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FAITH: Remembering Yvette Stewart-Robinson (January 15, 2021)

Jan15

yvette-captI remember Yvette, after I came to North Carolina, to help care for my terminally ill twin sister, asking me, “You’re not going to leave as soon as Deb dies, right?” I assured her that I would not and that I would be here for long as she needed or wanted me to be. The relief on her face was palpable.

Yvette was struggling with hip pain when I got here. She chalked it up to years of nursing and not always following the protocols for lifting and transporting patients. Toward the end of 2019, Yvette went to see an orthopedic surgeon who did an x-ray and said she needed a hip replacement.

Yvette’s plan was to have the surgery done after Deb died. But COVID restrictions were enforced within a week after Deb’s death on February 29, 2020, and that meant everything changed. Instead of having Deb’s memorial service and the church she and Yvette were members of, we had a small memorial service at home. Yvette’s hip surgery was considered an elective surgery. Elective surgeries were postponed indefinitely. Continue reading →

Advance Directives and COVID-19

Mar26

dementia advance directiveIn a very unsettling development in the COVID-19 pandemic, the Washington Post has an article in its March 25, 2020 edition that reports that some hospital systems in the United States are considering imposing Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) orders on all patients who are admitted with the viral infection.

The implications of this for all of us are worth noting and talking about. If we have advance directives – and we should – and we want all live-saving measures used, including resuscitation, if we are actively dying, the new policy that some hospital systems (in North Carolina, Illinois, and the District of Columbia, so far) are strongly considering will go against our legal and personal wishes. Continue reading →

Limbic-Predominant Age-Related TDP-43 Encelopathy (LATE) Dementia Identified

Apr30

LATE Dementia IdentifiedA new type of dementia has been identified. While it may look like Alzheimer’s disease, it differs in significant ways. Researchers suspect it’s even more prevalent than Alzheimer’s disease – and may be part of a mixed-dementia diagnosis – but that remains to be seen.

The new type of dementia is called limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encelopathy or LATE dementia. The symptoms of LATE dementia and Alzheimer’s disease can appear to be similar, but while Alzheimer’s disease is the accumulation of plaques (beta-amyloid proteins) and tangles (tau proteins) in the brain, LATE dementia occurs because of the misfolding of accumulated TDP-43 proteins in the brain.  Continue reading →

Mother’s Day 2018

May13

Mama is holding Deb. Greta is beside her. And I’m on the end. Deb and I were 4 months old in this picture.

It’s hard to believe that it has been six years since the last Mother’s Day I spent with Mama. It seems like a minute ago on one hand and like an eternity on the other. 

There is not a time when I don’t miss her, wondering what she would say or think about things with us kids, her grandkids, the world. In many ways, just like with Daddy, I’m glad she’s been spared the last six years. 
Continue reading →

Hurricane Preparation Tips for Caregivers and Everyone Else

Sep7

Hurricane Irma September 6, 2017 Satellite Image in ColorSince as of September 7, 2017, there are three hurricanes in the Atlantic Basin in the United States (Hurricane Irma, Hurricane Jose, and Hurricane Katia), and it’s fairly certain that Hurricane Irma will affect the southeast coast from Florida to North Carolina, after devastating the Caribbean, and caregiving for our loved ones doesn’t stop just because of weather, here are some tips to help you throughout the crisis (hurricane recovery is long-term). Continue reading →

Elder Abuse Awareness Day – June 15, 2016

Jun15

Elder Abuse Awareness Day: June 15, 2016There are many forms of abuse that humans can inflict on other humans. We see these kinds of abuse – and sometimes experience them ourselves by being on the receiving end – in action on a daily basis in the world around us.

While you and I may be strong enough, savvy enough, knowledgeable enough, and aware enough to recognize and prevent (or avoid or remove ourselves from) these manifestations of abuse, the most vulnerable people in our human family – children and the elderly – are often the most susceptible to and unable to protect themselves from these kinds of abuse. Continue reading →

2015 Research Offers New Insights Into Lewy Body Dementia – Part 1

Jan10

Lewy Body Dementia (graphic courtesy of the Lewy Body Dementia Association - http://www.lbda.org/)In 2015, a significant amount of research was dedicated to better understanding what I believe is the least understood of the major types of dementia. That type of dementia is Lewy Body dementia.

