caregiving dilemma Archives - Aging, caregiving and the journey through the second half of life

Communicating Tough Choices. Booklet (pdf)

June 6, 2018

Introduction At some point in the lives of our aging parents things slip out of control. It may be a subtle change over time that finally becomes unmanageable or the sudden arrival of a medical setback. As much as we…

Critical Caregiver Communication Skills

May 13, 2018

This is a new series I created to help caregivers establish and sustain rapport with older adults…this is the first offering of the series.…

What Happens When There Is No One To Take Care Of You?

September 2, 2017

This sobering article is about a brutal irony of the age wave flooding the ranks of the U.S. population. The hands-on home health care workers who tend to the old and sick are giving up on the profession at an…

Caregiver Decision Fatigue

July 1, 2015

Caring for aging parents brings with it a new kind of exhaustion called decision fatigue. While its cause has a number of contributing factors, two in particular stand out as primary sources: • Sustained engagement with dilemmas • Decision volatility…

Honor Their Words…

March 2, 2015

At some point you have to be their voice. No one else can do it. This article by Dr. Mikkael Sekeres director of the leukemia program at the Cleveland Clinic reminds us that we are called to honor the words…

Poetry and Adult Children

December 28, 2014

Moving through middle age is a polyphasic lightening round of commingled dilemmas. No one captures the tone and pace of this developmental tango better than Jeanne Marie Beaumont in her poem Afraid So. Afraid So By Jeanne Marie Beaumont Is…

The Caregiver Dance: Compassion and Equanimity

April 1, 2012

Last year I went to a conference on accepting the limits of being a caregiver. It was attended by mostly hospital-based healthcare professionals who have to deal with suffering and loss on a daily basis. The focus of the program…