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What Does Dementia Look Like?
"My dad had lots of good days, days filled with laughter and conversations about his favorite memories of my childhood and his, days where he remembered many of the “little things” in my life that made me feel like he wasn’t aging at all. There were other days, though, when Dad was not as sharp. In fact, there were days when Dad really wasn’t Dad."
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Building and Supporting Dementia-Inclusive Communities
According to the World Health Organization, an estimated 50 million people are living with dementia worldwide. To combat the impact that dementia has on people living with the disease and their caregivers, the Dementia Friendly America initiative was launched to create communities where everyone could provide support and understanding to these individuals. The initiative aids the residents who are living with dementia and their caregivers in the community by raising public knowledge about the disease, supporting people living with dementia and their caregivers and connecting health systems with community-based organizations.
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Understanding and Coping with Ambiguous Grief as a Caregiver
Loss is not an unfamiliar concept, as we all experience it in some form through relationships with people and changes in our health. Grief is described as a process that we go through to cope with, move through and move on from a significant loss. However, there is a type of loss and grief that caregivers experience that has its own unique properties.
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How to Find Respite as a Caregiver During COVID-19
Carving out time in our day dedicated to ourselves with no outside distractions is challenging enough during the best of times. But during the COVID-19 pandemic, many of these distractions are coming from inside—and with ‘inside’ being the safest location to be, it may feel next to impossible to get away from them. Those who are sandwich generation caregivers may be juggling work tasks with 24/7 parenting and managing the care of an older loved one, leaving no moments of the day set aside for personal time and self-care. For others, loved ones may need more frequent support if their adult day programming or senior center activities are still canceled or reduced. Or, many of us may simply be struggling to find avenues of self-care and respite when the relaxing activities we previously enjoyed—going to the spa, scheduling a vacation—may not be as simple as they once were.
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Transitioning Away from Working—and Caregiving—at Home During COVID-19
While the pandemic has been challenging for many people, those who are already stretched thin have been pulled even more so. Just when we think we have mastered the juggling and multi-tasking, school in some form has begun again, employers are talking about transitioning back to on-site work environments, and we may not be able to help the older loved one we care for navigate their own time staying at home during the pandemic in the same way.
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