,in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. – Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor (1978) It’s time to ask yourself a hard question about caregiving: Are you currently dwelling in the kingdom of the well, or in the kingdom of the sick? Although your [...]