Family Caregiver

I recently received an email that perfectly encapsulates the challenges that can happen when teenagers become caregivers.

I've never liked asking for favors, but when my father got sick, suddenly I was asking for help all the time. This is how I learned to stop apologizing and allow my friends and family to truly support me on my journey.

A 13-year-old caregiver wrote an essay for school about her father with Parkinson's disease that will amaze and inspire caregivers of all ages.

It was a September day in 2008 when my husband and I began our trip down dementia's ever-darkening road.

My caregiving skills were challenged this past week when I had to help my father prepare for a colonoscopy and my mother ended up in the hospital.

Caring for my husband with dementia presents almost daily challenges. Charlie's latest hygiene habit is as perplexing as it is frustrating.

Taking my husband to the cancer center for the first time made the disease seem much more real--and terrifying. Still, there was no way to truly prepare for the battle before us.

Elders with both physical and mental illnesses are incredibly vulnerable. Most of us understand that these two “sides” of health are connected, but even medical professionals sometimes struggle to provide whole-person care.

Just because a person doesn't look "sick" doesn't mean they aren't suffering from an invisible illness.

Charlie has resumed one of the unhealthy habits he first picked up during his days as a fighter pilot. With dementia, there is so little left that gives him any pleasure.

When I first became a caregiver, I found refuge in the oddest places. Here's the story of how the local Starbucks practically saved my sanity.

This tender exchange between a daughter and her mother with late-stage Alzheimer's will warm your soul.

Despite a trend towards a more gender-balanced population of family caregivers, most are still women. When it comes to caring for aging parents, daughters and daughters-in-law provide more hours of help—and suffer the consequences.

Five years ago, Glenn Bruno's wife passed away. What he does to honor her will take your breath away.

My husband’s diagnosis brought forth a host of emotions. I was new to caregiving and seeing him suffer was causing me to crack. The only place I was free to be afraid and cry quickly became my refuge.

Charlie has had several falls in the past few months. One way to prevent falls is to do strength training exercises, but Charlie won't go to the classes any more. Do I fight with him daily?

My wife and I have been together almost forty-five years, and so often I forget the beauty between us. Every once in a while, though, it will suddenly break through, in spite of Alzheimer's.

When the matriarch of the Dempsey clan was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, her adult children sprang into action as caregivers and raisers of cancer awareness.

Finding and accessing respite care resources can be especially challenging for younger caregivers who are still in school.

At age seventy-seven, I had a knee replacement. I am using every tool available to assure that I keep my teeth. Now, I am on the hunt for a hearing aid(s).