Caregiving

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg knows all too well what it means to lose a loved one: her husband died suddenly and unexpectedly in 2015. Having been through that experience, she has become a champion for promoting leave from work to deal with family illness or crisis. And last week, Facebook…

As we get older, we all experience the inevitable difficult times in life: illness arises, loved ones pass away, losses engulf us. These are challenging experiences, both for those going through them and for those who want to be of help. It’s sometimes hard to know what to say or…

Professional health care providers don’t always acknowledge the enormous contributions that unpaid family caregivers provide to patients, especially as they grow older. So the recent New York Times piece by Dr. Dhruv Khullar, in which he comes to recognize the value of, and burden on, family caregivers, is an important…

Whether you embrace or reject the role of being a grandparent, research has emerged that might influence your perspective: A new study from Berlin has documented that grandparents, or really any older people, who provide occasional caregiving help for their grandchildren have a 1/3 lower risk of dying than those…

Every month seems to bring recognition of some noteworthy cause or group. November is marked as National Caregivers Month. Anyone who is, or has been, a caregiver understands the many demands, few rewards and innumerable tasks involved in helping an impaired loved one on a day-to-day basis. Resources and helpful info…

Safe, reliable home care is often a challenge to put in place, and perhaps the weakest link in the chain is the home care worker. She (the majority of such providers are women) is usually poorly paid, with few benefits and an often uncertain work schedule. It’s a tough way…