Inside Aging Parent Care

Family Caregiving Fallout

By Bill September 29th, 2011

When Frank decided to leave Assisted Living in Florida, he moved to Denver. Audrey moved to a nursing home in Boise where Judi, her son Doug, and her new husband Willie live. The result of this trans-continental moving, caregiving, and visiting is that the family became much closer.

This blog, Inside Aging Parent Care, has also helped bring us together. All the family reads it, and Steve has guest-posted. The whole thing was Judi’s idea. She is our technical wizard and writes very well for someone from Idaho. Carol is the theoretician, and I bring the married into the family perspective.

There is the other side of caregiving for elder parents. When the elders start to lose their independence, the children often find themselves in conflict about what to do. The direct caregiving duties …

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Caregiver and Patient: In Charge

By Bill September 8th, 2011

Do Doctors Know Best?

The most important thing I have learned as caregiver and patient is that it is up to me or my caregiver to take charge in dealing with the medical system. The tradition is for an ill person to put themselves in the hands of the medical professionals. After all, “doctors know best”.

This attitude can put a patient in jeopardy due to some flaws in our health care system. For example, When Carol’s father Frank was hospitalized with pneumonia, he was weak and feverish. The hospitalist that day saw him and recorded that he suffered from profound dementia. Frank had some dementia, true, but his unresponsiveness was because he was sick. Frank’s dementia was never profound. If the hospitalist had read Frank’s chart or seen him more often, that …

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How Does a Caregiver Make the Right Decision if an Aging Parent Cannot?

By Carol December 19th, 2010

Did you know that every hospital has a bioethics committee whose job it is to consult with family caregivers about their care decisions if the patient cannot decide for him or herself? I didn’t. This is just one of the things I learned from David Solie’s recent interview with clinical bioethicist Viki Kind. Another thing I didn’t know is that CPR works only about 1% of the time for the frail elderly in multi-organ failure. And, when it does, quality of life afterward will probably be severely compromised.

In fact, Viki emphasizes bringing the issues of quality of life into all the medical decisions for patients in later life. She helps us redefine compassionately what “doing everything” for an aging parent might be when a parent is going through the final illness. Click the …

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Caring for Caregivers after National Family Caregivers Month is Over

By Carol November 30th, 2010

The theme of the 2010 national celebration of family caregivers has been “Reach Out for Help.” Now that we have come to the end of this month long event, I would like to add my own personal motto as a caregiver—Never Stop Reaching Out for Help. I know from my own experience that continuing to reach out again and again can be one of the hardest things a caregiver does. And yet it is also often one of the most fruitful and productive actions we can take.

As caregivers of caregivers and friends of caregivers, continuing to reach out to the caregivers that we love and want to support may be even more crucial. A month of recognition can give a caregiver a wonderful lift, but the isolation of caregiving can close in just …

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By Carol October 23rd, 2010

This week, in celebration of six months of blogging, we are republishing three of our most viewed posts. The Caregiver Desperation Scale© is one of our favorites as well as our readers’. It is a semi-humorous take on the serious subject of caregiver stress.

1. You have a feeling of optimism and a strong sense of resolve to make things better for your loved one. You do not recognize that these feelings have already placed you on the lowest level of The Family Caregiver Desperation Scale.

2. You are certain that you have a new, creative idea that just might make a significant impact on your loved one’s well being. You know without a doubt that if you can only come up with the perfect activity, electronic gadget …

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Family Caregiving Fallout

Caregiver and Patient: In Charge

How Does a Caregiver Make the Right Decision if an Aging Parent Cannot?

Caring for Caregivers after National Family Caregivers Month is Over

The Caregiver Desperation Scale© Redux

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