Caregiving Blog: Caring for Aging Parents
Welcome to the Caregiving Blog: Caring for Aging Parents. Here you will find helpful caregiving blog articles as well as podcasts and transcripts from The Caring Generation® radio program for caregivers and aging adults. Use the social media buttons at the left to share on Facebook, Twitter, or Linked In, to email a copy to family or friends or to print a copy. All posts are written by caregiving expert, Pamela D. Wilson.
Caregiving Blog: Power of Attorney & The Caregiving Family Backup Plan
Do you have power of attorney and a family caregiving backup plan? If you are an aging couple, what is the plan when one of you dies? Have your children agreed to be caregivers? Have you made plans for someone else to caregive?Are you a second family, meaning a second...
Caregiving Blog: Better Caregiving Support Delivers Better than Average Care
Better caregiving support delivers better than average care. Caregivers work long hours, caring for their family, caregiving for an aging parent, spouse or another family member. One day runs into the next. Care receivers rely on help from family and others. Many...
Caregiving Blog: 5 Secrets to Achieving Caregiving Bliss
While caregivers would not choose a different path, secrets to achieving caregiving bliss can be elusive. Caregiving and bliss are not words generally associated with each other. Anxiety, frustration, and feelings of overwhelm are the feelings that caregivers express...
Caregiving Blog: Male Caregivers Deny Feeling Stressed & Angry
Male caregivers deny feeling stressed and angry about caregiving responsibilities. Caregiving for a wife, an aging mother, or father is unfamiliar territory and quickly progresses to responsibilities and tasks that have a very personal and human element. Caregiving...
Caregiving Blog: I’m So Tired of Being a Caregiver
“I’m so tired of being a caregiver,” is the emergency call for rescue by an exhausted caregiver battling feelings of frustration. By reading this, you might believe that the exhausted caregiver is the person who wants to give up. In most situations, the aging parent,...
Caregiving Blog: Caregiving Burnout
Caregiving burnout is a condition associated with the time commitment and types of care provided for an aging parent or loved one. Burnout results from the multiple caregiving roles and responsibilities of family caregivers. Consistent effort is needed to support good...
Caregiving Blog: Caregiver Support For Adult Children With Aging Parents
Participation in caregiver support programs smooths interactions between adult children and aging parents. Positive caregiving relationships influence quality of daily care and overall well-being. As adult children become more involved in caregiving roles for aging...
Caregiving Blog: Roles and Responsibilities
Uncertainty about roles and responsibilities are concerns of family caregivers. These concerns include 1:1 care, emotional and social support, and care monitoring, coordination, and advocacy. Physical stress, worry, and emotional overwhelm are shared caregiver...
Caregiving Blog: Chronic Disease Risks and Making Good Choices
Pamela D. Wilson, MS, BS/BA, CSA, NCG, CGThe prevalence of chronic disease in the United States is skyrocketing. Diagnosis occur with little or no explanation by physicians of the long-term effects of the disease. Aging adults—of all ages—refuse to act on physician...
Caregiving Blog: Older Adult Hip Fractures, Death Rates, and Home Safety Tips
Pamela D. Wilson, MS, BS/BA, CSA, NCGHip fractures result in high death rates for older adults age 65+ and accelerated death rates for older adults diagnosed with dementia. The level of physical condition, ability to complete activities of daily living, and time to...
Caregiving Blog: 10 Tips to Manage In Home Caregivers
Skills to manage in home caregivers are necessary when considering hiring in home caregiving support for an older adult. Assuming that caregivers are trained or experienced is an inaccurate belief. Few in home caregivers are trained or have extensive experience....
Caregiving Blog: Aging Adults Get the Results You Want From a 15-Minute Medical Appointment
Getting Results from a 15-Minute Medical Appointment Can Be ChallengingAging adults find it difficult to get results from a 15-minute medical appointment. The time limitation makes it difficult to thoroughly discuss health concerns. After age 50, the likelihood of...
Caregiving Blog: Activities of Daily Living Signs of Decline in Aging Adults
A decline in the ability to complete activities of daily living is a sign that an aging adult may benefit from assistance to support well-being and safety. Activities of daily living are tasks that most of us complete each day with ease. For example, eating or...
Caregiving Blog: 10 Tips for Responding Positively to Unexpected Caregiving Changes
Caregiving responsibilities change daily. Having strategies to respond positively to unexpected changes is important to maintain balance and perspective. Changes occur in the care for aging parents or a spouse and also for the caregiver. The change may be a change in...
Caregiving Blog: 6 Tips to Initiating Caregiving Discussions With Aging Parents
Initiating caregiving discussions with aging parents can be challenging. As an adult child, you may have attempted and failed. It's time to try again with these proven tips. Initiating ongoing discussions about needed care and related concerns supports positive...
Caregiving Blog: Estate Planning and The Responsibility of Being Named Medical Power of Attorney
A friend or aging family member completed their estate planning documents. You agreed to be named medical power of attorney. Do you understand the magnitude and extent of the responsibility of the role of medical power of attorney? Are you prepared to show up at the...
Caregiving Blog: Participation in Social Groups Delays Alzheimer’s Disease and Cognitive Decline
Participation in social groups has the potential to delay cognitive decline and a diagnosis of dementia or Alzheimer’s Disease. Older adults who are isolated because of choice or physical disability are more susceptible to depression, cognitive decline, and...
Caregiving Blog: 5 Tips For Caring for Aging Parents and Avoiding Family Conflict
Family conflict occurs in many family caregiving situations when aging parents begin to need assistance. Disagreement occurs about which child should provide care. Which child has the most free time. Aging parents resist the idea of adult children managing their...
Caregiving Blog: 10 Tips for Seniors to Create a Positive Attitude Toward Aging and Health
When asked how old they feel specific to health and aging, many senior citizens report a number lower than their actual age. This self report confirms a positive attitude and belief that good health can delay the negative effects of old age. Other seniors...
Caregiving Blog: Patient Neglect
Pamela D. Wilson, MS, BS/BA, NCGPatient neglect is becoming a more frequent occurrence among care providers. Admittedly not all patient neglect is intentional. The results of patient neglect are tragic for patients and for family members experiencing emotional upset...
Caregiving: Does Anyone Care?
Coordinating care for loved ones can be challenging learn to advocate to have your needs met.
Caregiving: Care Planning To Address the Abby Normal
Caregiving and daily life routines that result in the development of a care plan may prove to be a fascinating subject when caring for elderly parents. How many of us are in a routine that seems normal but when viewed from the outside may be considered abnormal or at...
Caregiving: Managing Family Caregiver Dysfunction
Family caregiver dysfunction is created and complicated by early life family relationships. Sometimes, the complication results from the care recipient who denies that care may be needed. Other times, the complication results from adult children who don't see eye to...
Dementia Patients Dumped From Hospital Emergency Rooms
Dementia Patients Dumped From Hospital Emergency Rooms Have you tried to have your elderly parent with dementia or any health issue admitted to the hospital and the hospital refused? Getting care for elderly parents is becoming more difficult. A diagnosis of dementia...
The Corporate Conundrum: The Unexpected Effects of Chronic Disease and Family Caregiving
Achieving a work-life balance is challenging for many individuals depending on life-stage: some employees may be raising children, others experiencing health issues of their own, some supporting adult children with the care of grandchildren, or caring for aging...
Caregiving, Family, and The Holidays
Caregiving, family, and the holidays; all emotional words depending on one's perception of combining all three together. For some caregiving is an emotionally draining act. For others being with family during the holidays (or any time during the year) stirs up the...
What happens when the caregiver is diagnosed with cancer?
By Pamela D. Wilson, CSA, MS, BS/BA, CG Caregiving is more often than not an unexpected event. Many caregivers have a daily routine caring for a loved one. Some caregivers continue working; some stay at home to caregive. Most important is the...
Caregiver Burden: Back to Caregiving Mondays
Caregiver burden represents the emotional, physical, and financial aspects and responsibilities of providing care and support for an ailing family member. This is a subject rarely discussed because most caregivers would be embarrassed to show...
Pamela D. Wilson, The Care Navigator, Presents at Denver Senior Law Day
October 15, 2015, Lakewood, Colorado Death changes everything. Some view Pamela D. Wilson’s life as tragic—she lost two siblings, her mother and father, and nearly all aunts, uncles, and grandparents by the time she turned 38. As a long-time...
Memory Loss and the Benefits of Care Communities
Caregivers, care recipients, and persons with an interest in aging attended the Amazing Aging Expo in Denver, Colorado today. Anthem Memory Care, was a specialty sponsor of the expo. Shannon Stewart Ingram, VP Sales and Marketing, organized and led a group of...
Caregiving: Adult Children Intimidated by Parents Who Need Care
Aging parents view their adult children as just that - children. Many see a son or a daughter as the 16 year old they were many years ago. Suggestions offered by adult children relative to care for parents often fall on deaf ears. After all, since when does a child...
