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

Strategic Collaboration Calls with David Solie™

December 24, 2017

If you are getting the same results using the same strategies over and over again with an aging parent, it may be time for a collaboration call to gain both a new perspective on your situation and new communication…

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…

Sibling Conflict Over Money: Caregiving and Inheritance

August 12, 2017

This article by Alessandra Malito for Market Watch offers important insights into why the majority of parents do not reveal to their children the the details of their inheritance. As important, it describes the assumptions and attitude of siblings towards…

How To Talk To Aging Parents About Where To Live

May 2, 2017

I was recently interviewed for an article entitled “Conversation vs. Confrontation: Guidelines for Effective Communication with Your Aging Parents.” In it I discuss how often the insistence by older adults to “stay put” in their home despite deteriorating circumstances prevents…

The Ceremony of the Shoes

December 13, 2016

Embedded in the living towards the end lies a narrative about love under fatal duress. It is a space that refines courage and fosters an unexpected elegance. Frannie Lindsay’s poem below is about how this elegance, born of love and…

Caregiver Vulnerability and Shame

July 10, 2016

Things Fall Apart It’s a messy game being a caregiver of aging parents. Despite heroic efforts, things can fall apart at the worse possible time. Now what? Shame Comes To Easy Listen to this inspiring TED Talk by Brené Brown.…

Rethinking Solo Caregiving For A Spouse

November 24, 2015

Solo caregiving for a spouse takes a toll on both parties. What starts out as act of compassion and loyalty can deteriorate into a role that exceeds the best efforts of one person. Unfortunately, the stress of day to day…

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…

Navigating Caregiver Dilemmas

May 25, 2011

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…