The Coming of Age—Changes and Challenges in Eldercare
By Emily Dietrich ’85
Vickie Martin ’04 and her family always “assumed” Martin’s mother would care for Martin’s grandmother in her own home until she died. But when Martin’s mother unexpectedly died, “the responsibility fell into my lap,” says Martin, who is now the long-distance primary caretaker for her eighty-nine-year-old grandmother. Similarly, Nancy Willbanks ’77, chief financial officer of Somerville-Cambridge Elder Services, found her mother widowed, homeless, and without income after her father unexpectedly died. These women are part of a cultural and demographic shift that will affect the hearts, minds, and daily lives of many alumnae in the near future.
Statistics reveal the magnitude of the shifts in aging and eldercare: 43 percent of caregivers for elders are now fifty and older, finds a study by the National Alliance for Caregiving (NAC) and the American Association for Retired People (AARP). Eldercare is not affecting just the “sandwich generation”—those squeezed between raising children and caring for parents—anymore. The “young-old” are now taking care of the “oldest-old.” And there are more of the oldest-old needing care for a longer time. The fastest-growing age group in America, according to the US census, is centenarians, predicting protracted care needs.
Here, alumnae experts—including caregivers from classes 1952 through 2004, doctors, mental-health, and eldercare professionals—share their thoughts to help other alumnae make sense of the challenging changes in eldercare.
enjoys magazines, puzzle books, and card games.
Planning Helps
First and foremost, our experts agree that everyone needs to start thinking, and talking, about important issues in eldercare before a crisis. These talks may not be easy. Even knowing how vulnerable their mother became due to lack of planning for illness and death, some of Willbanks’s family members are reluctant to discuss legal and healthcare issues.
To broach difficult topics, Margie Johnson Ware ’71, caregiver coordinator for the Family Caregiver Support Program at Elder Services of Berkshire County (Massachusetts), suggests using “naturally occurring family occasions,” such as the day after a celebration or holiday, for these discussions. Elizabeth Clark Nelson ’74 printed out the forms for a living will and medical surrogate and mailed them to her father. In her gynecology practice, Nelson opens the door for family discussions by asking patients about their living wills. Marilyn Bruno ’69, who cares for her mother and aunt, notes that the last thing you want to do in a crisis “is run around looking for a notary public.” Desired funeral or memorial arrangements, a current will, and a contact for legal issues also need to be known before a crisis, suggests Harriet Cone Baldwin ’88, whose mother died at seventy-five after a brief illness. If you do not complete the forms, Nelson cautions, “the government will make the decision for you.”
For Susan Yoshinaga-Ward ’82, her siblings’ and parents’ “open and natural” talks about death and dying helped immensely. Some were spurred by friends’ situations and by the Terri Schiavo case, which involved a dispute between Schiavo’s husband and parents over how to handle her extended comatose state.
Especially when a “do not resuscitate” order (DNR) is requested by a loved one, “knowing what the patient wants allows you to do what’s kinder,” says Susan Beers Betzer ’65, a family-practice doctor and certified geriatrician. Since it can be very difficult to enforce a DNR, the more you’ve worked out specifics and scenarios, the better, she says. Furthermore, these discussions should be revisited every few years, Betzer recommends, since one’s perception of what circumstances are “livable” at age sixty-five may change by the time one is eighty.
Eldercare Choices Expanding
One of the biggest trends in aging services, Willbanks says, is a widening range of choices for consumers. “Aging in place,” when an elder receives care at home instead of in an institution, is a popular choice. Medicare regulations have begun to change, allowing reimbursement for home health aides and other assistance.
In many cases, the possibility of aging in place requires a reliable primary caregiver, usually a family member (there are 26 million of them in the United States, according to the NAC). When making plans—or promises—about keeping a loved one at home, potential caregivers must “be realistic about exactly what they can, or are prepared to, take on,” Ware advises. “Caregivers don’t realize the toll it’s taking [on them],” cautions Betzer, whose own mother had a heart attack brought about by caring for Betzer’s father. Caregivers may “get frustrated to the point that the elderly person’s care suffers,” says Andrea Snelson ’95, deputy director of the Guardianship Project, a Brooklyn agency devoted to keeping the elderly and disabled part of the community.