This post will will begin to summarize the findings of this latest research in way that is both accessible and will hopefully better educate us as caregivers of loved ones with Lewy Body dementia. Continue reading →

The Fallacy of “Silver Bullet” Solutions to Dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease

Nov30

There are no silver bullet solutions for dementias and Alzheimer's Disease. Believing otherwise is both ignorant and dangerous.There are no “silver bullet” solutions to the growing epidemic of dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease among the human population. 

Almost daily, there are reports – from the internet, which is a numbers game in terms of reliability and accuracy of information (the more hits a site gets, the higher it appears in the search engines), not an indicator of expertise and factual information – of “silver bullet” solutions to these neurological diseases.

I suppose, because of the devastating effects of the journey through dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease that our loved ones experience and we, as caregivers, intimately deal with as we go through the journey with them, that we all our susceptible to a measure of magical thinking that leads us to even remotely consider or believe the most outlandish – and patently false – claims that a solution will reverse or cure these irreversible and incurable neurogically degenerative diseases.

What makes me angry about the “silver bullet” solutions that keep cropping up is that they prey on the vulnerable (and that includes us, as caregivers), giving false hope and, often, reaping a huge monetary reward (if they’re selling the “silver bullet” solution) at our expense.

This conduct is shameful. This conduct is cruel.

How can we as caregivers avoid falling into the “silver bullet” solutions trap?

We must thorough educate ourselves about dementia and what's true and what's not.First, we must educate ourselves and study diligently to learn and know the facts about dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease. We must understand the physiology, neurology, and neuroscience of the brain.

Going Gentle Into That Good Night has many, many articles that detail, from a layperson’s point of view, each of the dementias, including Alzheimer’s Disease, as well as factors in their development and the prominent indicators of each type of dementia.

you-ought-know-dementia-going-gentle-into-that-good-night-book-coverSecond, we must understand dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease in terms of their steps and what to expect in each stage and how to walk with our loved ones with these neurological diseases through each step. 

This is not the oversimplified stage progression that the Alzheimer’s Association (which does not include details of exactly what happens in a detailed and sequential way and nor what and how we caregivers successfully navigation through the journey of these diseases).

Without a deep and thorough understanding of how dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease begin (often decades before any overt symptoms appear), progress, and end, we will be susceptible to the false information and misinformation of “silver bullet” solutions, which will do neither our loved ones or us any good, and will only add additional unnecessary suffering to our journeys through these neurological diseases.

Ignoring or avoiding this aspect of our educational process will not make the development of the development and progression of dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease go away. Instead, it will only make the journey for our loved ones and us as caregivers harder, more painful, and more sorrowful than they should be or need to be. The choice is ours.

Discern between credible information and uncredible information about dementias and Alzheimer's DiseaseThird, we need to become experts at discerning credibility and balderdash in the information coming at us.

I see articles all the time (not in just discussing dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease, but everywhere in life) from websites that are clearly not credible – look at the website name first and that will give you good insights into the quality of the information source – (and the information is misleading, at best, and totally false, at worst) presented and endorsed by a surprisingly high number of people as “truth.”

That is because of profound, and in many cases, willing ignorance. We, as caregivers for our loved ones with dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease, cannot afford to be ignorant about these neurological diseases.

There are plenty of snake oil propagators and sales people on the web. They want you to believe them either because they want to make a name for themselves or they want your money. Or both.

It’s that simple. We must be vigilant to not fall for the snake oil propagators and the snake oil sales people. We – and our loved ones with dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease – will be the losers in this equation. Always.

Humans have an unbelievable capacity for magical thinking in spite of the facts and evidence to the contrary right in front of them.And, fourth, we have to recognize our own capacity for magical thinking. Even as children, we have an innate capacity to believe things that are unrealistic or untrue, but they are how we want them to be.

That is part of being human. While there is an aspect of this ability that feeds imagination and creativity productively, the majority of it leads us to the unhappiness of disappointment, disillusionment, and denial of what’s right in front of our faces.

That does us no good and it does our loved ones with dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease no good. In fact, it does us all a lot of harm in the long run.

We must be willing to confront these neurological diseases head-on, realistically, without the blinders of illusions and false hopes hindering our competent, compassionate, and loving care for our loved ones with dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease.

Our loved ones are depending on us to do this. They deserve our best and most-well-informed efforts on their behalf because they’ve placed their trust and their lives in our hands.

