Should You Convince Your Aging Parents to Move Closer to You?
Photo credit Alex Meci ...But aging parents aren’t the only family members on the move. These days, adult children are less likely to stay put in their hometowns. Instead, they follow educational opportunities, jobs and significant others across the country and even around the world. With families so scattered, one important question remains: What happens when Mom and Dad need care? The entire family finds itself in a quandary. Regardless of whether the parents have been living in the same town for 50 years or they relocated within the last decade, it’s safe to say that they have put down roots in this place. They hav...
Source: Minding Our Elders - November 19, 2022 Category: Geriatrics Authors: Carol Bradley Bursack Source Type: blogs

Caregiving During the Holidays: Have a Realistic, Positive Approach
There’s an image of holiday perfection that our culture encourages. Starting with Thanksgiving, we are inundated with images of families happily enjoying each other’s company during an idyllic holiday meal. Most of us have childhood memories that feed this desire for Norman Rockwell-esque celebrations. Even those who didn’t have these picture-perfect experiences growing up often strive to create them with their own families. However, few of us can measure up to the fantasy—caregivers least of all. The vast majority of advertisements, music and blockbuster movies sugarcoat the holidays and shirk the reality that mo...
Source: Minding Our Elders - November 18, 2022 Category: Geriatrics Authors: Carol Bradley Bursack Source Type: blogs

Caring for Aging Parents Who Didn ’t Care for You
Photo credit Sydney Sims ...As we talked, Nancy described the inner turmoil she was facing as her parents got older. She grew up with a physically and emotionally abusive mother, and her father had been gone much of the time, doing what most men of that generation did: working to support his family. Therefore, he wasn’t around to “interfere” with the raising of the children. Nancy had spent years in therapy learning to cope with her childhood issues. Through hard work, she learned to forgive her father for his lack of involvement and the fact that he didn’t put a stop to the abuse her mother doled out. She...
Source: Minding Our Elders - November 17, 2022 Category: Geriatrics Authors: Carol Bradley Bursack Source Type: blogs

Grieving Long Before a Loved One Dies
Nearly everyone involved in caring for an ill or aging loved one is experiencing some degree of grief. However, we don’t usually identify the complex emotions we’re experiencing as such. When you have a parent or spouse who used to be strong and capable but begins to ask for a little assistance, it’s no big deal, right? You’re happy to help. But deep down, there’s a knot in our hearts. We’re grieving various kinds of loss, including the loss of function that comes with advancing age or a chronic medical condition. Generally, these changes are subtle and the grief surrounding them is sneaky.  My Exp...
Source: Minding Our Elders - November 16, 2022 Category: Geriatrics Authors: Carol Bradley Bursack Source Type: blogs

Reducing Loneliness: How to Help Seniors During the Holidays
There is a lot of pressure on people to enjoy themselves during the holidays. The season is supposed to be merry and bright, but many elders feel increasingly isolated and unhappy this time of year—even before the coronavirus pandemic complicated everyday life and special occasions. Understandably, families are still concerned about how minimizing COVID-19 risk will affect their holiday plans with aging loved ones this year.  Why Seniors Experience Holiday Loneliness: While aging can bring wisdom and experience, there are inevitable losses that even the healthiest seniors face. Loved ones and friends fall il...
Source: Minding Our Elders - November 15, 2022 Category: Geriatrics Authors: Carol Bradley Bursack Source Type: blogs

November Appropriate Month for Celebrating Hospice and Palliative Care
“I hope we don’t have another funeral this Christmas,” my young son said after we wrapped up Halloween. Hearing my child voice that fear nearly broke my heart, but our family had endured the deaths of two elders during the last two Christmas seasons so why wouldn't he wonder if this year would be the same? Thankfully, that particular year we didn’t have a funeral during the season, though we did have another death at that time the following year. So, when it comes to death during the holidays, I have had some experience. I’ve also learned a lot since then  Continue reading about how November became a...
Source: Minding Our Elders - November 14, 2022 Category: Geriatrics Authors: Carol Bradley Bursack Source Type: blogs

Daughter Broken-Hearted After Dad with Alzheimer's Doesn ’t Recognize Her
Photo credit Luke Southern Dear Carol: My heart is breaking. For more than five years, I cared for my dad in his own home, then brought him into mine. After two years with me, he needed more help than I could provide so we moved him to memory care. I visit nearly every day, yet yesterday when I went into his room, he asked when his daughter was coming.  I know that not recognizing people is a predictable stage of Alzheimer’s but knowing doesn’t help. I swear that was the most painful moment for me so far in our whole Alzheimer’s journey. I need to get a grip on this because choking back tears when ...
Source: Minding Our Elders - November 13, 2022 Category: Geriatrics Authors: Carol Bradley Bursack Source Type: blogs