Fortunately, help can be found. Most counties have an Area Agency on Aging, offering counseling, training, and support groups for caregivers. Further, senior centers and adult-daycare centers provide breaks for those taking care of spouses or loved ones. Some nursing homes have even begun to offer patient stays to give caregivers a respite. And sometimes just “ten to fifteen minutes devoted to self-care [for caregivers] can make all the difference in the world,” Ware says. Baldwin, Bruno, Martin, and Yoshinaga-Ward say the support of partners, friends, family, and other caregivers is invaluable. And Diane Biegel ’74, the onsite caregiver for her mom, got together with classmates recently to find “our widely varying circumstances … had one thread of common experience: increasing roles as parental caregivers.”
For elderly people alone or without a family caregiver, a growing number of agencies support aging in place. Shared housing, in which those who need housing are matched with someone who has room but needs care, has systematized services in many states. Barbara Stone ’85, shared housing program manager of Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, says this barter system works well to protect elders from “social isolation.” Instead of calling 9-1-1 with a panic attack, for example, an elder knocks on a housemate’s door for company and reassurance. Betzer says companionship reduces anxiety “better than medication.” Snelson’s agency works to return to or keep in the community its disabled and elderly clients. In her work, she has encountered elderly people in institutions “unnecessarily.” Sometimes all that is needed is one person to organize the homecare, and the Guardianship Project supplies that person. For those with ample means, concierge services are starting up, says Ware, to provide the customized care necessary to stay at home.
In another example of consumer choice in eldercare, some 40,000–80,000 elders have moved to Mexico to enjoy assisted living at a quarter of the cost in the United States, albeit braving lax government regulation. In the United States, assisted-living facilities, licensed and regulated at the state level, provide independent living for those who need assistance with daily activities such as cooking and medication monitoring but can otherwise live independently. (Definitions for assisted living are inconsistent, according to the AARP, but generally patients there need less medical care and daily assistance than patients in nursing homes.) However, these facilities are out of reach financially for many Americans, since Medicare does not reimburse these costs.
Paying for long-term care poses a problem, leading many Americans to consider long-term healthcare insurance.
Willbanks recommends consulting an elder-law attorney before committing to a plan. “Caveat emptor,” she says, speaking from experience, having tried to contact an insurer six times to secure information about a client’s benefits. No one at the agency knew the answers, and no one returned her calls. Consumer Reports research bears this out, unable to recommend any long-term insurance plan after its study, largely because the product is too new to have enough data to evaluate.
Although only 5 percent of the age 65 population occupy institutions, 50 percent of those age ninety and older live in such facilities. A choice about a nursing-care facility will be in the future for many of us. Nursing homes, with costs reimbursable by Medicaid, are monitored and evaluated federally. Many other agencies rate facilities, with their findings available on the Web (See “Learn More” on page 9.)
An emerging alternative to nursing homes is congregate housing, small group homes. Congregate housing deinstitutionalizes care, giving elders private rooms and a great deal of choice in their activities. In 2005, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation provided $10 million in seed money for one type of congregate housing, Green Houses, in all fifty states to add to the forty-one Green Houses already in ten states across the country.
No matter where they live, today’s seniors benefit from another important trend, says Beverly Arzt Walton ’52, president and CEO of the Mental Health Association of Connecticut (MHAC): increasing recognition of the mental-health needs of seniors. MHAC’s research revealed that only 20–25 percent of older adults with mental-health issues receive services from mental-health professionals. Stone says elders sometimes hide their mental-health issues out of fear that the associated symptoms signify Alzheimer’s or dementia. Stone advises a mental-health examination along with a physical. The good news, says Walton, is that the two most common forms of mental-health disorder in the elderly, depression and anxiety, are also “the most successfully treated.”
