
As a family caregiver, providing quality care for your senior loved one is a priority. In order to accomplish this, it is important to take care of yourself as well. My hope is that as we’ve discussed the importance of implementing self-care into your life, that it too has become a priority. For the past [...]

“How does it make you feel?” It’s the therapist’s question of choice—and a necessary one. Emotional and psychological self-care starts with engaging your thoughts and feelings. This is the third post in a series on self-care for the in-home family caregiver. Last week, I discussed planning for it and implementing physical self-care in your life. [...]

Friday, we talked about signs you’ve taken on too much stress as a family caregiver. But what if it’s not the to-do list that’s causing that stress? What if it’s other people? Caregiving is challenging enough without having to deal with troublemakers. But those of us who aren’t naturally assertive are on a learning curve [...]

It’s Friday. I glance over at my to-do list, and I’m disappointed by my accomplishments this week. I add three more tasks that slipped through the cracks and set a reminder on my phone. I want to add “grocery shopping” to my list, but finding the time seems impossible, so I leave it off. Life [...]

Post-traumatic stress. We associate it with soldiers returning from war and victims of violent crimes or disasters. Caregivers? Not so much. But actually, caregiving can be traumatic, can’t it? You may be watching a loved one deteriorate, all the while taking on tasks you were never trained to do and perhaps don’t even have the [...]

I just returned home from a trip to London where I was overwhelmed by the beauty and history of the city. Perhaps one of my favorite moments, though it is hard to pick, was visiting The National Gallery. I took an audio tour of the most popular collections with my limited time and limited art [...]

“Bears usually don’t mind the horses.” The guide’s words ran through my mind like a broken record, “Usually. How often is usually?” A lush, green canopy cast a misty hue over the forest as I took a cool breath of mountain air. Beneath me, Pickett, my trusty bronze trail horse, plodded along a narrow Cherokee [...]

For some people, guilt is as tied to caregiving as stress or pressure is. It’s just one of those things that comes with the territory. But why? Why, when you’re doing the best you can, do you still so often feel that pang? At the website for the Boston Globe, Suzanne Koven, a primary care [...]

People of all ages have fears. Some of those fears may seem ridiculous—like papyrophobia, the fear of paper, or metrophobia, the fear of poetry—but most are rooted in logical experiences. Children, for instance, are most often diagnosed with metrophobia; logically, the fear is frequently traced to a person’s first experience with poetry. The unusual placement [...]

The average family caregiver spends 20 hours per week caring for a loved one, while 13% of family caregivers provide care 40 hours or more per week.* The responsibility to provide long hours of care is typically added to an already full workload. As a family caregiver, you may feel the pressure that comes from [...]