Articles

My final year at medical school began this fall with an unexpected flight home to Colorado. My mother has multiple sclerosis, and my sister, her caregiver for the past three years while I attended school in New Haven, was moving away to start a new job she’d suddenly gotten. There was no one else but
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Living at home as you age requires careful consideration and planning. Learn how you can make some changes to help maintain your independence. Share this infographic and help spread the word about ways you can age in place safely. Click on the social media icons above, or copy and paste the URL and post it
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This year I joined the ranks of 40 million Americans who are family caregivers as I began to care for my 81-year-old father. As a physician, taking on this role has given me the chance to experience what so many of my patients and their families encounter. As I’ve learned, no one is prepared to
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One phone call turned my world upside down. It was Jan. 29, 2006, and the then-president of ABC News was on the phone, explaining that my journalist husband, Bob Woodruff, had been hit by a roadside bomb in Iraq where he was covering the war for ABC’s World News Tonight. Bob had suffered a severe
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STAMFORD, Conn. — Tuesday night was rough. A sharp scent drifted into Marjorie Salmon’s dream world at 4 a.m. She was still trying to rouse herself when its source, her 77-year-old client, pounded on her bedroom door, yelling that he wanted to go home. “You’re home, Bob. This is your home,” Marjorie told him. She
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Over time, people with Alzheimer’s disease become less able to manage around the house. For example, they may forget to turn off the oven or the water, how to use the phone during an emergency, which things around the house are dangerous, and where things are in their own home. As a caregiver, you can
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Personal transformation is usually an experience we actively seek out – not one that hunts us down. But in the twenty-first century, becoming a caregiver is a transformation that comes at us because today the ‘call to care’ is at odds with the imperative of work and the call to individual achievement. Being a caregiver is not
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Yesterday, my husband Les died. No, it was actually a year and 41 days ago, but it feels like yesterday. I’m still wondering how this could really have happened. He was diagnosed with Early Stage Early Onset Probable Alzheimer’s Disease in January 2000 at age 63. For the first week after diagnosis, I kept saying,
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Dear Candid Caregiver: My dad is having around-the-clock home care, which was his choice early on when he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. He’s in the later stages now, but he keeps telling his caregivers, including me when I take a shift, that he wants to go home. I read an article that you wrote
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Dear Candid Caregiver: My parents were always open about their long-term plans for retirement, saying that they’ve worked hard and retirement was going to be the payoff. Travel was huge on the horizon. Now, my dad has been diagnosed with mixed dementia, which, in his case, means Alzheimer’s and possibly Lewy body dementia, so their
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