In navigating the rapid changes in the larger eldercare situation, alumnae interviewed were amazed by the resilience and creativity with which both elders and caregivers meet the new challenges. For all of us, says Willbanks, “it takes courage” to survive the big and small losses while thinking clearly about the hardest decisions we’ll ever make. Especially during this era of dramatic increase in those needing—and those providing—eldercare, we’ll have to do it together.
Emily Dietrich ’85 is a freelance writer based in Redmond, Washington.
Fallen
By Emily Dietrich ’85
The big old maple is down. It fell politely between two garages
without unseating a single brick of the patio. We’ve learned a lot
about it because of its naked roots and now dissected limbs. A
tornado warning storm brought it down, and my father, who has
Alzheimer’s, is taking it hard. I am too.
It turns out that tree was hanging on to the earth with no means
of support. Although the branches were proud and the leaves
plentiful, the roots have been exposed as disintegrated, hanging to the
circumference of the trunk and just a foot under it. If they nourished
the tree at all, the nourishment was poor.
It’s the same with my father’s mind. The very same. He walks, talks,
charms, and jokes, but there is nothing holding him down, no reliable
system for information, memory retrieval, recognition.
It may seem trite to compare my father to a tree, but he loves trees.
Retired from a career in law, he’s done with his protection of civil
liberties and estates, but he’s still protecting trees, and this old maple
was his pet.
He comes by this tendency honestly. His own father swore he
wouldn’t leave his Detroit home until his glorious elm, one of the last
holdouts on the block from Dutch elm disease, died. A white pine’s
roots mingle with my mother’s ashes in a memorial meadow where
my father went often before we stopped him from driving. He and
I visited it on her birthday this May, adorning the tree with ribbons
and marveling at the lime green candles of new growth. When
musing about life after death, Dad always told us to put an acorn in
his mouth, “so I can turn into a tree,” he would say.
For the last few years, Dad had tended to his maple actively, having
it carefully pruned last summer. Advised to take it down, he instead
raked its leaves in fall, worried about it during ice storms, got out
his chair to sit under it this spring. I sat there with him last month,
looking up at the leaves. Watching him lean back and close his eyes, I
felt that, despite his resentment of caregivers in his home, despite his
feelings of loneliness and confusion, and despite his wish that I’d visit
more often, he seemed content. I was thinking that with his tree in his
yard and his art in his house, he might just have enough.
Yet the fallen tree may also presage my fallen dream of his peaceful,
if diminishing, life at home. Since the tree fell, Dad has flooded the
house twice, and has started calling me to ask, “Do you know where I
am?” Home isn’t what it used to be without that tree, and, sadly, Dad
isn’t truly comfortable anywhere for very long. So the standard must
be safety; he has to live in a place where trees won’t fall on him.
We recently reserved a room in a memory care facility, but we
haven’t moved him yet. I hope for a scientific breakthrough maybe
tomorrow?—to discover a way to nourish his roots, keep them whole,
to preserve every single leaf my dad has left. Meanwhile, there is not
one lost attribute, turn of phrase, or wise word that doesn’t hurt, one
loss that doesn’t seem unthinkable. We mourn every fallen leaf.
Learn More about Eldercare
This Web-exclusive content is offered in connection with the fall 2008 Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly magazine article “The Coming of Age: Changes and Challenges in Eldercare” by Emily Dietrich ’85.
Join the Conversation about Eldercare
We anticipate a lively online discussion among alumnae about the broad spectrum of topics encompassed by “eldercare.” The Quarterly article’s author, Emily Dietrich ’85, will start things off with an initial posting by November 1, and will return regularly to the discussion thereafter to react to your posts.
To add your comments and read those of others, click on the “comments” box at the top or bottom of this article.
