Dear Carol: My father died a month ago and I’m worried about how to handle Valentine’s Day for my mother. My parents had a good marriage and had always made Valentine’s Day special for each other. I’ve thought about just ignoring it, and sometimes I think Mom would prefer that. However, other times I think that maybe we should do something to honor Dad’s memory and their marriage. How do people handle these times? – Jennifer
Read more about helping your elders through Valentine's Day:
Find care agencies to help you care for your loved ones:
Support a caregiver or jump start discussion in support groups with real stories - for bulk orders e-mail Carol:
This is a subject close to my heart, as my dad had surgery to relieve pressure from fluid on the brain due to an old World War II injury. A shunt was put into dad's brain to drain excess fluid. This type of surgery is not uncommon and is generally successful. Dad went into surgery a little fuzzy from the fluid, but still very much himself. A day after the surgery, he fell into a hellish dementia from which he never recovered until death took him a decade later.
Read more about deciding whether surgery for an elder is worth the risk:
Find care agencies to help you care for your loved ones:
Support a caregiver or jump start discussion in support groups with real stories - for bulk orders e-mail Carol:
Even in seemingly harmonious families, the person who slowly became a default caregiver can start to feel resentful. The out-of-town siblings can conveniently slide into denial. They aren't around to see how much help is needed. They see Mom and Dad occasionally, talk to them on the phone, and all seems well. The fact that you, the in-town sibling, are the reason everything is going so smoothly doesn't really register with them.
Read more about siblings and how to settle disagreements:
Find care agencies to help you care for your loved ones:
Support a caregiver or jump start discussion in support groups with real stories - for bulk orders e-mail Carol:
Guilt has a purpose in life. If we are mean, we should feel guilty. If we owe someone an apology, we should be big enough to do so. But guilt is a complicated emotion. We take on the expectations of our culture, our religion, our family. And then we take on the expectations of our toughest critic – ourselves. That committee that meets in our head tells us we are not doing this caregiving thing well enough. If we were "good" people, we'd just keep answering the phone endlessly until Mom found something else to do.
Read more about getting a handle on caregiver guilt:
Find care agencies to help you care for your loved ones:
Support a caregiver or jump start discussion in support groups with real stories - for bulk orders e-mail Carol:
Recent news that the path Alzheimer’s disease travels in the brain may finally have been nailed down has created a lot of excitement. Researchers believe this discovery may lead to a new direction in developing a way to prevent or cure the disease. A New York Times article reports on two independent studies, both of which concluded that Alzheimer’s disease seems to spread like a viral or bacterial infection by a “distorted protein known as Tau.” These studies were done on mice.
Read more about the new discovery on how Alzheimer's spreads in the brain:
Find care agencies to help you care for your loved ones:
Support a caregiver or jump start discussion in support groups with real stories - for bulk orders e-mail Carol:
Children can be frightened by the changes in the grandparent who was once gentle and loving, but could now have become cranky and occasionally downright mean and abusive. How we, as parents, handle the changes in our own parents can affect how well our children handle the changes. But each child is different and each set of circumstances is different. So where to you start when it's time to explain?
Read more about helping kids understand grandparents' dementia:
Find care agencies to help you care for your loved ones:
Support a caregiver or jump start discussion in support groups with real stories - for bulk orders e-mail Carol:
The young seniors who are now edging their way into the nursing homes are a generation who just missed being baby boomers (some are actually boomers, but may need nursing care at a younger age because of a stroke, MS or other ill health). This generation remembers sitting around a giant radio, often the centerpiece of the living room, listening to The Lone Ranger. Then later actually viewing the show in their homes on a huge television set with a small, round screen.
Read more about nursing homes changing to accommodate two generations of elders:
Find care agencies to help you care for your loved ones:
Support a caregiver or jump start discussion in support groups with real stories - for bulk orders e-mail Carol: