The Caregiver’s Bill of Rights | Alzheimer's Reading Room

The Caregiver’s Bill of Rights | Alzheimer's Reading Room: Whether they realize it or not caregivers do have rights – lots of them.

This list has been circulating on the internet for a long time and is attributed to various persons.

This version was taken from www.caregivers.utah.gov, where it is attributed to Jo Horne.

Whether you have seen it previously or not, it is always worth repeating and sharing

• To take care of myself. Caregiving is not an act of selfishness. It will give me the capability of taking better care of my loved one.
• To seek help from others even though my loved ones may object. Only I can recognize the limits of my endurance and strength.
• To maintain facets of my life that do not include the person I care for, just as I would if he or she were healthy. I know that I do everything that I reasonably can for this person, and I have the right to do some things just for myself.
• To get angry, be depressed, and express other difficult feelings occasionally.
• To reject any attempts by my loved one (either conscious or unconscious) to manipulate me through guilt, and/or depression.
• To receive consideration, affection, forgiveness, and acceptance for what I do, from my loved ones, for as long as I offer these qualities in return.
• To take pride in what I am accomplishing and to applaud the courage it has sometimes taken to meet the needs of my loved one.
• To protect my individuality and my right to make a life for myself that will sustain me in the time when my loved one no longer needs my full-time help.
• To expect and demand that as new strides are made in finding resources to aid physically- and mentally-impaired persons in our country, similar strides will be made towards aiding and supporting caregivers.

Accepting Alzheimers, Coping in Alzheimers World | Alzheimer's Reading Room

Accepting Alzheimers, Coping in Alzheimers World | Alzheimer's Reading Room: Accepting Alzheimers, Coping in Alzheimers World

Did you ever wonder why most Alzheimer's patients stick like glue to their caregiver? Call out their name when they can't see them? Want to know where you are when they can't see you?

By Bob DeMarco
Alzheimer's Reading Room

Accepting Alzheimer's Coping
When a person has Alzheimer's disease or another type of dementia they are often difficult to understand. The behaviors they express are often difficult to accept.

It be be very hard to deal with a person suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

It is hard to understand that a person can't remember. Harder to accept that when they can't remember, they will do things that are completely foreign to your frame of reference.

Each of us has emotions and feelings. Alzheimer's has a way of bringing out the worst of these feelings and emotions.

The challenge -- learning to deal with a person living with Alzheimer's on their own terms. Learning to deal with Alzheimer's disease.

 http://tinyurl.com/buqqwxz 

Many caregivers come to the conclusion that the person living with Alzheimer's is not the person they knew. Knew most or all of their life.

Is it possible to deal with a stranger? Is this supposed stranger likable?

Can you like someone that continually makes you angry, frustrated and sad?

See what is happening? You make the situation about you. This is not the person I knew. I knew.

But Alzheimer's caregiving is not only about you. It is also about the person living with the disease.

The "live -R" cannot help or change the way they are acting. But, you can change the way you are acting or feeling.

Sooner or later you have to start by reminding yourself this is my Mom, this is my Dad, this is my Husband, this is my Wife.

Here is something I learned on the Alzheimer's Reading Room. Alzheimer's caregivers want, try hard, to give the person living with AD the highest quality of life possible.

Striving for this goal is difficult. Near the beginning, it seems impossible for most of us.