Resources about Eldercare
Books:
• The Eldercare Handbook: Difficult Choices, Compassionate Solutions by Stella Mora Henry, R.N. with Ann Convery, HarperCollins, 2006.
Publisher’s description: In this comprehensive and accessible guide, long-term care expert Stella Henry helps readers navigate the daunting logistics and powerful emotions of making care decisions for an elderly parent or loved one. Drawing from her 36 years as a registered nurse and a nursing home administrator, as well as her experience caring for both her parents (both of whom suffered the ravages of Alzheimer's disease), Henry tackles all the tough issues: spotting the warning signs of dementia, redefining sibling roles, doing a walk-through at an assisted living facility or nursing home, making the move, and coping with "take me home!" demands. She also explains the medical, legal, and insurance maze. In a time when almost 10 million Americans currently need long-term care, The Eldercare Handbook is an essential read.
• Caring for Yourself While Caring for Your Aging Parents: How to Help, How to Survive. Third Edition. by Clare Berman, Owl Books, 2005.
From Publishers Weekly: Berman offers an empathetic guide to caring for elderly parents. Drawing from personal experience, research and anecdotal reports, she cogently addresses the emotional and physical problems involved, all the while emphasizing the importance of caring for oneself. Following the overview delivered in introductory chapters, Berman examines such specific areas as financing, trying to care for needy parents long-distance, sharing the care among siblings, and coping with loss. Keeping a clear eye on the emotional component, which is inevitably involved in decisions in which children become responsible for their parents, Berman delivers sensible advice and practical help. Appendices include a Caregiver's Bill of Rights; lists of support organizations, including state departments on aging, with addresses and phone numbers; a bibliography; and a suggested reading list.
• Life Worth Living: How Someone You Love Can Still Enjoy Life in a Nursing Home: The Eden Alternative in Action William H. Thomas, VanderWyk & Burnham, 1996.
The following review from Booklist (American Library Association) provides an excellent synopsis of the book: "There is at last an alternative for those who see nursing homes as little more than glorified hospitals. Dr. Thomas … offers the Eden Alternative in which loneliness, helplessness, and boredom of life in a conventional facility are obliterated and 'care' is substituted for superficial 'treatment.' He replaces the overmedication, treatment plans, and restricted diets of traditional homes with gardens, pets [rabbits, birds, dogs, cats, and more], plants, and children. His book gives concrete plans for implementing the Eden nursing home staff, who, in turn, empower their residents. This book offers a splendid solution for those who feel that death might be the best alternative to old age. A provocative, inspiring, hopeful work."
• A Time of our Own: In Celebration of Women Over Sixty by Elinor Miller Greenberg (MHC ’53) and Faye W. Whitney
Publisher’s description: The very concept of retirement is changing, especially among women. Today's mature female is a pacesetter, exemplifying a unique approach to work, service, and learning. These women, age 60 and older, find themselves entering the last third of their lives in a state of relative health, optimism, and personal freedom, and are beginning to ask, "What now?" Based on extensive interviews, research, and the authors' professional and personal experiences, A Time of Our Own explores the opportunities available in one's "third trimester." A must-read for all women entering this exciting new chapter of life.
• Catch a Falling Star: Living with Alzheimer’s by Jean Valens Bullard (MHC ’46) and Betty Spohr
Author’s description: Catch a Falling Star is an informative, comforting, true story of an artist whose husband had Alzheimer’s. Full of ideas on how to cope, it offers spouses, relatives, caretakers, nursing-home attendants—anyone who is facing this disease—a clear understanding of what actually happens to the Alzheimer’s patient. The late Siegried Achorn Centerwall ’46, M.D., once described this book as “compelling; in truth, the ultimate love story.” To order: $9.95 postpaid (one-third of price goes to the Puget Sound Mount Holyoke Club); paperback, 215 pp., 103 drawings. Order from the author at Sirpos Press. (Write “MHC Gift” on check, made payable to Sirpos Press, 4611 35th Ave. SW, Apt. 513, Seattle, WA 98126; 206-938-0837). Autographed if desired. Give information for names or special message.
Eldercare Resources on the Web:
www.eldercarelink.com
Eldercare Link: Helps caregivers connect with a nationwide network of eldercare providers, including assisted-living facilities, home-care services, adult daycare, and nursing homes.
www.aarp.org
American Association of Retired Persons, with 39 million members. Their list of membership benefits include “expert advice on caring for parents.”
www.aarp.org/research/housing-mobility/homecare/
AARP’s research reports, fact sheets, Congressional testimony, and other resources for professionals working in the field of aging
www.aplaceformom.com
A Place for Mom: A free referral service helping families find nursing homes, assisted living, Alzheimer's care, retirement communities, home care, and other senior care options. Quarterly article author Emily Dietrich used this organization to find her father a spot in a memory-care facility.
www.agingwithdignity.org
Aging with Dignity believes Americans must safeguard the rights of the sick, aging, or dying with the same enthusiasm we show for the young and healthy. The group’s “Five Wishes” living will (legally valid in forty states) is written in plain English and helps you express how you want to be treated if you are seriously ill and unable to speak for yourself. It looks to all of a person's needs: medical, personal, emotional, and spiritual.
www.eldercare.gov
Eldercare Locator, a public service from the US Administration on Aging, helps you find resources for older adults wanting to live independently in any community. The service links those needing assistance with state and local agencies on aging and community-based organizations that serve older adults and their caregivers.
www.asaging.org
The American Society on Aging is the largest organization of multidisciplinary professionals in the field of aging. Their resources, publications, and educational opportunities are geared to enhance the knowledge and skills of people working with older adults and their families.
www.elderweb.com
Elderweb.com: Includes a history of long-term care in America, and a thematic map showing the percentage of households with someone age 65+ for each county in the United States, using data from the 2000 census.
www.ncoa.org
National Council on Aging is a nonprofit organization with a national network of more than 14,000 organizations and leaders. Our members include senior centers, area agencies on aging, adult day service centers, faith-based service organizations, senior housing facilities, employment services, consumer groups, and leaders from academia, business, and labor. Their programs help older people remain healthy and independent, find jobs, increase access to benefits programs, and discover meaningful ways to continue contributing to society.
www.aahsa.org/
American Association of Homes for the Aging’s 5,700 member organizations, many of which have served their communities for generations, offer the continuum of aging services: adult day services, home health, community services, senior housing, assisted-living residences, continuing-care retirement communities and nursing homes.
www.vera.org/guardianship
The Guardianship Project is a demonstration project that provides essential services to people who a judge has determined to be unable to care for themselves and for whom there is no family or friend to fill the role. Its innovative model of support employs a team of professionals—from social workers to bookkeepers—who share responsibility for the incapacitated person's day-to-day personal care, housing arrangements, medical treatment, and legal and financial matters, regardless of the individual's ability to pay. Project staff help clients—typically older adults or people with disabilities, many of whom are indigent—live healthier and happier lives by ensuring that, whenever possible, they remain in their homes and communities with supportive services and that they stay involved in decision making about their lives. Its deputy director is Andrea Snelson (MHC ’95).
www.nccnhr.org/public
National Citizen’s Coalition for Nursing Home Reform (NCCNHR) calls itself “the national consumer voice for quality long-term care” and is the outgrowth of work first achieved by advocates working for Ralph Nader and later for the National Gray Panthers. NCCNHR provides information and leadership on federal and state regulatory and legislative policy development and models and strategies to improve care and life for residents of nursing homes and other long term care facilities.
www.consumerreports.org/cro/money/insurance/longterm-care-insurance-1103/overview/
This Consumer Reports piece has analysis of and criteria for choosing long-term care insurance.
http://www.globalaging.org/elderrights/us/2008/communities.htm
Green Houses: This Global Action on Aging article is an interview with Dr. Bill Thomas, geriatrician and nursing home reformer, on Green Houses, “small, homelike settings where care for elders, rather than the demands of the institution, came first.”
http://www.accessiblesociety.org/topics/ada/olmsteadoverview.htm
The Center for an Accessible Society provides information relating to people with disabilities. Among the site’s sections are personal-assistance services, relevant Supreme Court decisions, travel and transportation, independent living, and housing.