What will we do?

 

The Layperson’s Guide to Revocable Living Trusts, Guardianships, and Conservatorships

Jul6

Contingency Planning End of Life Planning Elderly Parents and ChildrenWhen our loved ones with dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease reach the part of the journey through these neurological diseases where they are unable to handle their own financial and legal matters, we as caregivers have no option but to step in and act for them and in their best interests.

Here in the United States, there is an incomprehensible aversion to planning for the possibility of having to entrust our lives to someone else and for how we want to die. 

It’s as though we have this national collective mentality that if we don’t think about it, then it won’t happen.

The bad news? No matter what, it’s still going to happen.

And someone is going to be left holding the bag – maybe the person we would have designated or maybe someone we don’t want making decisions for us – to decide for us.

If it’s a person we trust, then they have the agony of trying to figure out what’s best and what we would have wanted. This is especially agonizing when dealing with end-of-life issues.

Too many people in this position of not knowing what we want, because we refused to talk about it, prolong our suffering and run up needless bills in the process, simply delaying what would have been the inevitable outcome anyway.

If it’s a person we don’t trust, all bets are off. And it is not going to be pretty.

The time to prepare for both of these inevitables – unless we die early and truly unexpectedly (I can’t help but laugh every time I see an obituary for a really elderly person that says they died unexpectedly: suddenly, perhaps; unexpectedly, no) – is when we have the ability to and can make sure what we want to happen happens.

A Revocable Living Trust is A Good Option for Ensuring Elderly and End-of-Life NeedsFrom the standpoint of appointing someone we trust to handle our financial and legal affairs (most of us do an okay job with medical powers of attorney, but even that gets ignored more than it should), a revocable living trust is probably the best and safest way to go.

The benefits of a revocable living trust are:

  • The person creating it retains control and can revoke control at any time as long as they are competent;
  • It can be set up with a small amount of money or a piece of property in the trust and the attorney’s fee (varies by state);
  • The person creating it designates the person/people they trust to handle their legal/financial affairs;
  • It eliminates the need for a will;
  • It cannot be legally contested;
  • The process of transferring control to the designated trustee in the case of incompetency requires a professional (psychiatric) letter with the diagnosis and evidence of incompetency;
  • It, with the professional letter declaring incompetency, is the only documentation needed for the designated trustee to handle finances and legal matters.

A revocable living trust is probably the easiest way to ensure what we want both in life if we can’t do it ourselves and in death after we’re gone.

However, it is of supreme importance to choose wisely and be absolutely convinced of the trustworthiness of the person we designate to be our trustee.

The bottom line? If we have any doubts as to whether we can trust someone completely, we do not choose them as our trustee.

It will not end well for us – in fact, it could end gruesomely and tragically – and all our careful planning will have been for nothing, to put it mildly.

But what if, as many Americans do, our loved ones with dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease reach the stage where they are not competent to handle their affairs without any legal documents in place?

There are two options, and by the time this is needed, it’s likely that the petitioner (us for our loved ones or our families for us) will need both of them granted.

Both options are very costly (much more expensive than the cost of powers of attorney and a revocable living trust), often take a long time to be granted, and, in many cases, set off a family war, which not only can delay a decision, but can also create irreparable rifts within the family.

One option is guardianship. Guardianships give the petitioner the legal authority to take physical care of the loved one who is incapacitated.

The process to obtaining guardianship begins with getting a professional letter confirming the person for whom guardianship is sought is incompetent to handle their own affairs.

That letter must be taken to an attorney to have a petition drawn up to submit with the letter to the court. The petitioner is responsible for all the attorney fees (general estimates are in the $2500 to $4000 range if the petition is uncontested) and court costs.

Petitioning for legal guardianship and conservatorship is a lengthy and costly processThe court will decide – slowly – whether to grant the guardianship and the entire process can take several months at the very least.

The second option is a conservatorship. A conservatorship gives the petitioner the legal authority to handle financial and estate matters for of the loved one who is incapacitated.

A conservatorship has the same legal requirements and process as a guardianship and has the same potential problems as well. That’s why if a petitioner has no other choice but to pursue these options, it’s prudent to do both of them at the same time.

There is an additional requirement for the petitioner who is granted a conservatorship for a loved one who is incapacitated. The petitioner will have to file a detailed annual financial report for the estate to the court for review to ensure that the estate is being managed as the court sees fit.