Dementia: Moving Beyond Diagnosis
For most anyone who has been diagnosed with dementia or has loved someone with a type of dementia, the formal diagnosis was a moment frozen in time. A moment where the thought of possibly having a brain-destroying disease became a confirmed reality. That pivotal moment is life-changing; however, people can move beyond that moment in time and learn to live with dementia. For our family, that moment arrived after my dad came out of surgery that was supposed to repair damage caused by a World War II brain injury. We had seen Dad wheeled into surgery. He’d propped himself up on one elbow and given us a signal that all would...
Source: Minding Our Elders - November 12, 2022 Category: Geriatrics Authors: Carol Bradley Bursack Source Type: blogs

Unearned Guilt Intrinsic to Most Caregiving
Photo credit Sharon McCutcheon If ever there's a group of people who suffer deeply from unearned guilt, it’s caregivers. Whether you’re the parent of a vulnerable adult, an adult child of aging parents, or the spouse of a vulnerable adult, you are bound to have your “if only” times where you are sucked into the quicksand of guilt. The reality is that most things you could have done differently wouldn’t have made a huge difference overall. Even if another approach would have made a difference, you can’t go back. Staying mired in guilt is counterproductive for you as well as your care receiver. While some...
Source: Minding Our Elders - November 11, 2022 Category: Geriatrics Authors: Carol Bradley Bursack Source Type: blogs

Aging in Place or Assisted Living: It's About Choices
It's not hard to understand why 60-year-olds would say that they want to remain in their home for life rather than move to assisted living or a nursing home. These are generally people who are relatively healthy and feel that they can hire help for whatever they need down the road. Indeed, aging in place sounds like a wonderful concept. What could possibly be wrong with it? The Washington Post interviewed Stephen M. Golant, a University of Florida professor of gerontology, about the trend. Golant views the current. He feels that people should have choices and that aging in place is just one of them. Golant said in the int...
Source: Minding Our Elders - November 10, 2022 Category: Geriatrics Authors: Carol Bradley Bursack Source Type: blogs

Spending Time Second-Guessing Your Caregiving Decisions?
Like most adults, I’ve second-guessed many of my own decisions. While most were made with my own future in mind, that all changed when I became a family caregiver for an ever-increasing number of older adults – a time that also coincided with raising two young children, one with health challenges. A dying aunt, a budding son: My aunt Marion, who had no children of her own, was in the hospital dying of cancer. While my parents visited her much of the time, I’d been close to her since I first learned to walk, so I tried to see her as much as possible. One afternoon, it had become evident that Marion was u...
Source: Minding Our Elders - November 9, 2022 Category: Geriatrics Authors: Carol Bradley Bursack Source Type: blogs

Caregivers Supporting Caregivers: Our Decisions Are Unique to Our Situations
Normally, all is well in caregiver support groups. People help and comfort one another, offer advice based on what’s worked for them in a similar situation, or just simply offer a much-appreciated hug — virtual or otherwise. This much-needed, well-meaning support can go off-track when the debate over family home care vs. facility care comes into play. The arguments for and against these choices can be intense, something that only increases the already huge load of unearned guilt that caregivers often carry. Decisions, decisions: Caregiving decisions are nearly always a matter of trade-offs. Balancing the benefits and ...
Source: Minding Our Elders - November 8, 2022 Category: Geriatrics Authors: Carol Bradley Bursack Source Type: blogs

How to Balance Caregiving Relationships between Generations
...This is how it often happens: You see your parents a lot since you still live in the same community. So, when your mom falls and breaks her arm, of course, you rush to help. You assist your dad with making some adjustments around the house, and then, for the most part, he takes over. Then, the unthinkable: Your dad has a heart attack. You rush in to help. And then… I refer to this as the “creep-up factor” because ​while ​many situations are far less dramatic than the one above, being an adult child adds the role of caregiver to your list that frequently includes wife/husband, girlfriend/boyfriend, mother/gran...
Source: Minding Our Elders - November 7, 2022 Category: Geriatrics Authors: Carol Bradley Bursack Source Type: blogs

With Safety Upgrades, Aging-in-place an Alternative to Moving
Photo credit Mark Timberlake Dear Carol: My parents are still vigorous and healthy, which is wonderful, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are in their 80s.  I’ve been encouraging them to start a plan so they can move out of their home to a safer living situation. They don’t need assisted living yet, but independent living or even a condo or apartment would be safer for them than their big house. When I mention the idea, they sort of agree but then evade and put off doing anything. I understand that they love their home and its memories, but change is needed. How do I motivate them? - DM Continue read...
Source: Minding Our Elders - November 6, 2022 Category: Geriatrics Authors: Carol Bradley Bursack Source Type: blogs

Driving and Memory Loss: Tips to Help Elders Give Up Driving
For many of us, a car is a sign of independence. But this emotional connection to our automobiles is part of what makes convincing a person that he or she is no longer capable of driving such a volatile battle. The longer adult children or others wait to discuss driving issues with a loved one, the harder it can be. Occasionally, people in the earlier stages of cognitive or physical decline will recognize the signs of that decline when they have a close call while driving and scare themselves into giving up their right to drive. More frequently, if the person has developed Alzheimer’s or another type of dementia, and th...
Source: Minding Our Elders - November 5, 2022 Category: Geriatrics Authors: Carol Bradley Bursack Source Type: blogs