Emily Dietrich : Welcome to an eldercare discussion
10/30/2008, at 16:00 [ Reply ]
Welcome to this online discussion of eldercare. I'm Emily Dietrich, '85, and I wrote the eldercare piece in this issue of the Quarterly as well as the essay about my father. I find myself looking to connect with people who are experiencing similar issues--it is hard not to feel alone in the midst of these decisions and events. I invite you to share your thoughts and stories, to support and be supported. I'll be checking in daily.
I just returned from Michigan, where we moved my father into a memory-care facility. He called me at 7:00 am this morning, 10:00 am his time (I live in Washington state), to try to figure out where he was, how he could get out of there, what was going on. I was surprised that the conversation wasn't thoroughly heartbreaking. I think I have learned that he will adjust. Almost a year ago we began 24-hour care in his home, and he railed against that for the first week or so. Somehow he made peace with it, but his concerns would flare up periodically. But he was okay. And I believe that he will be okay in his new place too. In fact, I am told every day he enjoys conversation with three other men at about his level of functioning at every meal. To have him be socializing at every meal means so much to me.
I've been thinking about something I read when I was working on the article for the Quarterly. It was about promises, making ones to our parents that we can keep. Some parents exact the promise that their children will always keep them at home. My father never asked for that promise, yet my brother and I still very much wanted to have him in his own home for as long as possible. The book said that when a parent asks for that promise, you should say, "I can't promise that. But what I can promise is that I will do everything in my power to keep you safe and to make you life the best it can be." That felt so true to me, and I know that I am keeping that promise to my father.
And at the same time, I am very sad.
I'd love to hear from you, your thoughts, feelings, situation. I look forward to sharing this intense experience of loving and caring for my father as his life becomes more and more limited.
Marilyn Bruno : Article in the Quarterly
11/04/2008, at 14:08 [ Reply ]
Congrats on the article, Emily!
Zoë A Lewis, MD, FACP, DAAHPM : Alzheimer's Disease
11/06/2008, at 11:17 [ Reply ]
Emily,
Nice work. Your article will surely help those who are lucky enough to find it, besides the alumni. I would like to help expand your readers,so I posted your link on my website under 'resources'. I wrote two books and created a website and blogtalk radio show, “Hospice Radio”, and like you, offer my assistance as a public service. My site is dedicated to promoting knowledge about Alzheimer’s disease but also end-of-life care. The book, "I hope they know...The Essential Handbook on Alzheimer's Disease and Care", soon in Spanish, is cited resource by the National Alzheimer's Association. It was also mentioned by msnbc.com, and reviewed by Gerontology Nursing, The National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, both stating IHTK was a helpful, holistic guide, sensitive on tough issues like living wills, sexuality, loss of dignity and quality of life, many of the topics you covered briefly in your wonderful essay. The books also describe the use of art and music therapy, and therapeutic touch, helpful for anyone really. 7 powerful contributing authors, among them, Myron Weiner, M.D., Chair in Brain Science, Chair in Alzheimer’s Disease and Research and Professor of Psychiatry at UT Southwestern School of Health Professions, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Dr. Suzanne Hanser, Chair of the Music Therapy Department at Berklee College of Music and Elizabeth Cockey, Master Art Therapist along with others, keep information accessible and sensitive.
