Along with her brother Jay, Kim Savage of Phoenixville, PA has been caring for her now 82-year-old mother, JoAnn, since JoAnn was officially diagnosed with dementia in 2015.

Dementia is an umbrella term that describes the symptoms of cognitive diseases. These include having problems with thinking that are severe enough to interfere with normal activities of daily living lasting longer than six months. Different types of dementia affect different areas of the brain, particularly in the early stages of any given disease.

Alzheimer’s disease, the most common type of dementia, most often destroys neurons and their connections in parts of the brain that are involved in the functions of memory. These include the entorhinal cortex and hippocampus. Later, the cerebral cortex, which is responsible for language, reasoning, and social behavior is also affected. This scenario is considered typical however some people show symptoms of impaired reasoning and judgment before their memory problems are evident.

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Dear Candid Caregiver: I’m the only adult child who lives in our parents’ community, therefore by default I am the family caregiver, and yes, I resent it. It’s not the parent care that I resent, but the fact that I have three siblings and they won’t even recognize what I do, let alone really try to help, is endlessly grating on me. I didn’t mind at first when I was just stopping in to see our parents a couple of times a week after work to make sure things were okay, 

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...No rest for the caregiver. I climbed back in the car and fought my way through the streets to Mom. It wasn’t another false alarm. Mom really had fallen, and as usually happens after a fall, I couldn’t get her up off the floor by myself. I had to call the EMTs — again. Thankfully, this time she wasn’t seriously hurt. Hours later, once I’d settled Mom in her bed, I forced my way back through the still unplowed streets toward home, hoping for a couple of hours of sleep before morning, when I had to take my uncle to his neurology appointment for a post-stroke checkup.

Continue reading on HealthCentral to learn more about how caregivers must often juggle priorities to keep on top of the needs of multiple family members in need:

Carol is the Candid Caregiver

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