If the petitions for guardianship and conservatorship are uncontested, they will take a much longer time and much, much more money to obtain than having an attorney draw up a revocable living trust that settles everything.

If the guardianship and conservatorship petitions are contested by other family members, it’s conceivable that the legal fight could outlast the loved one who is incapacitated and the amount of money spent to fund the fight would be outrageously high.

We may have no choice in these matters with our loved ones that we are caregivers for, but I urge each of us to consider taking care of these things for ourselves now for our potential caregivers.

We need to tell our families what we want, carewise, for longterm care and at the end of our lives. We need to choose and discuss with the person we want to ensure that our wishes are carried out. We need to get the legal paperwork done and keep one copy in our home safe or a safety deposit box at the bank and give the other copy to the person we designate to carry out our wishes.

We never know when time and chance are going to happen. Today is the day to prepare for that. Tomorrow may be too late.

 

 

After Caregiving For Our Loved Ones with Dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease Ends

Jun30

Caregiver and Loved One Holding HandsFor each of us who have been or are primary caregivers for our loved ones with dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease (along with comorbid age-related illnesses), we are firsthand witnesses to the physical, emotional, mental, and financial toll it can have on us the caregivers.

But at some point our role as caregivers ends. Dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease are ultimately fatal since the brain affects every part of the body and as the neurological damage of these diseases progress, the damage spreads to the rest of the body.

As I wrote in one of the very first posts I wrote for Going Gentle Into That Good Night, we will never be the same again after being caregivers for our loved ones with dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease and other age-related illnesses.

But it’s been my observation that the caregiver experience leads us in one of two polar opposite directions after our caregiving days are over.

For some caregivers, their path after caregiving leads them toward helping other caregivers who are or will be on the journey through dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease. They do this through blogs – like this one – and books and online and offline support groups.

This path gives an added benefit to the caregivers who choose it: it facilitates the healing process and it often provides a productive journey through the grieving process. 

However, for caregivers who choose this path, they learn along the way that there are some things that will never heal in this lifetime and grieving is not a finite process. 

The benefit, though, is perspective and acceptance, even in the deeper wounds that won’t quite close up and the unexpected tears that can show up anytime and anywhere no matter how much time has passed.

Dementias AD Caregiver Stats Going Gentle Into That Good NightFor other caregivers, though, the path after caregiving is to leave it behind and shut the door on it. In most cases, this is the result of a tremendous amount of pain and loss in their own lives while they were caregivers because of the huge physical, emotional, mental, and financial toll caregiving had on them.

They don’t want to be around anything having to do with caregiving anywhere in their lives: blogs, books, support groups, or even friends and family who are or will be caregivers.

You can literally see this group of caregivers shut down and mentally check out when anything related to caregiving comes up in their lives. They physically, mentally, and emotionally walk away and never look back.

None of us knows what path we’ll choose when our caregiving days for our loved ones with dementias, Alzheimer’s Disease, and age-related illnesses are over.

And what I hope we remember is that neither path, regardless of which we choose, makes us better or worse than those who chose the other path.

For all the similarities we humans share, we each are unique creations who walk unique paths through our lives. I don’t know the details of where or what you have been through and you don’t the details of where and what I’ve been through.

So I urge each of us to be kind, to be empathetic, to be respectful to every other person who has been, who is, who will be a caregiver for loved ones with dementias and Alzheimer’s Kindness Empathy UnderstandingDisease and age-related illness, regardless of which path they have chosen, choose, or will choose.

Let’s not forget that we’ve all shared the same experience and that creates a bond between us of understanding. We should also remember that, when it’s all said and done, being a caregiver is an incredible act of love that, sadly, in our society more and more people are not willing to make the sacrifice for.

So all of us who have been, who are, and who will be caregivers are incredibly loving people who made the sacrifice, just like the loved ones we care for did with us, at, sometimes, a huge personal cost to themselves for the rest of their lives.

The path we choose afterward is often self-protective and a path toward some sort of wholeness. And that’s okay, even if it’s not the path we chose, choose, or will choose.

There is no right or wrong in the path after caregiving. It depends on each one of us which direction we take. But let’s don’t attack, don’t condemn, don’t criticize our fellow travelers in this journey because they choose a different path than we did after the journey with our loved ones with dementias and Alzheimer’s Disease ends.