Caregiver Fatigue

From Pleading To Informing…

A lead caregiver of aging parents was going to extraordinary lengths to keep everything together only to find herself drowning in transactional quicksand. As her parents drifted into the land of “more and more care,” her uninvolved siblings either refused…

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Bad Parent Connection: Now What?

It’s one thing to have a decent connection to our aging parents. We may not be close, but we still feel compelled by love and loyalty to come along side them in the in last years of their lives. But…

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Seeking Forgiveness: Linda Kriger

This deeply moving article by Linda Kriger was published in 2008: http://www.forward.com/articles/14255/ I have read and reread this tale of estrangement, bitterness, regret, and the search for “repair” because I heard endless versions of it from friends, colleagues, clients, and…

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Navigating Caregiver Dilemmas

As the drama of aging parents unfolds, it reveals itself as layers of interconnected dilemmas that resist heroic attempts to keep everything together. Like an unruly Rubik’s Cube, alignment in one caregiver area seems to trigger chaos in another. Just…

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I Don’t Need Assisted Living!

An older adult is ready to move into an independent living community and undergoes a “pre-placement” health assessment by the facility’s physician. Based on the findings, the physician indicates that the older adult “needs assisted living.” The older adult and…

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Conflicting Layers of Longevity

As boomers approach the outskirts of being old, a new aging dilemma is beginning to emerge: simultaneous developmental phases with their aging parents. It is one thing to be fifty-something and have aging parents in their mid to late seventies.…

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Pulling the Cardiac Plug

Even the best laid plans of aging can fall apart. Katy Butler’s recent article in The New York Times, What Broke My Father’s Heart, tells a painful tale of the unwanted impact of medical technology in the last and most…

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Caregiver Stress? Try Inspirational Walking

Caregiver stress is well documented and extracts a heavy toll on both caregivers and their families. In the heat of trying to keep everything together, it is hard for caregivers to find effective strategies that offer some respite from the…

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