Caregiver stress

Wonderful article for caregivers, you are not alone. We have services like Coaching For Caregivers and Alzheimer’s Training that can help you get through it all! Enjoy this story I found today and wanted to share!

When our Mother developed dementia symptoms we thought it might be caused by all the medication she was taking. But when she went off all of the medicines due to other health concerns there was no improvement in her memory.

She was confused, and overwhelmed by simple tasks. She struggled to remember where she had left common objects. She didn’t understand basic reasoning. She got lost while driving—really lost.

As time went on and her Dr. didn’t seem concerned about the increasing signs that something might be wrong, we thought that maybe it wasn’t as severe as we feared.

Years went by and we learned to make light of Mom’s forgetfulness. It nagged at us, but there didn’t seem to be much we could do.

The Dr. finally prescribed some medication to help with her “memory problems.” We noticed no improvement.

Another year passed and she was hospitalized for the treatment of blood clots. The nurses started mentioning “Sundowner’s Syndrome” and asking how long she’d had dementia symptoms.

Finally! Medical professionals who acknowledged what had concerned us for so long!

A few months later, during another hospitalization, the Drs. and nurses were mentioning that “Her Alzheimer’s is in the advanced stages.” What! What happened to dementia symptoms? How did we get to this point already?

Sadly, our Mom recently passed away due to other medical problems and our lives as caregivers came to an abrupt halt. But now we have the time to consider what we did right and what we did wrong, what we would have changed and what we would have done the same, what helped us, what hurt us, and those resources we never had the time or opportunity to take full advantage of.

We care enough to help you care enough! We are Paula Farris and Lanette Stultz, sisters who were caregivers for their mother as she battled Alzheimer’s Disease.

We weren’t prepared for our roles as caregivers. There are so many things we didn’t know!

And to make the situation even more difficult—we didn’t know we needed to know them. So we had to learn too many things the hard way.

We’ve been there! We are here to help. We know caring for your parent or other loved one is a difficult enough burden without being surprised by yet another thing you didn’t know.

We have spent hours researching symptoms and treatments, talking to doctors, managing medication, and dealing with the emotions that this diagnosis brings.

We will share with you what we have learned to help make your role as caregiver easier. Thanks for the article!

Elayne Forgie has been a professional geriatric care manager for over 20 years and was a founding Board Member of the Florida Geriatric Care Managers Association. She is the President/CEO of ElderCare at Home, Inc. and The Alzheimer's Care Resource Center. Information on this website or contained in this article is not intended to replace the medical advice of your doctor or health care provider.