The Caregiving Trap Kindle $0.99 Promotion
After years of writing and re-writing, my book, The Caregiving Trap: Solution's for Life's Unexpected Changes, will be released on October 6, 2015. An early sneak peek of the e-book is available through Amazon's Kindle Library. This coming week, from July 15-17, The...
Senior Law Day 2015: Community Advocacy Makes a Difference
I had the honor of participating in Jefferson County Colorado's Senor Law Day today making it clear that a committed group of individuals organized by Cary Steven Johnson, Director Crime Prevention of the 1st District Attorney's Office for Peter Weir can make a...
Dementia and Prescription Drugs
Common prescription drugs prescribed to older adults, especially those diagnosed with dementia or other forms of memory loss like Alzheimer's Disease, actually may increase the degree of memory loss or confusion. Many older adults use their...
Parental Relationships, Sibling Rivalry, and Fear of Asking for Help
The familiar saying "you can choose your friends but not your family" becomes a glaring reality when adult parents might benefit significantly from a little assistance. The situation may not only be that adult children are concerned about the...
Alzheimer’s Disease Resident to Resident Violence
Assisted living communities are viewed as nice places to live where residents treat each other with respect; not always true. In February 2015, a man living at an assisted living community in Lakewood, Colorado (diagnosed with Alzheimer's...
Self-Neglect Results from Alzheimer’s or Chronic Disease
Self-neglect among persons experiencing memory loss is a significant challenge for family caregivers and may occur as the result of an underlying cause like memory loss or chronic disease. Many individuals experiencing memory loss have not been...
Medical Care for Homebound Older Adults: The Pros and Cons
Years ago physicians made house-calls. Today physicians are again making house-calls to visit older and frail elderly living in assisted living communities who find it difficult to physically transport themselves to a physician's office. In theory this sounds like a...
Death Prescribed: When Physicians Don’t Always Know Best
Physicians possess life and death decision making power. Physicians also possess decision making over when a patient is admitted into the hospital and which patients are admitted for hospital observation only, which is a teaser for another of my...
Older Adults Viewed as Disposable by Medical Providers
A client of mine was recently admitted to the hospital for pneumonia and was in the intensive care ward receiving a course of strong antibiotics. A physician calling me to ask about my client said "well she's 94". My response to the physician...
Caregiving: A Voluntary Trap?
I work with many caregivers who feel trapped by the role of caregiving. I help and support many older adult care receivers who also feel trapped by caregiving; trapped in aging and weak bodies, trapped by the idea of needing care and trapped by situations that in...
New Online Caregiving Resource for Family Caregivers and Professionals
Caregivers benefit from practical and useful information. How often does a search for caregiving information on the internet result in landing on a website that presents information by definition but offers little practical application or...
Medicare Doesn’t Pay
Family caregivers are often shocked to learn that Medicare does not pay for the type of care most beneficial to family members who need care and support to remain at home. Medicare A and B pay for hospitalizations, rehabilitation in nursing...
Michael Jackson and Ethics: The Thin Line Between Professionalism and Friendship
Michael Jackson and Ethics The headline of an article, this week in the Denver Post, read “Star’s doctors were also his friends”. AEG, the company being sued by Michael Jackson’s mother, contends that it was Michael’s choice to establish...
Caregiving: The Vanishing Act
A local Denver area nursing home was recently cited for a number of issues including staffing and regulatory issues, allegations of sexual assault and wrongful death. Records at the nursing home revealed high staff turnover and low quality...
Too Busy To Care
How many of us find ourselves too busy to really care? I recently helped a client identify a care community for a loved one who experienced a long list of health complications. This was a rather long journey of identifying communities, having...
Protecting Your Virtual Life
My niece recently posted questionable information on the internet that appeared on my Facebook page because we were friends; after reading the content I immediately and secretly “un-friended” her. I didn't want the information in her post to...
Long Term Care Neglects Morning Resident Care
If you have a loved one who is a resident of a long term care community does it seem that morning care including getting out of bed, appropriate hygiene, tooth brushing, toileting and dressing is hit or miss? If this is your experience you may be right at least 40%...
Caregiver Stress and Burden: Becoming Your Own Worst Nightmare
Caregivers are happy, energetic, helpful people ready to jump in to lend a helping hand. Caregivers are individuals who find it impossible to say no and who refuse to manage their schedules but instead allow schedules, requests and demands to...
Caregiver Isolation
Caregivers deserve kindness, support and empathy. That's often the opposite of a caregivers daily experience. The general public isn't drawn to sad, unexpected or unpleasant events in life. Sad events happen only to other people: a diagnosis...