Sue Roecker '90 : The "Language" of Alzheimers
12/06/2008, at 21:39 [ Reply ]
Emily,
Over the past several years I have watched my father-in-law slowly deteriorate with Alzheimers. He certainly is not the same, vibrant man our family once knew, but fortunately he lives nearby in an Alzheimer facility which provides excellent care. One of the topics that readers may not hear about is what I call the "language" of Alzheimers. I've learned that the everyday conversations that we once had are no longer possible. Our "language" is much more simplistic - he can reply to questions and conversations, but he can't initiate them. This can pose frustration for those talking with him and anticipating a conversation. I would encourage families who have a loved one with dementia or Alzheimers to attend a support group or workshop to learn about how to talk to their elderly parents without feeling frustrated and how to choose words which are encouraging and non-confrontational.
Several years ago, before my father-in-law was diagnosed with Alzheimers, we realized that he simply could not "choose". It didn't matter what the choice was, his brain no longer knew how to make a choice. And it must have been scary for him. It's kind of like entertaining a 2 year old - too many choices and it's all too easy to overstimulate. Too many questions lead to too much confusion. Even then, we had to learn how to adapt our conversations so that he didn't become frustrated or even defensive. He had no idea he was retelling the same story over and over again. We also realized that it wasn't going to benefit him if we tried to correct a fact or statement that wasn't true, because to him, it was. We needed to learn patience, to slow down our pace when talking with him and to accept delays in his conversations with us.
My father-in-law doesn't process the world the same way he used to. Although it is sad to watch this disease slowly take over, our family is comforted by the fact that he is safe. It's a hard step to take - a complete role reversal - when a son/daughter takes over and makes choices for his or her parent, but in the long run, we know it is the right thing to do.
Emily Dietrich : Language of Alzheimers
12/08/2008, at 15:10 [ Reply ]
Thanks for your comment, Sue. That makes a lot of sense. The inability to choose came for my father early on, too, and we didn't know what to make of it. It was so unfortunate because we wanted to get his thoughts and wants on how he wished to proceed, and we knew he wouldn't have the ability to think about it for long. But he couldn't think about it even three years ago. And you're right, that was a very hard change for us, one we pushed off in one way or another for maybe even longer than we should have. Then we had to accept our new role as parents for our Dad.
Your thoughts on effective, respectful communication are useful. Patience with the pace is really hard and really important. I also notice that my father uses dream-like words and images to describe his thoughts. Sometimes I can interpret his metaphors and sometimes I can't.
You're so right about correcting statements that are off. Whatever the factoid is, it sure doesn't matter.
Thanks again for your post, Sue!
DIANE KADLEC : eldercare
03/16/2009, at 17:53 [ Reply ]
My mother is 84 and although she enjoys good health it is becoming increasing difficult to talk to her. She is argumentative, angry and wants to have it her way all the time. Does anyone have any suggestions. My brother is totally disinterested. This adds to her anger because he means the world to her and he ignores her, is rude to her, and extremely condescending when they speak on the phone. I believe that she displaces her anger on me and I do not know how to handle this situation. Does anyone have any suggestions. I would really appreciate it. Many thanks.
Emily Dietrich : elder care
04/01/2009, at 22:18 [ Reply ]
Hi, Diane:
My heart goes out to you! This sounds so hard. Often the beginnings of Alzheimer's and dementia involve some change in personality. However, it also might be something as simple as depression, for which many elders DO NOT receive treatment. But with treatment, elders get a lot of relief. Also it sound like she might be experiencing anxiety. That can also be treated with medication or counseling.
Your situation sounds unfair! It's stinks when a sibling opts out, as if that's a possibility. And then you have to take the guff for the absent child. And then your mother does herself no service when she treats YOU poorly, the one who is there for all of it. Alzheimer associations and other organizations have support groups for caregivers all around the country. I know it helped me to talk to other people who were feeling the same kind of frustrations.
The books and websites listed above might help, too. Also, don't forget to do nice stuff for yourself! You've got an extra burden right now. It's really hard. Hang in there. Let me know if you want to talk or email personally, and we'll exchange our info privately.