This book is about how we dealt with my mom with Alzheimer's. It's written with humor and heart.

A moving, intimate, and compassionate book that chronicles the experiences of a group of long-term caregivers—spouses, parents, and friends of the elderly and ill—illuminating critical issues of old age, end-of-life care, medical reform, and social policy—and “providing comfort in the time-honored form of shared experience” (The Minneapolis Star-Tribune). In 2010, journalist Nell Lake began sitting in on the weekly meetings of a local hospital’s caregivers support group. Soon members invited her into their lives. For two years, she brought empathy, insight, and an eye for detail to understanding Penny, a fifty-year-old botanist caring for her aging mother; Daniel, a survivor of Nazi Germany who tends his ailing wife; William, whose wife suffers from Alzheimer’s; and others with whom all caregivers will identify. Witnessing acts of devotion and frustration, lessons in patience and in letting go, Lake illuminates the intimate exchanges of caregiving and care-receiving and considers important and timely social issues: How can we care for the aging, ill, and dying with skill and compassion, even as the costs and labors of care increase? How might the medical profession take into account the needs of caregivers as well as patients? In The Caregivers Nell Lake shares a thoughtful and tenderly reported depiction of the real-life predicaments that evoke these crucial questions. With more and more people spending their late years ill and frail, and 43 million Americans already caring for family members over age fifty, this is an important chronicle of a widely shared experience and a public concern. “The Caregivers is as elegantly constructed as a novel, but more than that, Lake writes about these people with such warmth and vividness that they feel as memorable as our favorite fictional characters. It is a beautifully written account” (The Boston Globe).

In the fall of 2015, Barbara Sr. called her only child to ask for her help. Unbeknownst to her family, Barbara Sr. was already in the grips of Alzheimer’s. This book tells the story of Barbara Jr.’s journey as her mother’s caregiver and shares insights into the physical, emotional, financial, and spiritual impacts of caregiving while fighting her own cancer. It also provides practical information to others who assume caregiving roles for their loved ones. Follow this mother and daughter’s journey through resentments and regrets, forgiveness and faith, laughter and love. Barbara Jr. promised her mother on her deathbed that she would tell her story. Here it is.

This is the tale of two sisters being held captive by their loved ones. The role of caregiver was thrust upon them, without invitation or consent, and they found themselves on the road to the worst of times and miraculously, the best of times. Linda's caregiving challenges came to an end just as Bonnie's came to light, yet they have chosen to weave their vignettes and stories back and forth. Linda's tale unfolds gradually as God shows her, through significant flashbacks, how He had already prepared her for her assignment. Bonnie's tale is straight-forward, with practical, creative caregiving insights gained through the Lord's very present on-the-job training. Their circumstances were different, but both give amazing examples of how Alzheimer's brought surprising blessings. They experienced unexpected times of joy as their caregiving journey drew them closer to the Lord's heart--even though they were reluctant caregivers.

From the critically acclaimed author of This Burns My Heart comes a “luminous mother-daughter saga” (Entertainment Weekly) about a young woman who is forced to flee 1980s Brazil for California, and in doing so unearths the hidden life of her enigmatic mother. Mara Alencar’s mother Ana is her moon, her sun, her stars. Ana, a struggling voice-over actress, is an admirably brave and recklessly impulsive woman who does everything in her power to care for her little girl in perilous 1980s Rio de Janeiro. With no other family or friends her own age, Ana eclipses Mara’s entire world. They take turns caring for each other—in ways big and small. But who is Ana, really? As she grows older, Mara slowly begins to piece together the many facets of Ana’s complicated life—a mother, a rebel, and always, an actress. When Ana becomes involved with a civilian rebel group attempting to undermine the city’s cruel Police Chief, their fragile arrangement begins to unravel. Mara is forced to flee the only home she’s ever known, for California, where she lives as an undocumented immigrant, caregiving for a dying woman. It’s here that she begins to grapple with her turbulent past and starts to uncover vital truths—about her mother, herself, and what it means to truly take care of someone. A “lovely and heartbreaking” (People) story that is “simultaneously dreamlike and visceral” (The Atlantic), The Caregiver is “a beautiful testament to Samuel Park’s extraordinary talents as a storyteller…that reads, in some moments, like a thriller—and, in others, like a meditation on what it means to be alive…A ferocious page-turner with deep wells of compassion for the struggles of the living—and the sins of the dead” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).

Ann Burack-Weiss explores a rich variety of published memoirs by authors who cared for ill or disabled family members. The text will offer insight and comfort to individuals caring for a loved one and is a valuable resource for all healthcare professionals.

I'm a caregiver. The patient is my wife. She has frontotemporal dementia, or FTD. What's captured here, in this book, are my thoughts and reactions over time as I came to terms with her disease. These mini-essays represent a curated selection of writings I've been publishing on social media since 2014. In the beginning, they were simply observations about the natural world of the Texas Hill Country. Gradually, however, my wife's disease came to occupy center stage; as it did, the essays became the public face of our life.