The most critical thing to learn is to catch the disease early and work with your health care provider aggressively to halt its progress.
Practically speaking a family must work together, learn to talk about painful subjects and to know when to help and how to plan that help.
Ask Aunt Annie has advice on living with Alzheimer's and being a caregiver
The Ask Annie Archive has answers and practical caregiving tips.
The Buddy Plan pairs caregivers for one-on-one friendships with people who have been there.
Read about nursing homes and how to make a safe transition for your loved one.
Read about coming home from a nursing home and how to plan to bring your loved one home.
Check out some of the nutrients, vitamins and supplements that we have tried and what to ask your medical team.
Read about where to find resources and how to decide what you need.
Read about Alzheimer's Disease and its stages in normal people-talk.
Read about the warning signs for Alzheimer's Disease.
How your family can live with Alzheimer's Disease.
How our family has lived with Alzheimer's Disease.
How home health care professionals can help your family live with Alzheimer's Disease at home.
Advice for Caregivers & Families
Providing 24-hour care for a person who has lost the ability to care for themselves is a daunting task. It is really just not practical to think that one person can do this alone. However, if a family works together and parcels out duties and follows a careful schedule it can work and the loved one can remain safely at home.
The first step is to get the family together to talk about what is happending and what is to come. Family dynamics differ but it often helps to put together some basic information for everybody to take home and study.
Everyone should be encouraged to talk openly and some guidelines ought to be roughed out now. Take names for volunteers for some assignments. Task people to use their strengths to tackle a part of the reserach you will need in order to make your plan.
You will probably need a point person in the following areas:
1. The disease and your medical plan.
2. The disease and how it impacts the family financially.
3. The disease and new remedies or treatments.
4. Caregiving duties, home help and auxilliary professional help.
Set a time and place for the next meeting. Allow a few weeks so that the patient will have seen a doctor and the family will have completed their assignments.
It helps if you have an over-all coordinator to make sure that everyone is doing their homework and that there are refreshments and such for the meeting.
Jennifer
